A BLESSED MOTHER

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

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 1:41-45

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Mary had to be left amazed and astonished at the words of Gabriel, not only that she would conceive by way of the Holy Spirit despite being a virgin but also that her relative, Elizabeth, well beyond child bearing age was six months pregnant herself.

It was this latter proclamation by the angel that served as the impetus for Mary to quickly journey to a town in the “hill country of Judea” where Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah lived. As Mary entered the couple’s home, a meeting of miracles was about to happen, one detailed in today’s scripture passage from the first chapter of Luke:

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!” Vv. 41-45

As one would do when they invite themselves into the home of someone who is family, Mary calls out for Elizabeth and as soon as her greeting was heard, two amazing things happened.

First, the baby who was to be named John, “leaped” in Elizabeth’s womb. This would have been more than just a kick that Elizabeth would have surely been accustomed to given the advanced stage of her child’s development. It’s beyond human comprehension but in some way it seems like the soon to be delivered baby knew God’s plan for salvation was being carried out perfectly and the day was coming when he would fulfill his destiny, the one predicted by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 40:3).

The other thing that happened immediately was that “Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit”. Just as Mary would have been unaware of the incredible pregnancy of Elizabeth so too would Elizabeth been totally unaware that Mary was even pregnant as she had just conceived and wouldn’t have started to show yet.

In what way did the Holy Spirit inform Elizabeth on what had happened to Mary?

We know He disclosed everything to her because of her words and elevated feelings of gratitude as she was the first woman to know that the Lord’s coming was imminent. Look again at her words here:

“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!”

The main takeaway from this is that Mary was a blessed mother to be. She was blessed among all women because God had chosen her above any other woman to deliver and raise His one and only Son, a Son who was also blessed as He began to develop and take form in the womb. Mary was additionally blessed because she received God’s offer by an uncompromising faith and complete submission, simply affirming herself as His willing servant (Luke 1:38) as she “believed that the Lord would fulfill His promises to her.”

Note here how blessed Elizabeth felt as well. She wondered aloud how the Lord would favor her so much that she would entertain the mother of her Lord before sharing with Mary how her baby had leaped inside her out of joy at the mere sound of her greeting.

What a special moment, shared by two mothers who were feeling richly blessed by a Lord who made the seemingly impossible possible. They remind us how we should always be mindful of all the marvelous and miraculous works that our Lord is doing every day in our lives and the lives of so many others.

This Christmas, let us feel blessed in simply knowing that God sent Jesus from Heaven to earth to rescue and deliver us from sure eternal damnation and Hell, not by way of some public celebration of the coming Messiah King, but through a quiet birth in a small and lowly Bethlehem manger, the Son of God coming to be the Savior of the world, born of a blessed mother named Mary.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.