Mary's Visit With Elizabeth Series

LUKE 1: 39-45

MARY’S VISIT TO ELIZABETH

We have before us the joyful encounter between two expectant mothers, Elisabeth and Mary. The angel Gabriel initiated it by relaying to Mary the grace God bestowed on her cousin Elisabeth (v. 36), in her old age. So Mary goes to visit Elizabeth to assist her in the final months of her pregnancy. There the two miraculously conceived babies encounter each other.

This section where Mary visits Elizabeth complements and builds upon the two previous events. Given the immense social pressures and stigma that Mary was about to endure as an unwed mother, she sought and found solace with Elizabeth, who would believe the divine nature of her conception and understand its significance (CIT).

I. THE UP-BUILDING VISIT, 1:39–41.

II. THE INSPIRED SPEECH OF ELIZABETH, 1: 42–44.

III. THE POWER OF FAITH, 1:45.

After learning from the angel Gabriel of the miraculous virgin concept of Son of God within her, Mary pulls things together and searches out a wise understanding friend, counselor, and family member. Verse 39 links this event or visit with the previous angelic message of the Messiah’s conception. “Mary arose in those days and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah,”

Luke puts the divine angelic encounter and the very human one it elicited by placing one right after the other. Mary had just had the most earth-shaking experience in the world. Nothing will ever surpass it. And what did she do? She immediately ran off to tell someone, in this case her cousin Elizabeth. She couldn’t wait to share what had happened to her with someone of like faith and devotion, with whom she shared kindred spirit.

So, almost immediately after receiving Gabriel’s message, Mary went to visit Elizabeth with care, diligence, and expedition (meta spoudes). “The hill country” in Judaean territory [a Roman providence] is a mountainous tract that runs along the middle of Israel from north to south. The unnamed city is probably Hebron (Jos 20:7; 21:11) or Shiloh and would be sixty or more miles south of Nazareth. Mary would remained there about three months (v. 56).

In verse 40 we find the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth. “and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.”

Mary “entered into the house of Zacharias;” but he, being temporarily unable to speak as well as deaf probable kept to himself and saw no company. In her excitement, like one of the family Mary entered the home and called out a greeting (probably shalom).

The two women, not only kin but drawn by a common experience, are now reunited. The one woman is old and her son will end the old era; the other is young and virgin and her son will usher in the new covenant [Mays, J. L. (Ed.). (1988). Harper’s Bible commentary (p. 1016). San Francisco: Harper & Row].

How much we need other human beings to share the watershed moments of our lives. To be a Christian is to believe in a God who is the God of the impossible and to belong to a family of brothers and sisters of differing ages who are there when you need them most. Because you belong to this family of faith, you have someone to go to who will listen to you when great joy or sorrow overwhelm you. [Larson, B., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1983). Luke (Vol. 26, p. 36). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.]

Verse 41 states that when Elisabeth heard Mary she was suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit. “And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”

The greeting brought encouraging confirmation in two ways. First John leaps in Elizabeth’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice because Mary is pregnant with Jesus. From Luke 1:44 it is plain that this maternal sensation was something extraordinary—a sympathetic emotion (“leaped with joy”) of the unborn babe at the presence of the mother of his Lord. John the Baptist’s prenatal cognition attests to the truth of Gabriel’s prophecy in Luke 1:31-35.

The second confirmation is what Elizabeth spoke after she was filled with the Holy Spirit in the following verses. These fillings are the first of many others Luke will record (e.g. Lk. 1:67; 2:25; Acts 2:4;4:8; 13:9). When John is filled with the Spirit in the womb the promised made to the father Zechariah (1:15) is fulfilled, then the promise expands to include his wife Elizabeth. John’s enthusiastic reaction to the presence of the Messiah anticipates the roll he will fill as the precursor and forerunner of Jesus.

When someone is “filled” with something they are controlled by it, as is easily seen when filled is used as a negative expression. To be filled with anger, rage, jealouy or fear is to be controlled by it (pimplemi; Lk. 4:28; 5:26; 6:11; Acts 5:17; 13:45) [ ].