The Blessing of Belief

Day 18 - Prophetic leaps of joy

“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. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, 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 is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” -Luke 1:39-45

(Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash)

Sometimes we just need to see something for ourselves. Has that ever happened in your life, when you heard about something that seemed so incredible that you needed to see it with your own eyes? I think this is what happened to Mary when the angel Gabriel visited her and told her such incredible things: that she would conceive and have a son, who would be the ‘Son of the Most High’ (Lk. 1:32) and also that her older relative Elizabeth was six months pregnant. Clearly Mary believed what Gabriel said, but I suspect that there was so much excitement about it all that she simply had to see it for herself. Gabriel didn’t tell Mary to go to visit Elizabeth, but seeing that Elizabeth was indeed pregnant would serve to strengthen her own faith in all that Gabriel had said would happen.

What I want to draw our attention to today is the theme of joy that we find in the promise of Jesus. As soon as Mary arrives and greets Elizabeth, the Holy Spirit bears dramatic witness to the significance of their meeting. Elizabeth is suddenly filled with the Spirit and begins to prophesy ‘in a loud voice’ that it is Mary who is the blessed one because of the child she will have. She calls her “the mother of my Lord”, which is astonishing because she acknowledged that Jesus would be Lord over both her and her own child. This example of ecstatic prophecy was likely a great surprise to both women, but it does not end there; the Spirit touches John in Elizabeth’s womb and he leaps for joy at the arrival of Mary. This fulfills what the angel Gabriel said to Zechariah that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb (Lk. 1:15). Mary herself is touched by the Spirit of prophecy and rejoices as she breaks forth in poetic song, which we looked at in Day 6 of this series.

When the angel appeared to the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus, he said “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he Christ the Lord.” (Lk. 2:10-11) The announcement of the first advent of Christ, the birth of Jesus is still a message of great joy for us, as we welcome the work of the Holy Spirt in our lives today. The same Spirit that anointed Elizabeth and Mary and filled John in the womb is able to touch us as well and make the announcement of Christ’s birth be for us a living word of great joy. My prayer is that we would have ears to hear this message and be filled with a deep and genuine joy through the Holy Spirit.