Wednesday, 4th Week of Advent

Luke 1:39-48
The Daily Office

Anybody who has exchanged emails with me should know, by now, my closing salutation: "Blessings." But perhaps I should change my closing salutation to "Mixed Blessings." The truth, I'm coming to see, is that there may be no other kind of blessing. Look at Mary. "Rejoice, O Lady of divine favor! Indeed, God is with you," the angel Gabriel told Mary. But Mary understood that be favored by God's grace was always a mixed blessing. And this blessing was no different: a new life to grow inside of her, a life full of promise. But not one that came in the socially accepted way: a pregnancy that, if the Law of that society was strictly enforced, would not survive Mary's death by stoning.

And so she travels about 80 miles to see her older cousin Elizabeth. And Elizabeth is not naïve. She knows that it is a mixed blessing for Mary: that the blessing itself is not a completely easy or happy occasion for Mary. And so after calling Mary "blessed," Elizabeth also says, "Happy is she who trusted the word of the Lord." By saying in both cases that Mary is "blessed," the ESV obscures the fact that two different words are used. In the first instance, Mary is, indeed, "blessed" by God. But in the second instance, the word that Elizabeth uses means something closer to "fortunate," or "happy." Very truly, Mary was "happy." She knew what obstacles the evil one would place in her path. But she trusted that God's word would guide her through those obstacles toward the completion of God's loving purposes for her, her people, and her world.

Our only happiness comes when we trust in God's mixed blessings; when we trust that though God's blessings may ask a great deal of us, though the road down which God's blessing takes us may occasionally be dark; eventually we shall come out into a place of light, warmth, peace, and love. So, what do God's mixed blessings have in store for us? I don't know for sure. But I do know this from today's "Good News." Happy are we who trust in the word of the Lord.