A reading from the prophet Micah (5:1-4)
But you, Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
the least of the clans of Judah,
from you will come for me a future ruler of Israel
whose origin is from the distant past,
from the days of old.
Hence he will abandon them
only until she who is in labour gives birth,
and then those who survive of his race
will be reunited to the Israelites.
He will take his stand and he will shepherd them
in the power of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of his God,
and they will be secure,
for henceforth his greatness will extend
to the most distant parts of the land.
He himself will be peace!
The minor prophet Micah is a contemporary of Isaiah of Jerusalem. While Isaiah promised a royal child in Jerusalem, Micah heralds the birth of a child in David’s town of Bethlehem. Both texts are full of hope. For Micah God prefers the humble and the obscure, and the prophet stresses the lowly status of Bethlehem, ‘the least of the clans of Judah’. ‘Ephrathah’ is the clan to which Bethlehem belongs, and is related to the ark of the covenant in Psalm 132. A ‘future ruler (moshel)’ is expected, whose origin is from long ago: he has been long promised. The reference to ‘she who is in labour’ recalls Isaiah’s reference to the young woman with child in chapter 7. Appropriately for a descendant of David, this child will ‘shepherd’ the sheep, a metaphor frequently used for rulers, most significantly in Ezekiel 34. The people will be ‘secure’, while the ruler will be ‘great’, as proclaimed to Mary in Luke 1:32. ‘He himself will be peace!’ This striking phrase evokes the totality of what the Messiah brings.
Psalm 80 (79) refers to God as ‘shepherd of Israel’. It asks God to protect ‘the man at your right hand’, the anointed king.
A reading from the letter to the Hebrews (10:5-10)
This is what Christ said, on coming into the world:
You wanted no sacrifice or cereal offering,
but you prepared for me a body.
You took no pleasure in burnt offerings or sacrifices for sin;
then I said, ‘Here I am, I am coming,’
in the scroll of the book it is written of me,
to do your will, O God.
He says first: You wanted no sacrifices, cereal offerings, burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, and you took no pleasure in them – the offerings according to the Law – and then he says: Here I am! I am coming to do your will. He is abolishing the first sort to establish the second. And by this will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ made once and for all.
The Letter to the Hebrews, the great treatise on Christ the high priest, imagines what was in the heart of Christ as he entered the world. He speaks words from Psalm 40: ‘you wanted no sacrifices or cereal offerings’. God does not require the sacrifices and offerings of old, but has prepared for Christ a ‘body’. The writer takes advantage of the Greek translation of the psalm, which reads ‘body’ rather than the Hebrew version’s ‘open ear’. In this body, by his incarnation, Christ comes ‘to do the will’ of God, which is to accomplish the sanctification of all.
A reading from the holy gospel according to Luke (1:39-45)
Mary set out at that time and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. Now it happened that when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Look, as soon as your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And, blessed is she who believed that what was said to her from the Lord would be fulfilled.’
Mary meets Elizabeth. Jesus meets John the Baptist. This is an extraordinary story of two encounters. We are not told the words of Mary as she greeted Elizabeth, but instead hear a lengthy speech of Elizabeth, declaring ‘blessed’ (eulogemenos) both Mary and her child, and expressing amazement at the visit. She affirms that the son in her own womb ‘leapt for joy’. The evangelist is perhaps alluding to the journey of the ark of the covenant through the ‘hill country’ of Judah, and David’s dancing for joy before the ark (2 Samuel 6:5). The welcome given by David to the ark of God’s presence is echoed by the welcome given by John from his mother’s womb to the Messiah in the womb of Mary. The final words of Elizabeth, ‘blessed (makaria) is she who believed’ praise Mary for trusting the words delivered to her by the angel, and echo the evangelist Luke’s distinct emphasis on ‘hearing the word of God and keeping it’ (11:28).
How can God be present in the simplicity of the events narrated?
God chooses the humble: the shepherd announced by Micah, and Mary of Nazareth.