An Artistic Approach to Advent (Week 3)

Join us in reflection and worship this Advent! Each Wednesday, we will post on our blog a piece of art that beautifully realizes the coming of the Messiah, as well as a reflection written by one of C4SO’s own. May this beauty serve as a creative way to prepare Christ a throne in our hearts.

The Visitation

A Reflection by Nicole Mattke on “The Visitation” by Phillipe de Champaigne

The-Visitation

Scripture: Luke 1:39-56

Pregnancy is its own advent, a waiting with bated breath.

Changes are occurring deep within a mother that even she cannot see or really understand, but they are happening. The anticipation (and, sometimes, the anxiety) grow as her body does, moving the mother towards this long-expected, miraculous event that will change everything for her.

This Advent, I am pregnant with twins. Each day, I swell more in body and in expectancy. I am feeling both the excitement and unease that come with pregnancy keenly this year. What I’m experiencing is just a shadow of what Mary and Elizabeth were feeling in Luke 1, recognizing their calls to bear the Savior and John the Baptist. “The Visitation” by Philllipe de Champaigne is a gorgeous portrayal of these women in all their expectations, in their fears wrapped up in hope.

Phillippe de Champaigne was a French Baroque painter who created The Visitation in 1643. The women are the figural foreground, bathed in holy light representing God’s grace. Their husbands, Joseph and Zechariah, are present in the background, marveling at the two unlikely mothers bent close, clasping hands– a teenage virgin to bear the Son of God and her elderly cousin to bear a foretold prophet.

In this scene, Mary has just arrived to visit Elizabeth, after a ten mile trip, presumably alone and on foot. Not knowing that her cousin was also expecting, what was she feeling during that journey? Was she expecting disbelief, judgement, derision? Hoping for acceptance and comfort?

What she received when she arrived was utter joy, a baby so filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb that he leapt at the sight of Mary. Her cousin Elizabeth was filled with the Spirit too and praised God for things so wonderful and so hard to believe. “In a loud voice she exclaimed, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!’” (Luke 1:42)

Pregnancy usually inspires joy in women, in the clasped hands of the sisterhood between them. But oh, to have seen the joy radiating from these two at the knowledge of just who these precious tiny hearts were, thumping away inside of them and about to change everything, not just for them but for all the world.

I picture Mary bursting forth with the Magnificat just after this moment depicted in The Visitation, the beautiful Magnificat that we often recite together as a pivotal part of Evening Prayer. And then Mary stayed on, to tend to Elizabeth in her third trimester even as Elizabeth mentored Mary in her first. It is widely held that Mary stayed with Elizabeth until John was born, and it is hard to imagine the joy between these two women in that scene–perhaps there was too much radiant light there for an artist to even attempt to paint.

The hope that had been building since angels announced that these women were expecting unfurled in the birth of John the Baptist, which was the forerunner of that birth that we’d always been waiting for. This Advent, as we wait in holy expectation for Jesus to come again, may the Spirit cause our own hearts to leap with joy at His nearness.

Prayer

Lord, we respond to you today with the words of Mary in the Magnificat:

My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for you have been mindful of the humble state of your servant. Your mercy extends to those who fear You, from generation to generation. You have performed mighty deeds with your arm; you have scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. You have brought down rulers from their thrones but have lifted up the humble. You have filled the hungry with good things but have sent the rich away empty.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Nicole lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with her husband and 2.5- year-old twin boys. She is surprised to be expecting twins again next spring! She dearly loves Advent and Christmas. Contact Nicole.