The Three months of togetherness !

"Mary stayed with her (Elizabeth) about three months and then returned to her home" Luke 1:56.

The two women, Mary who was with a child at a young age and Elizabeth with a child in her advanced years after having been barren, spent three months together in Elizabeth's home. This part of the Christmas story came to me at each Christmas time, arousing my curiosity about the shared experiences of these two women. 

It is now my hazy thoughts become more coherent for me to feel connected with the shared experiences of these two significant women in Biblical history. 

Let me share five thoughts that have surfaced within me.

1. Togetherness in transition

Mary and Elizabeth having been in preparation for a child birth, there was something substantially common between them. The experience of becoming mother!

Both were facing their motherhood in a strange situation. 

Mary betrothed to be married to Joseph, had a visitation from an angel of the Lord, announcing to her about a child who was to be born to her, whom she shall call Jesus (Luke 1: 26-36). Joseph who had considered to 'put Mary away' after finding her with a child, had a visitation from an angel in a dream, who said to him: 'Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit' (Matt 1:20).

Elizabeth and her husband Zacharias' were advanced in years and had no child as Elizabeth was barren(Luke 1:7). They petitioned to God for a child (v13). While performing the priestly duty in the temple, an angel appeared to him and announced that 'your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John(v 13). Zacharias' having asked for a sign for believing this, was made 'silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place.' (v 20). Elizabeth having become pregnant following this, ' kept herself in seclusion for five months..saying..., He looked with favour upon me, to take away my disgrace among men'( v24, 25). 

Both women were through some unusual experiences, the significant among them being the visitation of God in their lives with the promise of a son to each of them, with a name give to both.  

This experience that Mary and Elizabeth encountered created initially fear, anxiety and later a sense of awe and wonder. Apart from the usual emotional lability associated with early months of pregnancy, both women had been through a life transforming experience. 

Who could feel for them, except someone who too has had an experience of such intensity and depth of joy of becoming a mother in an unusual way! 

No wonder, Mary having heard from the angel that her relative was in the sixth month of pregnancy ( Luke 1:36) 'went in haste, to be with Elizabeth who lived in the hill country of Judea' (V39, 40).

Mary's longing to be together with Elizabeth during a transition time in the lives of two families seemed a guidance as baby in Elizabeth's womb leaped with joy on hearing the greetings of Mary, while Elizabeth herself was filled with the Holy spirit (v 41).

It was out of that meeting with Elizabeth, Mary was moved to sing the song of the Magnificat, which has since then become a historical prayer of thanksgiving, recited during common worship in the Churches. 

Their togetherness ministered to each other, and invoked the Holy Spirit in Elizabeth's life. Elizabeth's blessing of Mary (v 42-45) prompted  Mary to sing the Magnificat. 

That is how Mary and Elizabeth responded to God's visitation in their lives and left a legacy of faithful response to God while facing the transition in their lives. 

2. Fellowship of the wounded

Mary and Elizabeth were wounded women. 

Mary had to face the 'disgrace' of being spoken ill of for becoming pregnant before wedlock. Elizabeth faced disgrace from men for having been barren. 

Now that both women were chosen by God for becoming mothers  as a fulfilment of the prophecies, John the forerunner to Jesus and Jesus  the saviour, the mothers came to be in the lime light. 

From having been wounded and felt disgraced, Mary and Elizabeth were to make a journey to experience healing and wholeness to become mothers who effused the joy of life and grace of thanksgiving! They needed readiness to welcome the children in their lives, whom God chose for a mission and ministry for leading people from darkness to the marvellous light. 

The journey to become a wounded healer is a long and intense journey. Carl Young suggested that, ' Wounded healers are driven by the desire to relieve the suffering of others after experiencing or witnessing suffering in their own lives'. Henri J M Nouwen in his book, The wounded healer, commented on the cover page, 'In our woundedness we can become the source of life of others'. Let me quote from that book: 'Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds, so, we do not have to be embarrassed, but, how can we put our woundedness in the service of others? When our wounds cease to be a source shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers'. 

It was during this togetherness for about three months (v 56) Mary and  Elizabeth found the initial recovery from the embarrassment, disgrace, fear and anxiety which had overtaken them.  They received strength in the intimacy of their fellowship under the canopy of God's grace in their lives. 

In a conversation with a friend yesterday, I felt let down and distant! Every time one suffers an emotional wound, it is necessary to attend to it gently! Blaming someone or becoming defensive is not the way forward when we suffer a wound within. I took time to recall the pleasant experiences, conversations and correspondences of about eight months and used them to fill my memory. In so doing, the first response to a difficult conversation diffused to bring in an ambience of forgiveness and acceptance. To be able to stay in that orientation and freeing the person from my expectations is one way to turn the wounds to be a reminder of the wounds of others which they suffer for which one can bring a healing touch. It brought another awareness to stay faithful to: 'Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned as it were with salt, so that you may know so that you may know how to respond to each person' (Colos. 4: 6).

3. Readiness for surprises

Both Mary and Elizabeth were chosen by God to be ready for a mission far beyond their expectations. They did not get consumed by the spirit of becoming celebrities. Instead the opposite happened in their lives. 

Mary welcomed the visitation of the angel in her life and the words spoken to her by saying, '..be it done to me according to your word,,' (Luke 1:38). 

Elizabeth's attitude and graceful ways during her motherhood experience, surprised her neighbours and her relatives, who '...heard that the Lord had displayed His great mercy toward her, and they were rejoicing with her' (v58).

I marvel the way both these women clothed themselves in humility and reverence to God's way in their lives. 

My thoughts turned to the Beatitudes spoken in the sermon on the Mount of  Jesus, while writing this reflection. Who are the blessed in God's sight- those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, and who are gentle, hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peace makers.. The way of being in that habit of mindful self-giving giving was what Jesus proposed to His followers. 

It is when one is faced with experiences which look embarrassing in the sight of others, people can feel out of sorts. But Mary and Elizabeth walked through the transition in life with a measure of poise and grace.  It points to the peace that they were blessed with from a God who surrounded them with His presence during such a time of surprise. 

There is a moving record about Dr Paul Brand and Dr Margaret Brand in a book published published in 2015, The GIANT who walked on ELEPHANT HILL, by Ken Gibson, about the fear that Dr Paul had about contracting symptoms of leprosy (p 16, 17). On one occasion, he did not feel pain sensation on his heel after a long day of activity. That made him anxious. However he felt restored of the pain loss the next morning. As against this, Margaret offered to welcome a patient of leprosy who came to meet Paul and made him stay in their home. Margaret felt, how she could be otherwise in the light of what she read in Matt 25. ' I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I  was a stranger and you invited me in; I needed clothes and you clothed me; I was sick, you looked after me..' 

This experience early in the life of Paul and Margaret became a turning pint for them to overcome all inhibition about patients of leprosy, and  to go on to become role models of compassion and altruism towards patients of leprosy and to spend their life time in caring for them and restoring their residual functions of hands, feet and eyes. They felt touched by the love of God in their lives that Paul who did not want to become a doctor and avoided engaging in work for patients for leprosy was himself surprised at the willingness that came upon him naturally (p 6 and 8-9). 

The surprise events are the pathways for moving forward in our lives into a different horizon than what we have foreseen for ourselves. There is a story Dr A.K.Tharien, the founder of the Christian Fellowship Hospital, Oddanchatram often recalled about the first Caesarean Section he had to do in a shed, using chloroform anaesthesia and boiled substitute instruments, on a lady who came to the clinic in obstructed labour in exhaustion with an irregular and slow foetal heart beats. The next hospital was one hour of travel away and Dr Tharien feared foetal and maternal  loss if he did not operate. He began the surgery with prayer, which according to him was what saved the child and the mother. This happened after having been in the village running a clinic for six months, to which people did not come as local traditional practitioners stopped them from coming. Following this 'miracle' the clinic grew into a regular hospital in the next six months. When Dr Tharien showed the photo of the shed and the high bench on which the mother was laid for surgery, one would feel touched by the mystery of the grace of God. Dr Tharien was surprised how since this incident, the hospital developed in to a hundred bed hospital in about two years in the mid nineteen fifties. 

4. Preparation to let go

Mary and Elizabeth appeared ready to receive the blessing of their gift of a son, following the way both of them spent three months together and getting familiar with motherhood. 

But there was another level of receiving and letting go which was involved, as both John and Jesus were destined for a purpose which the prophets referred to, about which both mothers and their husbands were likely to have been aware of from the prophetic books.

John was to live and grow up in the wilderness, and to be a voice calling people for repentance. He was not going to be a traditional son in that sene. He was pre-ordained to be a forerunner to Jesus leading a simple and consecrated life, living detached by the lure of the world. No parent would find it easy to live with such a separate path for their son in whose life and direction parents would have minimum role. Although his imprisonment and later beheading for his uprightness might not have been foreknown to John's parents, parents would have had an indication of John becoming a son outside the orbit of the normal parental wishes!

For Mary and Jospeh,  the preparation to live with full knowledge of the prophetic revelation that their son was born to live, minister, suffer, and die on the cross and to rise again on the third day, would have been a frightening experience. The fact that Mary accompanied Jesus to the foot of the cross and was present in the crucifixion scene gives us an indication of the readiness she developed by letting her son to follow the will of God in His life.  Mary was in the company of women who prepared spices for His burial and visited the sepulchre on the third day morning, give us an indication of the godly orientation with which she lived by giving her son to the will of the Father. Although Jesus lived distancing himself from his mother or brothers,  Jesus committed His mother, while hanging in the cross, to John saying, 'Behold your mother'. 

  

Both these women were mothers with their adult sons, who lived  relationally different with them. Their sons lived in the domain of God's purpose which the mothers came to receive as their vocation. 

I like the way Kahil Gibran suggested the outlook towards our children in his poem, 'Our children' (1923).

' Your children are not your children,

They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself,

They come through you, but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. 

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, 

For they have their own thoughts. 

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls live in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit even in your dreams..."

Mary and Elizabeth are two Biblical women, who created a home for their sons and had their heart open to God for God's purpose in thier children's lives. It is more difficult for a mother to let her son go well beyond her dream for him. But it is admirable to know how these two women transcended their natural affinity towards their son and surrendered them to God's eternal plan of redemption. 

5.Synergy of purpose. 

Elizabeth as the mother of John, the forerunner to Jesus and Mary as the mother of Jesus, as the saviour  stand out in the Biblical history demonstrating the complementary roles they played in God's plan for salvation. John preached repentance and baptised people in water. Jesus came afterwards from the desert, filled with spirit of God after His temptations, to lead people to faith in God. John acknowledged that 'he who comes after me is greater than me' (John 1:30). Jesus  referred to John, as the 'one about whom it was written, Behold I send you my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you' (Matt11:10).

Mary visiting Elizabeth and spending three months together was one way this synergy of God's purpose became a reality. Elizabeth and Mary consenting to have their sons live synergising the plan of salvation, began with their mothers spending three months together, for preparing for this mission.

The joy of having been blessed with a son is a reason for bountiful joy for the parents. But in this case, Elizabeth and Mary needed each other to find strength to face the new path their children would follow in their life.  

I like the manner in which the synergy of purpose was manifested between Elizabeth and Mary. Elizabeth was advanced in years and Mary was young. Mary took the initiative to visit Elizabeth in the sixth month of her pregnancy, when Mary was early in her pregnancy. Mary found a companion in Elizabeth to feel comforted. In turn Elizabeth embraced Mary, a virgin with a child, to insulate her with love and acceptance from the speculative conversation that would be commonly associated with such an unusual event. This is mutuality of trust, belonging and acceptance.  

Let me conclude this reflection on the theme of the 'Three months of togetherness' by recalling the narration of Paulo Coelho in his novel, The Alchemist about the boy, Santiago, who happened to meet a crystal merchant during his journey (page 48). The crystal merchant's glass display looked dirty, which Santiago cleaned with his coat. He asked for a meal in return. The crystal merchant was doing badly in the business as less number of people came to that market place. Santiago suggested to the Crystal merchant to start a tea shop in the hill resort where people came. They could serve tea in crystal glass. Soon people came to buy crystal glasses from the shop. The income multiplied. The mercant dreamt of a bright future for himself with the extra income. Santiago earning a good commission from the sale of crystalware started to dream of buying some sheep at the end of one year. It is a fascinating interlude in the novel, where the merchant and Santiago begin to dream about their future after having been together and mutually supportive of each other. Their time together gave each a dream to live for!

Mary and Elizabeth are two women, who made the Christmas events special, because they were worshipful, grateful and graceful! 

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)