December 19th, 2021 – Luke 1:39-55
Luke 1:39-55
Huggable
Fourth Sunday of Advent – December 19, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
“Are you huggable?”
I visited the school this week where Anne is the principal.
We went to visit the Grade One classroom to see its teacher, Mr. Oakes.
When we got there the kids were crowded around the door, dressed and waiting for recess.
Anne introduced me and said, “This is my husband, Michael.”
They all said “Hi!” to me.
Then one of them looked up at me and said, “Are you huggable?”
“Yes!” I said with enthusiasm.
And before I knew it, the child had moved in for a big hug.
But once they all knew I was huggable, the hugging avalanche started.
As soon as the first was done hugging, a second moved in.
Then a third. Then they all moved in.
Sometimes two and three at a time!
It made my day!
As we moved back out into the hallway, they kept hugging me, multiple times!
What a blessing.
Now when the kids asked me if I was huggable, they already knew I was, of course.
They were only asking me out of politeness –
they were only asking me because they had been well taught by Mr. Oakes that
you don’t hug someone without their permission.
But they already knew I was huggable.
All they wanted to know was whether I wanted a hug.
We all need to know we are huggable.
Or, in the language of First Lutheran Church,
that we are making this day special just by being ourselves.
Or, in the language of the Bible, that we are blessed.
For then, great things happen. Amazing things happen.
Today in the Gospel, Elizabeth names Mary blessed.
Now why might that be significant?
I am going to assume that Mary really needed to hear that.
Here is the situation.
First, we note that Mary runs “with haste” to Elizabeth.
Why “with haste”?
Well, she is scared!
She has just discovered she is pregnant.
She is 13 or 14 years old.
And she is not yet married.
Now in Mary’s time and place, that is a precarious position to be in.
It means her prospects for a good marriage have just been dashed.
At best she will be an object of ridicule and scorn.
And at worst she will be stoned to death.
She is afraid and alone and so she runs away.
She runs away to someone whom she trusts, someone who loves her –
she runs “with haste” to her cousin Elizabeth.
We don’t know much about Elizabeth but she does have this going for her:
she doesn’t live in town!
And Mary needs to get out of town.
Now what makes you think this is an act of desperation is that Elizabeth is
not just in the next town over a mile or two away.
Elizabeth is 80 miles away!
A journey the 14 year old girl had to make on foot – in haste!
A journey that would have taken her at least two days.
Mary finds Elizabeth pregnant, just as the angel Gabriel told her she would.
Elizabeth had been barren her whole life up to this time.
And to be barren in that culture and unable to bear children was considered shameful.
So Mary goes, perhaps, to the one person she knows who understands shame.
She chooses wisely.
For when she arrives, Elizabeth doesn’t criticise Mary, doesn’t wag her finger,
doesn’t chastise her, doesn’t shame her, and doesn’t turn her away.
What Elizabeth does is welcome Mary.
And far from naming her Shamed, she names her Blessed!
In Greek she names her makarios: literally Happy!
At Cecil Rhodes school, we would say she was named . . . Huggable!
And so Elizabeth takes Mary in,
keeps her safe, and cares for her until it is time for the child to be born.
Elizabeth blessed Mary for Mary’s trust in God’s promise that
something amazing will happen through her.
That life, abundant life, will come through her and through the child she bears.
Elizabeth felt herself to be blessed in becoming pregnant after years of barrenness.
And so, it appears that the blessing Elizabeth receives in her pregnancy
is given to Mary in this moment.
And this blessing, in turn, is given to the child who will be born,
who will, in turn, give it to others who feel shamed and unimportant and poor.
And that will affirm instead that they are not Shamed, but
Blessed, Huggable, capable also of bearing life and blessing.
I think this is why right after she is named Blessed, Mary sings such a revolutionary song,
The Magnificat, which we used at the Psalm this morning.
This is a song that affirms that God will turn the world upside down.
Elizabeth at this time is pregnant with Jesus’ cousin John, right?
And it is John, remember, who will develop a deep longing for a whole new world.
Well, the longing for that whole new world is born right here in Mary’s song.
A world in which the poor will be lifted up and the hungry fed with good things.
It is a blessing to play your part in this.
Mary is a model for us because she models that
we all have a role to play in bringing about this new world.
We are all capable of bearing life into the world and
participating with God in God’s mission to love, bless,
and heal this whole world and every person in it.
But Elizabeth too is a model for us.
For Elizabeth has the wisdom to recognize that
Mary’s feeling of shame is not the end of the road for her.
That shame need not define her.
She welcomes Mary as Blessed – as Huggable.
And that is the beginning of all of this, really.
This is how the world is turned.
The ability to see in one another not the shame, but the potential and
the ability to bear life.
Like God, Elizabeth looks on Mary with favour and names her Blessed, Huggable.
The world we long for is born in this: in God’s naming us blessed,
and in us naming one another Huggable.
This morning,
we are all named Blessed and Huggable by the one who comes among us and says,
“You are welcome at my Table. Come, receive blessing, and be blessing.
Come: become what you receive:
bread for the hungry, blessing for the Huggable.”
This is how the world is turned. This is how we can continue to be bearers of life and love.
This is when amazing things start happening.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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