We’re reading the last of the Advent gospels from the Infancy Narratives of the gospel of Luke. The song of Zachariah after he names his new born child John. 

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, He has come to his people and set the free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, Born of the house of his servant David, Through his prophets he promised of old, That he save us from our enemies, From the hands of those who hate us.

Scholars are very careful what they say when they comment on the gospels. So if we ask “Where do these stories come from?” they usually point to what Luke says at the beginning of his gospel: He consulted eyewitnesses and sources that were available to him, and he wrote about what took place then in an orderly way.

If we ask who are the eyewitnesses for this part of the gospel, scholars venture that Mary, the mother of Jesus, may be Luke’s  principal source. But scholars are cautious and that’s about all they will say.

We ordinary people can take more chances as we look at the scriptures.  In meditating on the scriptures we can go where scholars won’t go.  Of course, we can be wrong.

Suppose we imagine Luke interviewing Mary about Elizabeth and Zachariah. “Did you have any idea before the angel came to you, Mary, that Elizabeth, your cousin, had become pregnant? “

“No”, Mary said, “No, I had no idea. After the angel came to me and told me about Elizabeth I  went down  to  see her in the hill country as quickly as I could. She was six months pregnant. Zachariah was there. He couldn’t speak. He had to write down what had happened in the temple in the days he was there. “

“ I spent three months with them there. We turned to the scriptures to see what God was doing with us. We’re Jewish women, where else would we turn? We went through God’s promises to Abraham, Jacob and David that one of their descendants would come and lead his people. We remembered the mother of Samson, and Anna, the mother of Samuel. They brought children into the world in a way that could not be explained. We read the Prophet: Isaiah and Jeremiah. They spoke of God’s kingdom coming.

When I returned to Nazareth, Joseph told me of his meeting with the angel in a dream. I told him what happened to me. We didn’t understand it all, but we believed that God was about something great, something beyond us. Holy is his name. 

No angel spoke to me after that. “

As we look at the readings for these last days of Advent, can we say that they’re likely the Old Testament readings that Mary and Elizabeth and Zachariah and Joseph looked at when they came together and faced the mystery of God.

As we look at the New Testament readings from the Infancy Narrative, can we say that they came from Luke’s conversations with Mary? I think we can. I may be wrong, but I believe they are.

In the Infancy Narratives we are listening to Mary’s story. There are real people behind these stories and we know who they are.