How many children do you know who refuse to sing? Singing is just what little children do. They sing as they play. They sing in front of adults without a second thought. Even the ancient chants of the Mass have a melodic resemblance to the sing-song intervals of children at play. And we adults aren’t usually surprised when children sing. We expect them to sing. We smile and laugh as we witness the carefree, joyful singing of children. It would, in fact, be odd for a child not to sing. It would be bizarre if we never sang to a child when she was sad or when we wanted to coax him to sleep.
Children dance, too. I used to watch with glee as my niece and nephews danced to music on TV. We adults would laugh, good-naturedly, as they danced, not laughing at them but with them. We didn’t think it strange that they would dance. Like singing, we would find it strange if they didn’t dance. And it would be equally unusual if we didn’t dance with babies, too, bouncing them on our knees while singing and comforting them and gladdening their hearts in play.
In case you haven’t noticed, children like to ask questions, as much as or more than they like to sing and dance. Children can ask some of the most theologically astute questions of all. Will we ever see him again since he died? Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? What happens to our tattoos when we die? I’m not kidding. I’ve heard all these questions at one point or another, and there may be no truer test of our own grasp of the Christian faith than to respond authentically to the questions of children.
But there comes a day—and I’m not sure when it happens—that shame enters from stage right or left in the drama of our lives. Is it in adolescence, or is it before? I don’t know when, but the day inevitably arrives when we feel that pang of embarrassment to sing or dance or question in public. We might sing privately in the shower or dance in the isolation of our rooms when no one is looking. And we certainly always continue to question in our hearts, wondering why something has happened to me or someone I love. But the song, the dance, and the question always remain, even if we hide them from the public eye.
Maybe someone tells us that we don’t have a good musical ear, and that callous remark stops our song. Or we become so self-conscious that we can no longer dance with others, and so we sit on the sidelines at the wedding reception as everyone else gyrates and busts a move while we watch, saddened by our inability to participate. We laugh at those who sing spontaneously in public, saying that it makes us uncomfortable, and so, we stand with hymnal closed as the rest of the congregation belts out the hymn. We laugh at the silliness of those who dance when something wonderful happens to them.
I can remember when I stopped singing in public; it was too embarrassing. I still refrain from dancing in public, because I’m too self-critical. And at some point in school, I stopped asking questions aloud, although I had plenty of them. I was worried that others would think I was unintelligent. Do you relate to this? What was it that made our songs cease and our dancing shameful and our questions anathema? Who told us that our questions were ridiculous and shut us up?
Maybe it’s actually the question that muffles our song and stills our dancing. We question why life has taken a turn for the worse. We question why a parent is terminally ill. We question why children starve and others have too much to eat. We question why we pray so hard and our prayers aren’t answered. With all these questions, how can we sing? How can we dance?
And yet, the story of the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth wouldn’t be the same story without song and dance. At first glance, we can only see why Mary would break into song as she greets Elizabeth. At a superficial level, we can easily grasp why John the Baptist leaps in Elizabeth’s womb. Mary has become mysteriously pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, and Elizabeth is also great with child, although like Abraham’s wife, Sarah, she is far too old to give birth. Of course, there would be singing and dancing at this news. Mary and Elizabeth have both received extraordinary blessings.
But there’s also every good reason that there should be no singing or dancing. If we can move past a greeting card’s romanticizing of this Biblical scene, we’ll discover that things were much more complex than the Hallmark company’s estimation. Mary was no more than a teenager when Gabriel announced to her that she would bear the Son of God. Undoubtedly, she was scared and frightened at her unexpected pregnancy. Can you imagine the shame she would have felt to be visibly pregnant with a child that was not Joseph’s? Do you remember how ancient society treated women in such situations? And what about Elizabeth? She was in her golden years, preparing for death, not birth. Did she have the energy and stamina to raise a child? What would people have said about her? Surely, she must have been wary and frightened, too.
As St. Luke gives us this story, at the center of this touching scene between two cousins, both surprisingly pregnant, there abides a question. It’s a wondrous question and less of a cynical, skeptical one. It’s a question of marvel and awe, and Elizabeth gives voice to it. Why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Why indeed! Why should the elder woman be blessed by the greeting of the younger? Why should the Son of God be born into her biological family? How was Elizabeth pregnant? How was Mary pregnant? Why was the Son of God coming into the world as flesh and blood? Why indeed!
Elizabeth’s profound question could have justified every effort to stifle a song or to quell a dance. The question could have internalized an obsessive rumination about how things would be and about what burdens both Mary and Elizabeth might have to bear because of their startling news. But the question only elicits a song from Mary, and an intrauterine dance from John. The mystery of God’s unspeakable blessing to both women evokes a song and dance in the face of a very good question.
To live as part of the human condition is to accept that shame will find us. We’ll be privy to jadedness and loss of innocence as we get older. There will always come a day when the real questions of this world will overwhelm us, and with that sense of being overwhelmed, it will be natural to stop our singing and dancing. Indeed, in the face of the manifold problems of human existence in a world influenced by sin, it will seem unnatural—even inappropriate—to sing and dance.
How can we sing when others are given no voice to denounce their oppression? How can we dance when so many are shackled by human cruelty and violence? How can we even appear to be joyful when there’s so much sorrow and when others suffer because of our own privilege? These are the intractable questions of growing older as fallible human beings.
But Mary and Elizabeth witness to a joy and trust that persist despite the tangible realities of a broken world. Mary and Elizabeth find song and dance even amid their momentous questions, even as they wonder how such things could happen to them. Mary’s song testifies to the fact that God’s blessings and grace come to us from within the trials and tribulations of human life. As it was true for Hannah who first voiced that song so many years ago, it was true for Mary. And as it was true for Mary and Hannah, it’s still true for us.
God still brings righteousness. God still lifts up the poor and casts down the powerful. God still fills the hungry with good things. God still helps his people and remembers his mercy promised of old. Even as things seem so incomplete and our questions remain unanswered, God is still working and bringing all things to perfection and completion.
We sing and dance not because we experience completion or know all the answers. We sing and dance because we have faith that God is showering blessings on us and on the entire world even though sin is all we can sometimes feel and see. We sing because the question of Elizabeth is our question, too. Who are we that our Lord should come to us and visit us with his blessing? Who are we? We are God’s beloved children, still this day and forever, adopted by his grace and made heirs of eternal life. And that’s a truth in which we can have faith. It’s a truth that should make us sing and dance.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 22, 2024