Reflection for Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent

JGS 13:2-7, 24-25A
PS 71:3-4A, 5-6AB, 16-17
LK 1:5-25

In today’s readings we have two biblical accounts that are very similar in structure and content. In the Hebrew Bible text from Judges and the New Testament text from Luke’s gospel we encounter two women (proceeded by their lengthy, complicated lineage) receive angelic announcements that though they have been barren for many years they will soon bear children. Both narratives serve to connect Jesus to a long, familiar lineage of ancient figures and communities characterized by their fidelity and faithfulness to God.

To say that these women have been waiting, have been anticipating, have, perhaps, known a spiritual darkness and desolation is an understatement. In spite of that there is an understanding of conversion in terms of a change of heart, especially in Luke’s gospel (1:17). Even as I read these angelic announcements of long-awaited joy, I can’t help but still feel anxious and uncertain. As the mother of two children, I know that pregnancy and the anticipation of a child is a time of steadfast hope that is still fragile and fraught in its anticipation. In this last line of Luke’s Gospel, though God opens the possibility for desolation and anxiety to move towards more genuine joy and consolation. Both passages represent the opportunity and the voice given for women to be the definitive interpreters of their own experience. Each passage also puts before us a long held expectation and a situation in which God transforms that long held expectation and changes our human perceptions completely.

For me, this demonstrates God infusing hope and skepticism where doubt and darkness feel utterly complete.  For many of us, like these women, our anxiety, our grief, our suffering may seem invisible. Often unknown to others and even intangible to ourselves and those closest to us. Joyful pronouncements such as the ones in these scripture passages sit alongside the long suffering that might precede them. In the midst of joy or anxiety, abundance or scarcity, God says to us: I am with you. I am present. What you experience I am present to.

Cynthia Enghauser is Campus Minister in Reinert Hall.