Conspiracies of Hope
By Rev. Dr. Jason Byassee
Sunday, December 21, 2025
Reading: Luke 1:39-45
In my job, we have a lot of meetings. Maybe you can commiserate. Nobody says, ‘work is fine, we just don’t have enough meetings.’ Apparently, the late Queen’s privy council would meet standing up—kept meetings to a blessed five minutes. When we’re leaving a long meeting here, some of you have heard me joke ‘Jesus rose from the dead so we could go to meetings.’
The meeting today is different. It’s between two cousins who should not be pregnant and yet are. Elizabeth is past child-bearing age and yet she is great with child, showing, for all to see. Mary is not yet married. Turning up pregnant and claiming the child is from God is a great way to get stoned to death in that world. One of my favourite preachers, Rowan Williams, points out that at this meeting that announces salvation, no man is present or needed. Rowan calls Elizabeth’s and Mary’s meeting “a conspiracy of hope.” And it only lasts for seven verses. More meetings like this!
Our Advent series has focused on lesser attended characters in the Christmas story. We’ve heard about Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband, the priest in the temple. We’ve focused on John the Baptist who prepares the way of the Lord. And now we look at Elizabeth herself. Our midweek Bible study demanded more about Mary. We get Mary every year! But of course, we can’t learn about Elizabeth without speaking of Mary. When Mary hears her older sibling is pregnant with a special child, not unlike her, she heads for the hill country of Judea to see her. This is, for the record, quite far from Nazareth, and Mary seems to go on her own. It is a strong and confident woman who’s been chosen to be mother of God.
They see each other, and the child that shouldn’t be in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy, at the child that shouldn’t be in Mary’s womb. I love the name for a first baby’s kick in English—the quickening. That moment a mother first feels that child move. I’m guessing you moms remember. They say it feels like butterflies, right? For our first, Jaylynn felt him kick in church right before she preached. Is that nerves? No, it’s Jack. For our second, we were at a Duke basketball game, and Jaylynn was crushing some nachos. We had the best seats we’ll ever have in our lives, second row, and I say to her “hey you need to keep your head up because sitting this close, things happen.” As soon as I got done saying that the guy on the other side of her caught the ball. And Jaylynn looked at me and said, “the baby kicked.” And for our third no one can remember. He's a third kid. We don’t have Will’s baby book done yet either. (And which one is here this morning? Ole what’s-his-name).
Elizabeth feels her quickening when Mary greets her. This is John the Baptist rejoicing in the presence of his Lord before either of them is even born. You’ve heard the last few weeks that John is Elijah all over again, Amos all over again, Samuel and Samson all over again. Here, he is King David all over again. When David leads the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem he dances before the Lord with all his might. Here John in utero dances before the Lord with all his might, and Elizabeth is the dance floor, the matrix (literally: mother in Latin). You’ve heard me say before that the church should be known by the quality of our parties. I pray for the day when our neighbours say, ‘I don’t know if what they say is true or not, but that’s a great place to go to a party.’ Then we’d be like King David, like John the Baptist, like Elizabeth, like God.
Elizabeth’s response to Mary has become part of one of the most beloved prayers of all time, the hail Mary. We tend not to say it as Protestants. In fact, when I quoted it once in here, I got a line wrong—several of you who grew up Catholic corrected me later, bless you. Elizabeth says this, “blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” Some of the most repeated words in human history right there. The church in her wisdom has us recite Elizabeth’s words as often as possible. Here’s the whole thing (I checked twice this time, like Santa Claus).
Hail Mary, full of grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners
Now and in the hour of our deaths, amen.
Roger Staubach, legendary quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, described a last second heave that went for a touchdown, ‘I don’t know what that was man, just throw it up there and say a “hail Mary”,’ and so such heaves are still called Hail Marys, as is any last ditch unlikely to succeed effort. Our Protestant forebears had no objection to the first half of the Hail Mary. How could they, it’s all scriptural, directly, chapter and verse. Their worry was about asking the saints’ prayers in the last part. That was added during the Black Death in the middle ages in Europe, when one-third of the continent died. No wonder their prayers were focused on death. But praising Mary by saying “Blessed are you among women, blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus,” we can do that morning, noon, and night. That’s straight out of the book.
This little seven-verse story has attracted artists’ attention as well, as you’ve already noticed. Folks from all cultures have seen themselves in Mary’s story, Elizabeth’s story. As if any joyous gathering among women is a distant echo of this greatest meeting among women. I remember a reviewer of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women in which a male writer was jealous of the easy intimacy that sisters, women can share. Most men have to play sports to touch each other and not feel insecure. But women often have an advantage: you can hold hands, hug, cry without needing, like, an act of parliament. There are several African versions of the visitation that I like. Here’s a Japanese one. This one is by Romare Bearden, a contemporary African American artist. These women’s children will save absolutely everybody. Why shouldn’t absolutely everybody’s culture be put to use rejoicing in it?
What does the Visitation show us?
Well one, God is the author and giver of life. The arbiter of breath. This is the basis for Jews and Christians and Muslims’ condemnation of murder, of any form of unlawful killing. If God grants life, we have no right to take it. Not only that, but every human being is also made in God’s image, stamped with divinity. Anytime you see someone luminous with divine energy, don’t be surprised, that’s how God makes us. And that image is still there no matter how defaced it seems by our actions. Elizabeth is not supposed to be going for Lamaze classes. Mary is not even married yet. And yet God is so generous with life, sometimes life spills over outside the lines. Good. That’s a blessing. More of that.
You may have read some of the sociology around how men feel forgotten today, left behind, unnecessary? Hard to find a young man in his 20s who has nearly the emotional maturity of his female peers. I regret to inform that the Bible may be the culprit. When God really needs to get someone born—his son Jesus—no man is needed. And this is good. For most of history in most cultures we men have reigned supreme. Not in God’s kingdom. Only Christ reigns there.
Two, and this is a little riskier, maybe even angels need to learn? I told you earlier that Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the temple and got a speech about how angels don’t show up with news. ‘Never happened in this temple on my watch and never will.’ And the angel says, “You’re not allowed to talk anymore.” Throws a little angel temple tantrum: ‘I am Gabriel, I’m in the presence of God.’ What do I have to do to get a hearing here? This second time the angel doesn’t go to Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, nor to Mary’s father, named Joachim in tradition. No, Gabriel goes right to Mary. Let’s cut the guy out altogether, shall we? And he gets a much more favourable response. He shouldn’t have—Mary is the wrong age, the wrong gender, the wrong social class. She’s not educated, important, or living somewhere essential, doing anything significant. Her much more powerful cousin priest should have gotten this right. Zechariah didn’t. But she, the wrong person from the wrong place, wrong gender and wrong space gets everything right. Yes, here I am, the handmaid of the Lord, be it done with me according to your word. And she starts to swell with God. Arms, elbows, knees, head of God inside her untouched womb. I just wonder whether Gabriel figured it out between those two visits? Dudes? Fumble. Let’s try the ones who actually carry these impossible babies, shall we? Success. If even angels can learn something, then friends, shouldn’t we constantly be learning? A word for that is “disciple.”
And Elizabeth herself. I said two weeks ago it was Elizabeth’s disgrace not to have a child in Israel. One of the first and most important commands in Judaism is to “go forth and multiply,” fill the earth with more babies, more of the presence of God, more Jews. Not to have babies is to fail at this most urgent task. We Christians feel a bit differently here—you don’t have to get married or have kids to be a good Christian, but you sort of have to, to do Judaism right. Elizabeth has been a faithful Jew her whole life, pious and devout, and no kids to show for it.
Here I’m struck how the most painful thing in many of our lives is this business of having or not having children, alienation between parents and children. I don’t go a week in here without hearing a story of a lost boy, an alienated mum. In our recent media, the horror of Rob Reiner and his wife dying by their son’s hand. This most important relationship we have—the very one that brings us into the world, is often our original wounding. Fathers who aren’t there. Or are there but distracted, drunk, or even abusive. Mothers who over-mother, or never really wanted kids anyway. Children who go their own way and do harm to themselves or others. One of you looked at me recently and said, “I did not raise him like that.” Of course you didn’t. What keeps therapists in business quite like alienated families?!
Here’s what the Visitation says. Jesus has no proper father. He has a stepfather, Joseph, but what could Jesus say when he got teased for having no daddy? Elizabeth has never had a child, so Mary has clearly stood in, her younger cousin. In other words, irregular families are the norm in scripture, in the church. One of you told me of a church in this city that’s too old and gray, worried about its future. Sound familiar? And they’ve put themselves out there to say hey, ‘we got lots of surrogate grandparents, come and join,’ and younger people have. One reason I’ve always loved the church is because of my own broken relationship with my mother. What did I find here but lots of stand-in moms, grandmas, sisters, and friends? This is why it’s so important in church for us to love one another. We’re the only family lots of people ever get. We stand in where others are just wounded, abjectly bleeding, and in need, we can help wounds become scars. I don’t often use family language for church, because for my generation and younger family is often a cuss word. It’s the people who harmed you. But we are called to be a new family for those without. This is way beyond being friendly to those you don’t know at church, isn’t it? It’s inviting people in, making life together.
And finally, this. Our ancient pagan critics protested at the absurdity of God getting born. What sort of God would subject himself to the indecency of a woman’s womb? We’re used to hearing about women’s wombs because of abortion politics in the US and the church weighing in. But this is different. Christians, pressed by our pagan critics, were forced to say ‘you know, you’re right, we do believe the womb is a dignified place. A place God might even visit.’ Remember the line of the hymn? “Lo he abhors not the virgin’s womb”? God is the author of life and healer of the strange ways we bring life into the world. So, God subjects himself to that and gets born. And that’s the greatest mystery of all: God conceived, nurtured, born, and suckled by a human being. A reversal of all expectations. Our Muslim cousins do us the favour of objecting here: that’s undignified of God, God is above such things as pregnancies and childbirth and nursing. And we say, you know what, you’re right. For us “almighty” doesn’t mean above. It means right in the middle of our guts. A woman’s womb and breast. God with skin on. John Wesley praised this way: what a wonderful thing to see, God born of his creature and nursed at her knee.
This is God’s conspiracy to save the world. And at this point, only these two women are in on it. They greet one another with delirium. You, pregnant? No, you, pregnant? And God says these babies will save the cosmos?! That’s hilarious!
Remember the blockbuster movie Independence Day? Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum? Well, the two actors couldn’t stop laughing on set one day. They got the giggles at the idea of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum saving the world. ‘Man, if that’s what it’s come to, we are in worse trouble than we thought.’ Mary from nowhere and Elizabeth from not much of somewhere meet and laugh uproariously. This is how God’s saving the world? Through new patients in the maternity ward who make the head nurse say, “now tell me how old you are again honey?”
I’ll close with this. A friend of mine illustrates the incarnation, God in our flesh, this way. His grade one daughter had terrible separation anxiety, wouldn’t get on a school bus, cried, and cried, nothing the parents could do. So, the principal stepped in and said to the child, “I’m going to ride the school bus home with you tomorrow. That way you can see it’s not so scary.” She took his hand and rode home happily with him. Just a little glimpse of the infinite God taking finite flesh to guide us home. Amen. Hallelujah.