Expectantly Expectant

Luke 1:39-45

(The Praise of Elizabeth)

39A few days later Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town 40where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. 41At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

42Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “You are blessed by God above all other women, and your child is blessed. 43What an honor this is, that the mother of my Lord should visit me! 44When you came in and greeted me, my baby jumped for joy the instant I heard your voice! 45You are blessed, because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.”

Psalm Link

Psalm 68:3

Let the godly rejoice.

Let them be glad in God’s presence.

Let them be filled with joy.

It’s not unusual to see two expectant mothers talking to each other. But it is unusual if one of them is in her midteens, and the other is in her fifties or older.

Yet that’s the scene we find in Luke 1 as teenage Mary meets with her older cousin Elizabeth. These two women had more in common than their pregnancies. Both Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, and Mary had been visited by the angel Gabriel, announcing miraculous births. Both were stunned. Zechariah was incredulous because Elizabeth was well past her childbearing years; Mary couldn’t understand how she, a virgin, could bear a child.

But the miracle went on, and both women found themselves pregnant, pondering the angel’s strange messages. Elizabeth, treasuring the thought that her son would be the herald for the Messiah, must have wondered who the Messiah would be and if she would ever meet him. Elizabeth was joyfully expectant in more ways than one.

Then her cousin Mary showed up on her doorstep, and Elizabeth’s baby “leaped within her.” The Holy Spirit gave Elizabeth the insight to say, “You are blessed by God above all other women.”

Unlike Mary, Elizabeth had waited a lifetime to bear a child. She was blessed by God and, in an unusual way, became the first to greet the Messiah. In this Christmas season, consider how God has blessed you, and take the opportunity to greet the Messiah yourself.

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

In a believer’s ear!

It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,

And drives away his fear.

JOHN NEWTON

Notable Quotable

“It was the last poetic voice of the Old, and it greeted the New; the voice of a daughter of the priestly line, singing of him for whom the Old looked and sighed and sobbed and waited.”

G. CAMPBELL MORGAN