I like questions. Interrogatives entice me. Answers are low-hanging fruit. Social media lends towards making everyone an expert, and experts tend to have all the answers. However, questions can change the course of a conversation. Inquiries make room for new ideas, new practices, new programs, and new ways of being. There are questions wedded to conflict and queries paired with conundrum that do not always lend towards resolution. As Maria Rainer Rilke says some moments call for us to “live the questions.”

Advent is the time where we wrestle with and celebrate God’s dwelling among humanity and Divine inter-being and intervening in human dis-ease, dissonance, and disenfranchisement. Preachers, teachers, lay persons, and any number of interpreters take an annual examination of the same biblical texts for hermeneutical exploration, homiletical explication, and theological application. We may already have some of the same answers, but it is integral to unlearn so to relearn. Thus, we dare to ask some different questions. Such is Holy One’s gift of grace in human inquiry. As “Advent” is God’s OMW or “on my way,” here is a time to probe what this “coming to” meant to persons in the holy writ and ask what this “coming toward” means now.

The Gospel of Luke records at least three questions as essential to one’s journey during this season of expectancy. I posit Luke’s literary, social, and gender reversal lend towards readers reversing their completely solution-oriented approach. In 1:18, 1:34, and 1:43, the author brings to the stage the curiosity of Zechariah, Mary, and Elizabeth. The first century context of Luke’s Gospel is replete with Roman imperialism and domination. It is in the environs of patriarchy, patrilineality, and patrimony that the author gives agency to persons subject to the emperor’s rule. The Gospel presents questions in conflict and queries of conundrum.
Luke 1:18

Zechariah receives news that he and Elizabeth are to be parents. Despite their age and barrenness, an heir is finally—on the way. Although much of his lot has been spent interceding for others in the temple, when the Holy comes intervening on his behalf, this priest takes a stance of disbelief: “How can I know that this will happen? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” Having spent so long going through the motions, Zechariah’s mouth elicits a question, not an expression of gratitude. Such is the making of a traumatic context. Imperialism is designed to lull one’s expectation. The domination playbook is coercive adjustment to the status quo; its design is to bury. In what may be a move of emasculation God’s messenger, Gabriel, punishes and silences Zechariah for asking what was in his heart.
Luke 1:34

Gabriel continues making his rounds and now visits Mary. Akin to the Zechariah saga, Mary voices hesitancy when informed that she will give birth to the Son of the Most High. She replies, “How can this be, since I am only a virgin?” More appropriately Mary is asking “Why should this be?” She is a pre-teen living in Nazareth, a context where conditions are ripe with female sexual assaults, and maternal mortality rates are extreme. Thus, her body is on the line. What may appear as resolve is an agency of ambivalence as Mary is not wholly free nor loosely enslaved. In light of the “Holy overshadowing” that is soon to overtake her and so not to venture through the streets of Nazareth alone, Mary immediately seeks the wisdom of her cousin Elizabeth.
Luke 1:43

Elizabeth receives Mary with joy, and I would add concern: “And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?” Luke’s “Lord” usage is another reference to the supposed Peace of Roman or Pax Romana. Mary and Elizabeth help each other deal with public shame. Society deems Elizabeth solely responsible for Zechariah not having a son. Mary is pregnant and according to Luke’s narrative alone as her family and Joseph are nowhere to be found. Although they are of different classes and distinctive geographical, familial, and economic backgrounds, these two mothers find communal comfort. In an act of intergenerational engagement and parental sojourning, Mary seeks Elizabeth’s guidance, and Elizabeth nurtures Mary as she learns to be Mom of the Most High.

Asking our way through Advent makes space for pause. Such pause compels us to consider the complexity our current personal, local, and national conundrums. In pondering we get in position for “what is to come.” There will be answers. Yet, may we find solace in the queries and a degree of peace in the questions.

Rev. Dr. Stephanie Buckhanon, a Baptist and Disciples of Christ minister, is Professor of New Testament and Culture at Chicago Theological Seminary. She is the author of When Momma Speaks: The Bible and Motherhood from a Womanist Perspective and the forthcoming Are you for Real? Imposter Syndrome, Society and the Bible.