Luke One's length proves daunting. Chock a block full of stories made richer with South Asian cultural awareness. How to chose one? Here is my quick choice.
If when you are praying as a Muslim man, a donkey, dog or female crosses your path your prayers do not count before Allah with merit towards earning your salvation. Women along with their male counterparts believe the ultimate truth of their inferiority before their god. Therefore having a male to define you and even act as your mediator before god is imperative. Marriage gives women an identity and future, their children define them. The least of the least among South Asian women, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim alike are those women who do not bear children. Their stigma, pain, lack of future, even plight is unimaginable to us as Westerners. A Muslim man can divorce a wife who does not produce a child in the first year of pregnancy. Though extreme it remains acceptable.
Here in the West we do not understand the depth of Elizabeth's plight. We do not understand her stigma, her alienation from her community, the scorn, and malicious gossip she faced. We have friends and family members who face this deep despair and hurt within their souls but the world does not despise them or bar them from community events. Rather adoption, a beautiful picture in scripture, is open to these women. However in Asian culture full adoption is a rare exception outside of family. In verse 26 of chapter one of the Gospel of Luke God began knitting a baby boy in the womb of a woman. He gave her a gift because nothing is impossible with God.
That gift was the proof to Mary of God's miraculous ability to give a child. That reveals the amazing weight of Elizabeth's pregnancy. The depth of Elizabeth's joy must have been a huge fountain spilling over. God, the one silent for 400 years to her people had spoken. Her response, to welcome her relative, pregnant with a baby into her home. Her stigma removed, she invited it back in with the visit of Mary.
I love Elizabeth. I celebrate with her every time I read this story. I delight in her delight. I weep at her greeting of Mary. I cry for babies to be born but my faith in a God who provides and who loves and understands women of all cultures brings me to my knees. He truly is Emmanuel.
If when you are praying as a Muslim man, a donkey, dog or female crosses your path your prayers do not count before Allah with merit towards earning your salvation. Women along with their male counterparts believe the ultimate truth of their inferiority before their god. Therefore having a male to define you and even act as your mediator before god is imperative. Marriage gives women an identity and future, their children define them. The least of the least among South Asian women, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim alike are those women who do not bear children. Their stigma, pain, lack of future, even plight is unimaginable to us as Westerners. A Muslim man can divorce a wife who does not produce a child in the first year of pregnancy. Though extreme it remains acceptable.
Here in the West we do not understand the depth of Elizabeth's plight. We do not understand her stigma, her alienation from her community, the scorn, and malicious gossip she faced. We have friends and family members who face this deep despair and hurt within their souls but the world does not despise them or bar them from community events. Rather adoption, a beautiful picture in scripture, is open to these women. However in Asian culture full adoption is a rare exception outside of family. In verse 26 of chapter one of the Gospel of Luke God began knitting a baby boy in the womb of a woman. He gave her a gift because nothing is impossible with God.
That gift was the proof to Mary of God's miraculous ability to give a child. That reveals the amazing weight of Elizabeth's pregnancy. The depth of Elizabeth's joy must have been a huge fountain spilling over. God, the one silent for 400 years to her people had spoken. Her response, to welcome her relative, pregnant with a baby into her home. Her stigma removed, she invited it back in with the visit of Mary.
I love Elizabeth. I celebrate with her every time I read this story. I delight in her delight. I weep at her greeting of Mary. I cry for babies to be born but my faith in a God who provides and who loves and understands women of all cultures brings me to my knees. He truly is Emmanuel.
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