Amy C Walters

Mary Visits Elizabeth – Luke 1:39-56

In the first several stories in the book of Luke, we have a terrifying angel delivering huge news of incredible miracles that will leave the world forever changed. But these messages are delivered to tiny audiences of one or two people. What can that teach us about God? That is both powerful and personal.

In this story, we see a visit between two women, Mary and Elizabeth–two women who were in very unique situations with unique pregnancies. Mary, because she’s a virgin, and Elizabeth, because she is too old to have a child, and yet here they are both in similar situations.

Now, we need to ask ourselves, where do we see God in this story? What characteristics does he reveal to the people in the story, and who does he reveal them to?

At the start of this story, we have Mary hurrying to the hill country of Judea. She goes to Zechariah’s house, and she greets Elizabeth. And then we are told that the Holy Spirit comes on Elizabeth, and she exclaims in a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” 

As far as we know, Mary has not communicated to Elizabeth yet that she is pregnant, has not communicated that this is a special pregnancy, a special baby. Elizabeth knows this by the power of the Holy Spirit. So we see him working very directly to send this important message to communicate to these women.

And who does he deliver this message to? Well, we know Elizabeth is there–she’s the one speaking the message through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We know that Mary is there. It was her greeting that prompted this.

It’s possible that Zechariah is there as well. It is his house. So it’s possible that he was around for it.

We don’t know if there are other relatives there or other people who help with keeping up the household. We don’t know. It’s not stated. All we know is these two women hear this message.

So God goes to all this trouble to send the Holy Spirit with this very important message because this message is confirming once again who baby Jesus would be, and yet he sends it just to these two ladies.

I worked in communications and marketing for many years. And when my team and I would put together a piece of communication, like an email or a social media message, a video, we wanted as many people to see it as possible. In fact, that was one of our measures of success. How many people saw this and did something as a result? Especially if we were putting together a video, something like that, that took more work and more effort. We wanted a return on our investment to know that lots of people saw this and therefore it was successful.

God’s economy of delivering these messages is very different. He’s not going for as many people hearing it as possible. He does that just for these women.

In fact, all of these special messages that have been delivered so far in the book of Luke have been to very small crowds. You have the angels’ visit to Zechariah. It was just to Zechariah.

The angels’ visit to Mary. It was just to Mary.

Elizabeth’s message through the Holy Spirit was just to these two women.

God is entrusting these important, huge messages to just a small handful of people.

These messages have vast importance to many, many people because they are messages about the Savior that is being sent to the world. They are messages related to all of these prophecies that have been happening throughout Israel’s history that are pointing to Jesus. So this is a culmination of history happening here, a big grand scale event that’s falling on the ears of just a couple of people.

Let’s think back again to Zechariah’s story and his visit with the angel. The angel, in talking about his son, John, says that “he will be a joy to you and many will rejoice because of his birth,” and also that he would “point many people back to the Lord their God.”

So John has this important role of pointing people back to God, again, a reference to prophecies that were made in the past, but also that John would be a joy to his parents.

Zechariah had no doubt been praying for many years for his son, had been waiting for a child. And God says, yes, I’m going to fulfill this request on a grand scale as part of ushering in the Messiah. And I’m also going to meet you on this very intimate scale of this need that you have. And this will be a joy to you.

Here in this week’s story, we have Mary coming to visit Elizabeth at the prompting of the angel. The angel didn’t just tell her that her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant, just to give her evidence that God can do the impossible. Yes, that was important. It was an invitation to go to Elizabeth and to share this experience together. Because God knew that these women would need that.

Yes, their pregnancies were important because they were a part of God’s grand scale, moving of history to usher in the Messiah. And he also knew the needs of these two women to have encouragement and comfort with one another.

So God’s looking out for the big things that are happening and for the small things that are happening for these women.

Because we learn from this story that God is powerful and personal. That’s our key truth for today.

We see his power in the way that he is fulfilling these prophecies, these promises that were made in the centuries past. He’s bringing them about in this moment. He has brought these two women together in very unique and possible pregnancies, miraculous pregnancies–again, his power at work.

And yet he’s also working very personally to meet the needs of these women, to encourage them with his message, to speak through them by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes when I think about God’s power, I think of it in very big, grand, kind of general terms.

God is working out his sovereign plan in history.

God loves the world.

God is merciful to people.

But I can forget that God also works on a very intimate level. He wants me to bring my requests to him, no matter how big or small they are. Because when I start to think of God’s power just in big, general, distant terms, I can forget that he wants to know what’s going on in my life and in my heart.