Along our journey toward Christmas --and then Epiphany --we encounter the Annunciation to Mary, which is the announcement of the miraculous birth that's about to take place within her and among us. Part of that declaration by the angel includes the news that her relative is also with child and this older postmenopausal childless woman will bring forth a son who will be the forerunner of Mary's child! Don't you think if you were Mary you would have to go see this woman? Of course! And at some point in her pregnancy, Mary made a journey to see Elizabeth, as the scriptures declare in the Gospel of Luke, 1:39 and following.

The trees must have been beautiful in Israel before the Romans cut them for building their devices to destroy Jerusalem and to assail Masada. They also cut trees for their form of execution, which needed lots and lots of crosses. Maybe Mary leaned upon the very wood that would one day bear her son in another form. It's a bit of a reminder of where we'll arrive in a few months when we come to Good Friday and the scene of Jesus carrying a cross of wood to his death.

But for now Mary is joyously upon her way to meet another woman who carries the miraculous gift of life within her. In some ways she is like all other women who have had the privilege of carrying children, but we know she is unlike any other woman. The text says that when the unborn baby John heard the voice of Mary he leapt within Elizabeth's womb. That is not always a great sensation I've been told, but in this case it is a sign for Elizabeth and therefore a sign for us that even joy is not without pain.

This is part of the story, a beautiful prelude of the birth narratives, something we might imagine and part of the set for the drama that we will resurrect in a few days in all of the glory possible. In the retelling of the story once again there are many details we can gloss over and even skip which don't seem important. That's very interesting to me.