Checking out the map feature on my phone, I was amazed to find how detailed it is. Every street and highway are included. There are, however, some markings that are so small that even my GPS does not have a name for them.
This reminds me of today’s first reading (Micah 5:1-4). A place is named that hardly deserved mention on the “map.”
“Thus says the Lord: You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be the ruler in Israel.”
We know that there were twelve tribes in Israel, named after the sons of Jacob. Within each tribe there were hundreds of clans. Little Bethlehem was so small that it was not even regarded as a clan. Why did God pick Bethlehem, which means “House of Bread.” Maybe there was a noted bakery there!
Talking about this ruler, we read:
“He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord.”
God puzzles us again. Shepherds are not rulers of government; they are out in the hills taking care of lowly animals. They are nobodies in society. A shepherd has organizational skills that resemble a mother more than a business executive.
In the second reading (Hebrews 10:5-10). God surprises us again.
“When Christ came into the world, he said: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire but a body you prepared for me…”
Jesus was sent not to direct the practices of the complex religious system but to create “a body.” As we know, the body is so much more complex and inter-connected than any system, religious or not. Jesus was to help God re-create people by the power of the Holy Spirit into his own Body on earth—a Body whose focus was not on keeping the provisions of the Law but in doing the will of God. In Jesus the old has passed away and something brand new has come.
Finally, we move to the gospel story (Luke 1:39-45)—the account of the visitation.
“Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah…”
God surprises us again. When it was time for Mary to share the news about Jesus she was sent, not into a well-known city, but into the backwoods—maybe a small farm squeezed between hills—and not to a synagogue or church building but to a priest’s home. There she greeted Elizabeth, her elderly cousin. And this moment was so God-filled that it is recorded for Christians to read for the rest of time. The Holy Spirit took over that moment and the child within Elizabeth’s womb was saved before he was born.
We even know what Elizabeth said after Mary greeted her.
“Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, ‘Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. How does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’”
The Holy Spirit showed Elizabeth that the young woman who had just crossed her threshold was the mother of God, and that the child in her womb was God himself. That little unnamed space became more filled with God’s presence than even the temple in Jerusalem.
In the midst of the hustle and bustle of that time, God found a way of revealing himself in the quiet of the Judean hills, and less than a year later, in the quiet of a cave in an unheard-of town, Bethlehem. God became a “body” on earth.
Mary wants to visit us this week even amid the Christmas noise. She wants to find a quiet, neglected place in our hearts to show up and bring Jesus there. Are we awed that the mother of our Lord wants to come to the house of our hearts?
What better way to spend the remaining days of Advent than to get as close to Mary as possible, so we don’t miss out on Jesus’ appearing. How blessed we are to have the “Hail Mary” and the “chain of Hail Mary’s” to lead us deep into the arms of Mary. Let’s put aside much time to enter the secret place of Mary’s heart and wait quietly and expectantly for the visit of her Son.
