Dancing For Joy

I love this reading. Mary's just found out she's been the mother of God. And in that, she's also discovered that her cousin Elizabeth is pregnant. Her first reaction is to go off and serve her cousin Elizabeth, to make an arduous journey to go off and serve. And there's just so much in that. There's beautiful humility in that. There's the power of service in that. I think we like to pamper ourselves, right? It's like when something special is happening, we're like, "Oh, I've got to take it a bit easy. I got to rest up. I got to--" whatever. She's going to be the mother of God, and her first reaction is to go off and serve her cousin Elizabeth. She's not pampering herself. She's not like, "Oh, I got to do this or do that or not do anything or--" no. And I think there's just so many lessons in that. When she shows up to Elizabeth's house, something beautifully profound happens to Elizabeth here. We read, "And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb." The baby leaped for joy. The baby danced for joy in the womb of Elizabeth on hearing Mary's greeting. Why? Because even as a child in the womb, John the Baptist recognized the presence of Jesus in the womb of Mary.

Of course, this is echoing a passage from the Old Testament where David danced for joy before the Ark of the Covenant. This is the passage that-- these two passages, John the Baptist dancing for joy in the womb of Elizabeth and David dancing for Joy in the Ark of the Covenant are the two passages that really informed and inspired my book, A Call to Joy, more than 25 years ago now. I just love this idea, "Why are they dancing for Joy?" Because they're in the presence of God. They're in the presence of God. What do we read? "When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary." Had nothing to do with Mary. Mary's fantastic, right? But it had nothing to do with Mary. When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, her child danced for joy in her womb. Why? Because John the Baptist, even as a child in the womb, recognized the presence of Jesus in Mary's womb. We naturally dance for joy when we're in the presence of God. So much of the gospel, so much of Jesus's teachings, I think, can be summarized in two words: pay attention. Pay attention. Pay attention to what's happening within you. Pay attention to what's happening around you. Pay attention to what's happening to you and what's happening to other people. Pay attention.

And in this case, I think the question we have to ask is, what makes you dance for joy? What makes you dance for joy? What is the cause of joy in your life? And are you paying attention to that? Because if we pay attention to what causes us to dance for joy, if we pay attention to the causes of real honest-to-goodness joy in our lives, what will we do? We will make an effort to bring more of that into our life. And by bringing more of that into our life, we've become ambassadors of joy in the world for God. When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped for joy in her womb, the babe danced for joy. When people encounter you, what do they experience? Pay attention. Pay attention. Very often, I'm caught up in my own thoughts, I'm thinking all the time, and then I meet someone, and it's like two minutes before I'm really, "Okay. I'm here, and this person is here," and I realize, wow, that's not very respectful, that's not very thoughtful, that's not very aware, that's not very-- it's a lot of things that's not very.

Are we ambassadors of joy to other people? Are we bringing joy into other people's lives? And then the reading ends with the Magnificat, "My soul magnifies the Lord," Mary says, "and my spirit rejoices." What does your spirit rejoice in? Pay attention. Are you aware when your spirit is rejoicing? “My spirit rejoices in God, my savior. A mighty one has done great things for me.” It's true for us, alright. The mighty one has done great things for us, but are we paying attention? Are we paying attention? And so, every piece of the gospel is a call to greater awareness. Every message in the gospel is like, "Pay attention."