This year, I was privileged to find beautiful art-filled advent cards. Every morning, I light a tall white taper candle and then flip over the card for that day. I spend a moment gazing upon the artwork, letting the image wash over me; I pay attention to what I am sensing and feeling within proximity to the scene unfolding on the card. I then turn my attention to the words lining the card’s top. Each one has a statement that beckons toward an invitation for reflection. Every day, the statement starts with the same pattern of words: “Make room for(…); the last part of changes, today it said “one another.”
Today’s image depicts Elizabeth, whose womb is full of life, kneeling before Mary, the mother of Jesus, her hands grasping around Mary’s rounded belly. I am captured by the miracle growing inside Elizabeth, who is beyond the years of bearing children, yet she is at the feet of another, making room for Mary’s miracle. I imagine Elizabeth hosting Mary in her home with food, carefully creating a place to sleep that would accommodate her growing belly. Elizabeth would not only attend to Mary’s physical needs but be present to her emotional needs. Mary was living in an era where being pregnant and not being married was shameful and punishable by stoning.
The idea of making room for one another sounds simplistic, yet it is often tangled up with the emotions that run high from within, making creating space for another much more complicated. Our emotions may occupy the entirety of the limited space available in our busy lives, thus obscuring the other.
We may struggle to be excited for Mary, not fully trusting her story, and worry that harboring a young pregnant cousin could lead to trouble. Perhaps we are so enraptured with our new experience with the miracle of life within that we take up the whole space with re-telling and forgetting we aren’t the only one in the room created in the image of God as a living story.
As I reflect on this image and read the passage of scripture that contains the stories of the two women, I sense that this was a holy moment, a between-time liminal space moment full of wonder, rejoicing, and hope. I think about these two women going about their day, living a day in the life when that moment of ordinary was forever changed. Not knowing what the new chapter would include, knowing only that they were now part of a bigger story.
While sitting with this story and spending time with Mary’s Song, my attention is brought to a feeling of hope in the phrase, “He has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.”
I invite you to reflect on what stands out to you in this passage, notice what is stirring within you, and ask God what He wants you to know.
46 And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48, for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on, all generations will call me blessed,
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
50 His mercy extends to those who fear him,
from generation to generation.
51 He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
remembering to be merciful
55 to Abraham and his descendants forever,
just as he promised our ancestors.”
Luke 1:46-55