A leaping baby and a christmas bell

Reflections on Luke 1:39-45

Luke gives us his account of the life of Christ: “after investigating everything carefully from the first so that we would know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed”.

And it warms my mother-heart that the author included the leap of a child In utero as one of the signs of confirmation that Mary was truly carrying the Christ. If you think about it and the culture and society this was recorded, it is quite unique that the detail that certainly no man has ever experienced directly, could have found it’s way into this account.

And Elizabeth is the first one to give testimony to the birth of the child who would change everything.

I have drawn in this passage to these words: “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And blessed is she who believed…

It reminds me of some of the last recorded words of Jesus in the book of John “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

To believe, it is to be blessed. To be blessed: to make happy, to be consecrated, set a part, to be made holy. To be honored. To besanctified. Big meaning in this little word--blessed. It is blessed to believe.

I am wondering these days about what it means to believe.

Belief is the crux of our faith. But what is it to believe? Some say that believing is a choice, a decision of the will. Is it a feeling in our gut? Or perhaps you believe that belief is a mixture of mental energy, deep passion and daily practice? A common definition of belief is to have the confidence in the truth and reliability of something without absolute proof. And perhaps you experience confidence in your believing every day of your life, or perhaps you wonder and question, or perhaps you believe because you believed yesterday and the day before that. Perhaps you believe with gusto with every inch of your being or perhaps you have a thimble full of belief somedays.

A favorite children’s book was made into a film a few years ago. The Polar Express. A small boy is beginning to doubt the existence of Santa and the Christmas spirit when on Christmas Eve the Polar Express comes to a grinding halt in front of his door and he boards the train and finds himself on a journey to the North Pole. When at the North Pole the boy encounters Santa, Santa selects him to request the first present of Christmas. The boy chooses a silver bell from Santa’s own sleigh. Santa gives him the bell and he slips it into his robe pocket, only to find when he returns home that his pocket has a hole in it. With great despair the boy goes to bed, but the next morning the boy finds a small package under the tree with that very bell inside. When he rings the bell, he and his sister hear the most beautiful, magical sound. But his parents hear nothing. As he grows up, his friends also lose the ability to hear the bell and then even his sister can no longer hear it ring. When the boy is a man, he still hears the bell. “The bell rings for me”, he says at the close of the book, “and for all who truly believe”. We certainly can wonder what the story is calling us to believe in. However, there is something for us that rings true as believers in Christ.

There are many things in this world that keep our ears from hearing the bell of God in our lives. There are many obstacles to believing. We even have an Adversary who delights in finding ways to silence our hearing and disrupt our belief. Many of us doubt and despair and long for absolute proof in a God that doesn’t give us a God-on-demands-according-to-our-terms.

In Advent we are given a few weeks set aside by the Church to listen afresh for the bell of Christ in our ear. To do something audacious and courageous, to believe in the risen Christ without physically putting our fingers into the palms and side of Christ. To be as bold as to believe that the stirrings in our hearts is the Holy Spirit just as the baby stirred in the womb of Elizabeth.

My prayer for you and for me is that this Christmas we would hear the bell of Christ ringing in all kinds of new and unexpected places—and some old familiar and worn places as well. And when you do, when you find yourself believing with fresh ears, remember the words of Elizabeth: Blessed is the one who believes in the fulfillment of what was spoken by the Lord. And in the words of Christ: Blessed are you who have not seen and yet come to believe.