Christmas Chronology: Luke 1:39-56

Mary Visits Elizabeth

³⁹ A few days later Mary hurried to the hill country of Judea, to the town ⁴⁰ where Zechariah lived. She entered the house and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ At the sound of Mary’s greeting, Elizabeth’s child leaped within her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
⁴² Elizabeth gave a glad cry and exclaimed to Mary, “God has blessed you above all women, and your child is blessed. ⁴³ Why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should visit me? ⁴⁴ When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy. ⁴⁵ You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said.” (NLB)

Now we switch back to Mary’s point of view. The most likely time line, it seems to me, is that Gabriel appeared to Mary (Luke 1:26-38, blog), then Mary told Joseph what Gabriel had said. Gabriel then confirmed Mary’s story to Joseph in a dream (Matthew 1:18-25, blog). After Joseph knew that Mary had indeed conceived by the Holy Spirit, they decided to send Mary to stay with Zechariah and Elizabeth for a while, and the events of this passage took place.

I’m using the New Living Bible for this passage, and it says in verse 39 that Mary went to visit Elizabeth a few days later. The NIV says she went at that time. Either way, Mary was pregnant by the time she left, so Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit very soon after Mary was visited by Gabriel. Mary and Elizabeth were related, as Gabriel said in verse 36. We don’t know how they were related, but I’ve always heard that Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins. The word cousins must be a loose term, because to be first cousins, Mary and Elizabeth would have to have been sisters, or at least sisters-in-law. It’s unlikely they were sisters, since Mary was very young and Elizabeth was very old. Israel was still a clannish culture then, so they may have simply been members of the same clan.
When Mary entered Zechariah and Elizabeth’s home, verse 40 says she greeted Elizabeth.

Immediately Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit when she heard the greeting. Luke doesn’t say it was when Elizabeth saw Mary, but when she heard her greeting, so I’m thinking it happened like this; Mary entered the house, but Elizabeth was in another part of the house. So Mary called out to Elizabeth, and when Elizabeth heard her greeting, the baby John within her leaped for joy, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. This fulfills what Gabriel said to Zechariah in verse 15:

¹⁵For he will be great and distinguished in the sight of the Lord. And he must drink no wine nor strong drink, and he will be filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit even ^[a]in and from his mother’s womb. (Amplified)

Notice that Gabriel didn’t say John would be filled with the Spirit from conception, but in and from his mother’s womb. I think this is when that infilling took place. It happened when he came into the presence of Jesus. When Jesus entered his house, from that moment, John was filled with the Holy Spirit, and leaped for joy. As a result, Elizabeth was also filled with the Spirit. The only way to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to get close to Jesus.

How did Elizabeth know that Mary was the mother of her Lord? Because Gabriel had told Zechariah that John would go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, and that he would make ready a people prepared for the Lord (1:17). These were references to prophecy concerning the coming Messiah, and Elizabeth knew that. But I don’t think Elizabeth knew that Mary was to be the mother of the Messiah until that moment when John leaped within her and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. I love what she says in verse 45. I chose to use the New Living Bible for this passage because of the way it puts this verse. You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said. If we want to be blessed, we must believe that the Lord will do what he says he will do, no matter how unlikely it seems to us.

The Magnificat: Mary’s Song of Praise

⁴⁶ Mary responded,   “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord.
⁴⁷ How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior!
⁴⁸ For he took notice of his lowly servant girl,
and from now on all generations will call me blessed.
⁴⁹ For the Mighty One is holy,
and he has done great things for me.

Mary is then caught up in the Spirit, and sings this song. Luke doesn’t tell us if it was spontaneous, or if Mary had written it previously. As a songwriter, I find it hard to imagine that this whole song came out of Mary whole cloth, in one moment. It might have happened that way, but it never does for me! I imagine that on the road to Elizabeth’s house, this song was going through Mary’s head. Maybe she was singing bits of it to herself as she traveled, and when she arrived, God inspired her to sing it out loud, and the pieces of song that were running through Mary’s head came out in one beautiful whole.

This song reveals a lot about Mary. First, it shows that she knew the scriptures. There are many references to the Old Testament in it. It shows that she knew how to praise God, which is something we all need to learn how to do. Her prophecy in verse 48 shows that she believed Gabriel’s statement that she was blessed among women, and that she had faith to believe that future generations would call her blessed. Mary knew that her own generation would not. They would consider her an adulterer and a sinner. She would be viewed with suspicion and scorn, and very few would believe her story about having conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Can we see beyond our present circumstances and believe in the eternal impact of what God is doing through us? Mary not only believed it, it was a source of encouragement for her. Be encouraged that no matter how tough things are for you, your faithfulness to God will have eternal consequences, and people that you don’t even know will rise up and call you blessed in God’s kingdom.

In verses 48 and 49, Mary acknowledges her lowly status, and God’s greatness. Today we think of Mary as one of the heroes of the Bible, one of the greats in God’s kingdom, but at that moment, she was still a peasant girl with no social status at all. She recognizes that every good thing that’s happening to her is because of God’s blessing. May we all recognize that for ourselves!

⁵⁰ He shows mercy from generation to generation
to all who fear him.
⁵¹ His mighty arm has done tremendous things!
He has scattered the proud and haughty ones.
⁵² He has brought down princes from their thrones
and exalted the humble.
⁵³ He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away with empty hands.
⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel
and remembered to be merciful.
⁵⁵ For he made this promise to our ancestors,
to Abraham and his children forever.”
⁵⁶ Mary stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then went back to her own home.

This passage shows that Mary was also politically aware. Verses 51-55 are very much a picture of a political Messiah who would bring down the Romans and the corruption of Herod. Mary was poor, and much of the emphasis of her song is about God bringing down the rich and powerful and exalting the poor and humble. When you combine that with her account of what Gabriel promised her in verses 32-33, I can’t help but think that Mary expected her son to be the kind of Messiah that most Israelites expected; a political one who would end Roman oppression and become the righteous king of Israel. Even decades after Jesus’ resurrection, when she was relating all of this to Luke, it looks to me like Mary still wished that Jesus had been that kind of Messiah.

Mary ends her song by recognizing that God keeps his promises. This is important to remember for every believer. Israel had been expecting the Messiah for centuries, and now God was finally fulfilling that promise. It may seem like God is taking a long time, but remember that he always keeps his promises.