A MEETING OF MIRACLES

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In Christ, Mark

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

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.

Luke 1:39-40

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

It was a meeting of two women who were very different and yet had other things in common.

Elizabeth and Mary were both Jewish and related to one another, although the Bible doesn’t clearly define that familial connection. We do know that Elizabeth was a descendant of the line of Aaron (Luke 1:5) while we know Mary was in the line of David (Matthew 1:16) but we’re given no further background information regarding their parents and how there was a genealogical linkage. Speculation is that Elizabeth and Mary were cousins.

Another commonality between these two women was that they were pregnant and miraculously so in different ways.

Elizabeth was old and well beyond child bearing age but we know God made the way for her to have sexual relations with her husband Zechariah and conceive. As the angel Gabriel had promised, she would give birth to a son who would “be great in the sight of the Lord” as he went “before the Lord” in spirit and power “to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous” while making “a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:11-17). His name was to be John.

On the other hand, Mary was a virgin and betrothed to a Nazarene Jew named Joseph. She had never had sexual relations with a man and yet was pregnant as she visited Elizabeth while carrying the very Son of God after conceiving through the power of the Holy Spirit. We don’t know the exact town where Zechariah and Elizabeth lived but we know it was “in the hill country of Judea” so given that, it’s believed Mary’s journey to see her relative was around 80 miles or so, nearly the same distance she would travel to Bethlehem almost nine months later.

As Mary arrives to see Elizabeth, a blessed meeting of miracles occurs. Mary is well aware of her relative’s pregnancy, now through the second trimester, but note Elizabeth has no prior knowledge of what has happened to Mary. Gabriel had offered no heads up to her but as we will see in tomorrow’s message, the Holy Spirit was about to send a wonderful notification that would further bless this get together, a get together ordained by God as a part of His wonderful plan to bring His Son into the world.

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.