
Week 4: The Fourth Sunday of Advent | “We See God in Each Other”
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focal scriptures Luke 1:39-45; 56-58 | Luke 1:46-55
theme connections
This week we return to Mary’s experience. After receiving the news from the angel, she retreats to her cousin Elizabeth’s house. When Mary arrives (perhaps unannounced), Elizabeth doesn’t just welcome her—she is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks a blessing upon Mary as her own child leaps and kicks within her womb. She sees how God is at work and names it out loud. In this moment of profound solidarity, Mary and Elizabeth see the divine in one another. This connection inspires Mary to sing her radical hymn of praise, declaring how God’s liberating love remains steadfast throughout the ages. From generation to generation, we can see how God is at work in our relationships. We find God in each other. The way we see the divine in each other impacts how we live and move in the world. When we view every human being as a child of God, we generate a different world.
Commentary on Luke 1:39-58 | by Dr. Christine J. Hong
My parents are Korean immigrants. My mother used to say that back in the days of their immigration, whoever met you at the airport decided your destiny. In other words, whoever greets you at the threshold as you become a new immigrant determines the direction your life moves. I remember her words and reflect on them whenever I reach significant impasses in my life—a new job, a move, when I became a parent for the first time. Each significant milestone feels like a threshold. When I prepare to cross those thresholds, I look for the people and communities waiting on the other side, people, and communities to anchor me and hold me in the nebulous spaces of change, uncertainty, and fear.
When my parents crossed over from being Korean to being Korean American, it was the local church pastor (also a Korean immigrant) who greeted them at the threshold, after they made their way through borders and customs at LAX. He picked them up in his car and took them to an apartment complex to get them housed. Next, he took them to meet members of his church who worked at ticketing at LAX. My parents worked the next few years at Korean Airlines ticketing and baggage claim, hourly jobs that paid the bills and gave them footing in a new country. The final stop was the Korean immigrant church that would be their community as they settled in a new country, with a new language, and, in some ways, a new understanding of Christian faith. It was the Korean immigrant church folx who anchored them to this new land. My parents arrived and were greeted by Korean American people who embraced them, settled them, and invited them to participate in building sustaining faith and peoplehood together.
Elizabeth greets Mary on the threshold, not only of her door but the threshold of something new in Mary’s life and for the world. Mary is met by her cousin who greets her with welcome, anticipation, and a powerful blessing. So rich was the blessing that the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt up and greeted Mary and the baby in Mary’s womb. Any fear Mary had was met with the contagious courage of Elizabeth, courage enough for them both. They were one another’s spiritual midwives—birthing together transformation, grounded in one another’s courage and steadfastness. They wondered together in liminal space, on the threshold of a new world. And through their spiritual and relational partnership, Mary and Elizabeth framed the path of partnership for their children too.
Guiding Q’s
• Mary greets Elizabeth at a literal threshold (the doorway of Elizabeth’s home) and goes to her at a threshold moment in her life when all is about to change. Recall a threshold moment in your life. Who were the people who greeted you and supported you through that transition?
• In the Roman empire, there were two main motivations for requiring a census: to count the number of able-bodied men who could be drafted for war, and to determine the number of taxpayers in every location. In other words, the census was designed to consolidate the empire’s military strength and economic power. In contrast, Mary sings about dethroning the powerful and lifting up the lowly (Luke 1:52). How does Mary’s song disrupt systems of power and generate a new world? In what ways does the Magnificat comfort you? In what ways does it unsettle you?
• In the 1970’s-80’s in Latin America, the Magnificat became an important symbol for liberation theologians as part of their resistance to oppressive regimes.11 In the 1970’s, during the Dirty War in Argentina, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo12 used Mary’s words to publicly protest the disappearance of their children. German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis, called the Magnificat “the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary hymn ever sung.”13 Throughout the generations, Mary’s words have become a rallying cry for those deemed “lowly” or “outcast.” This Advent, how can we honor the revolutionary power of her words?