FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT, YEAR C

December 19, 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Luke 1:39-45, 56

One of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s traditional titles is “Ark of the Covenant.” She’s actually so addressed in such devotions as the Litany of Our Lady. At first glance, that may seem strange. But in today’s Gospel of the Visitation, Saint Luke makes a series of subtle allusions likening Mary to this sacred object from the Old Testament.

As always, a bit of background may be helpful here. The Ark of the Covenant was a gold-covered wooden chest constructed according to God’s instructions as a container for the two stone tablets of the Law that Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Also placed in the Ark was a jar of manna, the bread from heaven that fed the Israelites in the wilderness, and Aaron’s rod, the staff that miraculously bloomed to verify God’s choice of Moses’ brother Aaron to be Israel’s first high priest. The Ark was about four feet long, three feet wide, and three feet high. Attached to its corners were four gold rings through which two poles were inserted to carry it about. On its lid, known as the Mercy Seat, were golden figures of two Cherubim.

During the forty years in the wilderness, the Ark was carried ahead of the people. Wherever the Israelites camped, they placed the Ark in a special tent known as the Tabernacle or the Tent of Meeting. The Ark was, in effect, God’s throne on earth. Whenever Moses wanted to consult the Lord, he entered the Tent of Meeting, and the Lord came down on the Mercy Seat. A luminous cloud called the Shekinah would overshadow the Tent of Meeting signifying the divine presence; when Moses emerged from the Tent, his face would glow with supernatural light, so that he had to veil himself to avoid terrifying the people.

After the Israelites entered the Promised Land, the Ark resided for two hundred years at a place called Shiloh. Eventually, King David brought it to Jerusalem—about which I will say more in a moment. Later, David’s son Solomon constructed the Temple to house the Ark in its inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies. After the Babylonian Conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the Ark disappeared from history—although all sorts of weird and wonderful theories abound to this day as to where it ended up. In the time of Jesus and the apostles, however, the Holy of Holies was empty.  Even without the Ark, however, it was still considered sacred space, God’s dwelling place on earth.

The original readers and hearers of Luke’s account of Mary’s Visitation to Elizabeth would immediately have recognized its parallels with the story of David bringing the Ark up to Jerusalem. When David made Jerusalem his capital, the Ark was nine miles away, in a place called Kiriath-Jearim, in the hill-country of Judah. Returning victorious from battle with the Philistines, David went with thirty-thousand men to retrieve the Ark. When the oxen pulling the cart stumbled, however, a man named Uzzah put forth his hand to steady it and was immediately struck dead. In great fear, David exclaimed, “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?” So, David took the Ark to the house of a man called Obed-Edom; and there it remained three months. 

But when David learned that contrary to all expectations, far from being struck dead, Obed-Edom’s household was greatly blessed by the Ark’s presence, he went again and brought the Ark up to Jerusalem with great rejoicing and merrymaking. Finally, bringing the Ark into the city, David leaped and danced before the Lord with all his might.

Now, fast-forward about a thousand years. When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary in Nazareth and announces that she will give birth to the Messiah, her natural question is, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” The angel answers: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most-High will overshadow you; therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” “Overshadow” is exactly the same verb used to describe the cloud of the divine presence covering the Tent of Meeting when the Lord came down from heaven.

Then, in the Visitation story, the parallels multiply. The setting is once again the hill-country of Judah, where the Ark once resided. At Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth exclaims with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women! And blessed is the fruit of your womb!” This is the sole occurrence in the New Testament of the Greek verb translated as “exclaim”—but in the Greek version of the Old Testament, this same verb is used of David’s shouting in joy before the Ark on the way up to Jerusalem. Elizabeth’s question, “And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” is almost a direct quote of David’s “How can the Ark of the Lord come to me?” 

Furthermore, the unborn John the Baptist leaping in his mother’s womb replays David leaping and dancing before the Lord with all his might. Mary’s three-month sojourn at the house of Elizabeth recalls the Ark’s three-month stay at the house of Obed-Edom. Finally, just as the Ark goes up to Jerusalem, and eventually ends up in Solomon’s Temple, so, forty days after the Nativity, Mary goes with Joseph up to Jerusalem to present Jesus in the same Temple, now rebuilt.

In all these ways, Luke symbolically indicates that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Ark of a New Covenant. Just as the original Ark bore the Word of God inscribed on stone tablets, so Mary carries in her womb the Word-made-flesh. Just as the Ark held a jar of manna, the miraculous bread from heaven, so Mary carries within her womb the true Bread from heaven, who feeds us in the Holy Eucharist with his own Body and Blood. And just as the Ark held the rod of Aaron’s priesthood, so Mary carries in her womb the one true high priest, the final mediator between God and humanity.

The point is not that Mary “is like” the Ark of the Covenant. That gets it the wrong way round. Instead, the Ark was like Mary. That’s how biblical typology works. Although it had its own meaning and significance in its own time, the Ark nonetheless pointed beyond itself to the Mother of God, and he whom she brought into the world. Like so many other features of Old Testament religion, the Ark was a type and shadow of far greater things to come.

The message for us today is, I think, very simple. God’s coming among us is cause for great rejoicing. Who are we that the Son of God should come to us? David leaped and danced before the Ark with all his might. John the Baptist leaped for joy in his mother’s womb at the presence of the one coming after him. The Church invites us to join the celebration at our Christmas services this Friday and Saturday. Christ is coming into our midst. With great joy, then, we shall come out to meet Him.