Advent Calendar – 8 December
Nativity Stories: Elizabeth
She looked fit to drop, the little creature, as she stood there catching her breath. She’d walked miles, anyone could tell, her feet were caked in dust, her dress dark with sweat. I was about to say, “Come away in, take the weight off your feet, I’ll fetch a bowl of water for them, there’s milk, there’s curds,” but before I could say a thing the girl spoke first.
“Elizabeth, it’s me, Mary.”
Her voice was fresh, the hint of a giggle. Just then as I recognised her, my unborn kicked so hard I thought his foot would burst right through my belly, and I bent almost double with the pain. Mary came right over and held me till I straightened up. Less than half my age. I looked down on her, still not fully grown – her hair was limp from her long walk, her face was streaked with grime, yet her eyes were shining and her body was tingling with life when she’d held me. Uncontainable. And I knew, clear as the sky the morning after a wet night, that this girl too was expecting a child.
So young. We’d heard of the betrothal but stayed here, the journey not advisable. And already her firstborn on the way. How long I’d had to wait, Mary no time at all. Heaven had blessed her, and it just poured out of me, my own joy after years of broken hopes, delight in this child soon to be a mother. “Blessed are you among women,” I said, more loudly than I meant to, but then something swept me away, emotion certainly, but also a knowledge I had no right to know, since I was no prophet and hardly learned in the scripture, though descended from Aaron. But I knew beyond all doubt that my Lord was in this slip of a girl’s womb, here in my home, in a village no-one ever remembers the name of. I told her then, my cry of pain had been the child in me leaping for joy at the coming of his fellow baby.
She explained about her visitor one afternoon and all he’d entrusted to her, that I was six months gone despite my vast age, a sign that God could do what God would do. And so she’d set out early this morning to see if it was true, though deep down I think she knew it was. He couldn’t lie, that messenger. We laughed at how bizarre it was, the choice of us, what daftness, or so the world would think. I fetched water for her feet, and we drank some milk and ate some curds, and she asked if she could stay. Maybe I’d need some help as my time drew near, and I thought, why not? It’s lonely with Zechariah out in the fields, and saying nothing once he’s home.
“Stay,” I said. “I’m glad you trusted him, your strange guest, and have come all this way for me.”
Watanabe Sadao, The Visitation
Yours,
Donald