By Savannah Olaphson
December 22, 2024
Within a few days Mary set out and hurried to the hill country to a town of Judah, where she entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why am I so favored, that the mother of the Messiah should come to me? The moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who believed that what our God said to her would be accomplished!”
Luke 1:39-45, Inclusive Bible Translation
Advent is always a time of waiting. But this year, Advent falls at the tail end of a 9-month period of waiting that will come to a close with the birth of my first baby. As I reflect on the significance of these two seasons of life, it is striking to me just how similar they are to one another.
In Advent, we wait for a story that we have heard hundreds of times. Yet, we are also waiting for the fulfillment of a promise that so often feels just out of reach.
So too is it with pregnancy. Over the course of the last 9 months, I have heard countless stories of what I can expect in birth and the moments that follow. Stories of pain, but also of the joy of holding your baby and having your entire life reorient around the little human in your arms. I’ve read books about what to expect before and after birth, I’ve taken classes to help me understand what exactly I’ve gotten myself into, and I’ve spent hours preparing my home to safely house this little baby once they arrive.
Like the Christmas story, I can now recite all the details of what childbirth and life with a newborn supposedly entails. But at the end of the day, even with all this preparation, I struggle to fully grasp the immensity of what it will feel like to hold my baby for the first time. So instead, I wait in wonder at what that moment will feel like.
That said, even though my little baby is still due to spend a few more weeks inside me before making their grand entrance, I am granted a few sneak peaks. These come in the form of their near-constant kicks, leaps, and jolts that prod me from the inside.
It is as if I’ve entered into a sort of conversation with this little being inside of me. I eat a cookie, and they squirm with glee. I drink my allotted cup of coffee for the day, and they get so energized that I’m kicked in the ribs for an hour. The baby hears me complaining to my husband about how active they are, and immediately they become perfectly still as if to say, “Don’t listen to her, Dad. She’s making it all up, I’m a perfect angel.”
With each of these movements, even the unpleasant ones, I feel as if I am receiving a little glimpse of who they are and my love for them continues to grow. As entertaining as the big dramatic movements of late pregnancy are, however, there is really nothing quite like the first few times I felt the baby move.
For me this happened right around the 6-month point, around the same stage we find Elizabeth in our text for today. For a large portion of pregnancy, I didn’t get many indications—besides potentially feeling sick and miserable—of what the little developing fetus was up to inside me. I knew that a lot of development is taking place, and I was preparing for a lot to change in the months ahead. Yet, there was a strange disconnect, because the life that all this preparation was oriented around remained hidden from view. Then, at long last, I felt the first movement. Some describe it as a small fluttering, or, as Elizabeth’s reports, a leap of joy. Either way, this little thing that I had been wondering endlessly about suddenly made itself known in the most intimate and tangible of ways. In my experience it was hard not to be giddy with every little assurance they offered.
Whether or not the movement Elizabeth felt the day Mary arrived was the first she’d felt from her baby, it would have felt significant. Elizabeth had been yearning for this movement not only for 6 months, but for years, decades even. Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah had all been told of the wonders they could expect from the lives of their unborn children. Yet, Elizabeth was the first to feel it for herself. To literally be jolted into the reality that God’s promise of new life was sincere. To feel and know that God’s love was already active, even if it was invisible to the eye.
God chose to have this love made known first to two unlikely women, in one of life’s most common and ordinary miracles. In the small leap of a baby in the womb, and without hesitation, Elizabeth recognized the significance of this blessing and cried out in joy.
We spend so much time waiting that I wonder how many small jolts of God’s love we miss while focusing our attention on the future. Even as I sit here writing, the baby in my own womb has kept up a near constant wiggle. I must admit, it’s tempting to ignore or begroan the movement as I instead await and prepare for the arrival of the full baby in a few short weeks. But when I slow down and stop to watch the baby pushing my stomach from side to side, I too, like Elizabeth, can’t help but rejoice. For I’m reminded of a wondrous miracle of new life that has already been set in motion, and I know that my own responsibility to cherish and nourish it has already begun.
The story of God’s love began long before the birth of Jesus and continues to make itself known in each of our lives in the most unlikely of places, through the most ordinary of miracles. The question then becomes, how do we, like Elizabeth, recognize the small yet mighty movements of God’s love as the remarkable blessings that they are?
As we anticipate the fulfillment of all that Mary sings out in her song, may we remain open to being jolted by the love that is already moving in our midst, spurring us towards a miraculous love of our own.
Reflection Questions:
- What are the small, ordinary miracles that you experience each day that offer a glimpse of the love of God at work?
- How do we live together as an anticipatory community that sees the fulfillment of God’s promises beginning here and now?
- How might you, like Elizabeth, loudly and boldly trust and proclaim the blessings of Jesus’ presence even, and especially, when these blessings aren’t easily visible to all?
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Savannah Olaphson, Deacon of Service & Justice Ministries
Savannah currently serves as the Deacon of Service & Justice Ministries at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie, MN. In addition to ministry, she loves to fill her time traveling, trying new foods, hiking, listening to people’s stories, and snuggling with her friends and loved ones. Savannah lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Erik, and a rather dramatic cockatiel named Tuna. She, Erik, and Tuna are excited to welcome the newest member of their family in early January, even if it means they’ll never sleep again.
