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Luke 1:39–45 Mary Visits Elizabeth 

I don’t want a fix of joy; but its permanent presence.

The tides in King Sound near the town of Derby in far-north-west Australia measure up to twelve metres and are about the biggest in the world.

I watched a skipper anchor his boat there in metres of water. In a few hours the vessel was high and dry and leaning forlornly. The skipper leapt onto the now firm sands and with a large broom scrubbed weed and barnacles from the hull. Not long after, his now clean boat was again bobbing merrily in deep waters.

Not a bad metaphor for the daily rise and fall of our joy.

We buoy ourselves with a pleasant outing to a restaurant, cold beer, laughter with friends, a swim in the ocean, or watching the news on a channel whose bias most pleases us.

But as these pleasant waters recede we come to rest again upon the hard burdens of life – the grind of work and mortgage and power bill, of letdowns, of the consciousness of our own failings, and bodies that age only in one direction. Let alone the existential calamity of death and the pall which it drapes over every facet of our life.

What we need is not an injection of joy, but a reason for joy: the announcement of truths that, if believed and received, will build in the base of one’s soul and convictions a stone pier of joy that will remain immovable no matter what the tides and winds and storms of human existence in a fallen world.

In Luke’s Gospel, Mary and Elizabeth’s meeting is filled with loud greetings, hearty hugs and kisses, in utero leaps, and exuberant blessings. It dances with light and joy. It explains moreover the reasons for the joy. It builds within all who hear and believe these reasons that mighty and immovable pier of joy that our souls crave, and for which we were created.

Luke 1:39–40 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.

Gabriel has just announced to Mary that she “will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.” As a token of the truth of this he tells that “Elizabeth your relative [συγγενης, syngenēs, not necessarily her cousin] is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.”

The moment the angel leaves, Mary “gets up” – it is indeed the first word in verse 39 – and rushes from Nazareth to “a town in the hill country of Judea”,  a rustic region to the south of Jerusalem and a long four-day journey from Nazareth.

Mary hastens to Elizabeth to have her faith strengthened by God’s confirmation of the far greater thing that he was to do within her. She hastens also, as Matthew Henry surmises, “to talk over a thing she had a thousand time thought over”, to open her heart with the only other person on earth who was living through something of what she was experiencing. And she hastens, as Calvin noted, “to show forth on all sides the grace she had received from God.”

By the time Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s house she is pregnant with Jesus. Mary enters with a greeting – the original word implies kissing and embracing – and we can easily picture the joy of this moment.

Luke 1:41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

From sixteen weeks’ gestation unborn babies hear their mother’s breathing, heartbeat, and tummy rumbling. From twenty-three weeks they hear noises from outside the womb and begin to learn the voices of their mother and father and other family members. From about this time loud noises may startle and cause the baby to jump.

The unborn John the Baptist hears Mary’s greeting and leaps, “the beginning”, as I. Howard-Marshall observes, “of John’s witness to Jesus.”  John’s “leap” is the same word (σκιρταω, skirtaō) that describes Jacob and Esau “jostling” in Rachel’s womb (Gen. 25:22), and the joyful mountains which “skip like rams” “at the presence of the LORD” (Ps. 114:4).

Elizabeth immediately discerns Him who has entered her home within Mary. She is filled with the Holy Spirit, who inspires the momentous words that she will now utter. Elizabeth will speak as a prophetess of God.

Luke 1:42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!’

Luke leaves no doubt as the volume and vigour of Elizabeth’s words, which Leon Morris suggests “form a little poem”, a Spirit-inspired song of joy. (Zechariah is of course still mute!) 

“Blessed” translates eulogeō (εὐλογεω) which speaks of praise and blessing. In the Old Testament to bless another meant to pray that they would enjoy “peace, security from enemies, good fortune, and wellbeing.” So Deuteronomy describes “fertility of body, of cattle, of field, political unity and harmony with neighbouring peoples” as blessings from Yahweh’s hands.

Remember also the great Aaronic Blessing of Numbers 6: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.

The LORD’s blessed ones live in the shining grace of his countenance, in the peace of having his face turned toward us and not against us.

As a Spirit-filled spokeswoman of God, however, Elizabeth does not pray for what is desirable but rather announces what is actual: “You, Mary, are blessed of God; and your child too is blessed!” Thus, Elizabeth simultaneously recognises Mary’s blessedness and worships and praises the unborn child.

Calvin points out confrontingly that the honour of bearing the Son of God is truly “second in degree to the rebirth into newness of life by the Spirit of God.” Seventeenth-century Lutheran preacher Valerius Herberger says the same:

It was her privilege, before all other women under the sun, to bear the promised Messiah under her virginal heart and in her arms, and with her motherly milk to quiet the infant Jesus. However, her glory and blessedness before God is that she heard the Word of God with eager ears and kept it in her remembrance; even as it plainly says of her: “But Mary kept all these words and treasured them in her heart”.

Mary was blessed to bear the Saviour, and blessed infinitely more to be saved by him.

Luke 1:43–45 But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed [μακαριος, makarios, “happy”, “to be congratulated”] is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her!’

Humble Elizabeth is amazed that Jesus’ mother would deign to visit her. Her designation of the unborn Jesus as “my Lord” is momentous. Morris points out that the title “Lord” (κυριος, kyrios) is applied to God twenty-five times in the first two chapters of Luke. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth knows that she stands in the unborn incarnate presence of the LORD God himself. Gresham Machen recognises the height of the stakes: “John appears, indeed, as the forerunner not specifically of the Messiah, but of Jehovah.” Calvin aptly theologises: “In calling Mary the mother of her Lord, the unity of person in the two natures of Christ is intended, as if she had said, he who is born a mortal man in the womb of Mary is at the same time the eternal God.”

And Mary herself will sing at this moment: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.”

Protestants are not used to honouring Mary. We reject Roman Catholic Mariolatry and the false and harmful doctrine of “the immaculate conception” which supposes that Mary remained without sin from her conception. But by rejecting this false honour we must not obscure and rob Mary of the true God-given honour of bearing the Son of God. in fact, Martin Luther frequently honoured Mary in this way. For Christmas 1531 he spoke of her in exalted terms: “Highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ…. She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honour her enough. Still honour and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures.”

 There are four people in this joyous scene: two mothers and two unborn children. The happy women are disproportionately favoured. The barren old matron has conceived with her husband by the intervention of God. The young virgin has conceived by the power of God alone. The elder child leaps in utero.

Yet it is the unborn child who neither speaks nor leaps who is surpassingly greater than any other person in this scene. He is the source and foundation of the others’ joy.

This is reason for joy: the LORD God has entered the world to save sinners from their rebellion and condemnation; to reconcile them to God; to bless them with the light and smile of his countenance.

Mary’s blessing and joy rests ultimately not on her bearing her God and Saviour; but on her believing and receiving her God and Saviour for herself.

Believing and trusting in the LORD and Saviour is what builds that pier of joy that we want and need – grounded, massive, immovable by the highest tides and fiercest storms.

Joy profound. Joy immovable. Joy eternal.

Joy in receiving God our Saviour Jesus Christ.

– Campbell Markham