The Fourth Sunday of Advent, 22 December 2024, Austwick
Based on ‘Mary and Lizzie: Advent Script 3’ in Cloth for the Cradle: Worship Resources for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, Wild Goose Worship Group © 1997.
“Hello,” said Mary, at the open doorway. “Lizzie, are you there?”
Not long after Mary was told by Gabriel that God had chosen her to mother his son, Mary went to see her cousin, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was an older woman, well past the age someone would normally have a child. But she and her husband, Zechariah, had also been blessed by God, and their long-forgotten prayers for a child were being answered. They were to become the parents of John the Baptist, though on account of his failure to believe that this would happen, Elizabeth’s husband had been struck dumb until the day of the child’s birth.
“Is that you, Mary?” Lizzie shouted from the kitchen. “Come in. I’m desperate for a bit of company.”
Mary went in and sat down, and asked her cousin, “Why? Has no-one got time to visit you?”
Lizzie stopped a moment, looked surprised, looked down at her round tummy, put her hands on it and let out a gentle sigh.
And then she said, “Well, I’ve noticed that several people who I thought were friends, are now carefully avoiding me, on account of my ‘condition'”.
“ That’s terrible,” Mary said.
“Listen, Mary, I’m the talk of the neighbourhood. Motherhood on the other side of the menopause is a lonely business, I’m finding – all the women are keeping their distance in case they catch the same disease.”
“That’s a lot of nonsense, Lizzie. You can’t catch pregnancy. Martha, the midwife, has been with expectant mothers for forty years, but it never made her pregnant. But what about your husband? How’s he coping with it all?”
“Harry? I’d get better conversation from a tailor’s dummy. He hasn’t said a word since I told him the news.”
“Is that right?” Mary asked.
“It is,” said Elizabeth. “But wait till I tell you this. Last night, he plonked himself down by the fireside, took out a pencil and paper wrote me a note. It said, ’Don’t tell a soul, Lizzie. The baby is to be called John.’ So I says, ‘That’s a funny name for a girl.’ And his eyes nearly popped out his head.
“So then I said, ‘But if it’s a boy, I wouldn’t want him called John. Just because you use your full name Zechariah when you go to work in the Temple but like to be called Harry at home, it doesn’t mean that every boy wants a short handle to his jug. 1 think I’d rather have something more exotic … like .. Shadrak … or Mezzibosheth.”
“What did he say to that?” Mary asked.
“Mary! … He can’t speak. … remember?… So he didn’t say anything. He just kept pointing to what he had written, and shaking. I thought he was going to take a seizure.”
Mary put her hand on Elizabeth’s forearm and said, soothingly, “Well, apart from women not talking to you and Uncle Harry getting upset at you, are you all right yourself?”
“Actually, I’m quite amazed how well I am Mary,” she replied. “Just occasionally have these daft turns. Last week I had a notion every morning when I got up that I’d like to eat pickled herrings.”
“Oh, you have to expect that, Lizzie,” said Mary. “Some women even want to chew coal.”
“You’d need some energy for that!” Elizabeth said.
“Energy? Listen, Lizzie, wait till you’re in your last weeks. There’s some women become as strong as an Ox. They lift the carpets, paint the kitchen. There’s no stopping you when you’re pregnant.
“Mary, you’re barely a child. How come you know so much about it?” asked Elizabeth.
And there was silence for a while.
“Mary?”
And after another quiet few moments, Mary said,
“Lizzie … can you keep a secret? I think we’ve got something in common!”
Concluding with the gospel reading and then the Canticle: Magnificat (Luke 1.46-55) (Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord)
