Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today the church celebrates Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth. It is not usually worth celebrating a pregnant woman’s visit to another pregnant woman. But this visitation is worth remembering because neither of the pregnancies are usual. Mary, a young virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, had herself just been visited by the angel Gabriel. The angel told her that she would conceive a child in her womb—not in the natural way—but by the power of the Holy Spirit and give birth to a child who would be the Son of God. Gabriel told her, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:32-33). The angel Gabriel also told Mary that her cousin Elizabeth had also conceived a son in her old age and was six months into her pregnancy. Like Sarah and Abraham of old, Zacharias and Elizabeth were quite old and well past the age of bearing children. Yet she conceived in the natural way, but at an unnatural season of life. The angel Gabriel had told Zacharias that his wife would bear him a son, who would be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother’s womb. This child would be the forerunner of the Messiah, going before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord (Lk 1:17). After hearing of her cousin’s pregnancy and her own by the Holy Spirit, Mary went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. This is not just the visitation of two pregnant women. It is the visitation of the mother of God to the mother of the Messiah’s forerunner.
What happens at this visitation is also miraculous and worth remembering. Mary enters the house, greets her cousin, and at her greeting the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. The baby in her womb—far from being a lump of tissue or something lacking personhood—leaps. The angel’s words were true. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb (Lk 1:15) and is already joyfully announcing the Messiah, the Son of God, and he isn’t even born yet. His mother Elizabeth is at that same moment filled with the Holy Spirit so that she confesses, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” She confesses the child in Mary’s womb to be God Himself when she calls Mary “the mother of my Lord.” Mary is blessed—not as a co-redeemer with her son or as one who is to be invoked in prayer as Rome teaches—but as one who believes the word of God and says, “Let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). ““Blessed,” Elizabeth says, “is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.” Mary rightly bears the title “Mother of God” because of the union of the divine and human natures in the person of her Son. She is blessed among women since God chose her by grace to bear God in human flesh. Elizabeth, and the babe in her own womb, rejoice that the virgin has conceived and will bear a Son who will be called Immanuel, “God with us,” and that, while in the womb, He graciously visits them.
Then it’s Mary’s turn to speak. She sings first of God’s gracious work specifically to her. Though God chose her of all women to bear His Son and deliver Him into the world, she does not exalt herself. “My soul magnifies the Lord,” she says, “And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” She exalts the Lord for this great honor He has bestowed on her by grace alone. She rejoices in God who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe (1 Tim 4:10). She includes herself in that number, calling God “my Savior,” for she needs salvation from sin just as much as anyone of Adam and Eve’s fallen race, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). She praises God that He regarded her low estate and sinfulness all generations will call her blessed. We call her blessed for this reason, that she conceived and bore the Son of God in human flesh, the Seed promised to Adam and Eve after they fell into sin. Irenaeus makes the connection: “The knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith” (AH 3.22.4). All generations call her Blessed for this reason, nothing less and nothing more.
Then Mary turns her song toward the work of God that we see all throughout the Scripture and human history, His work for all people. “His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation.” Mercy is God’s chief work. He is merciful to all people in that He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matt 5:45). But God has a special mercy for those who fear Him, that is, for those who fear His judgment so they daily repent of their sins and trust His promised mercy. He is merciful to those who, having received the mercy of His forgiveness, fight against temptation and their own flesh, not wanting to sin and incur His wrath any more, and walk in His ways so that they do not sin. This special mercy God has for those who believe in Him is from generation to generation. It is perpetual throughout every generation of this world.
Not so the proud and mighty of this world, those who do not think they need God’s mercy. To them He shows strength with His arm. He opposes them in this life. He lets them succeed in the things of this life, amassing wealth, honor, power, and the like, but only for a time. Since they set their hearts of their wealth, honor, power, and prestige, God will eventually scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He puts down the mighty from their thrones. Pharaoh purses Israel to the Red Sea with all his might. But God scatters the corpses of his army in the Red Sea after His people pass through on dry ground to safety. Assyria puffs itself up against Judah and comes moments away from capturing Jerusalem until “the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses — all dead” ( 2 Kings 19:35). And so it happens continually throughout Scripture and human history, that the proud eventually fall to God’s judgment and the mighty are put down from their thrones. In doing so the Lord exalts the lowly—those who are humble before God—and fills the hungry—those who hunger and thirst for righteousness—with good things while the rich are sent away empty. Mary is a microcosm of this. She is poor and lowly, a maidservant, nothing in the eyes of the world. Yet God in His wisdom does not choose a queen or noblewoman to be the mother of God, but exalts her. Her song teaches us to fear God, so that His mercy may be upon us and to remain humble as well, knowing that God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).
This part of her song ends as it began—with God’s mercy. “He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.” God helped Israel by remembering the promise of His mercy. His promised mercy was to send the Christ, for He is the One whom God promised to Abraham and His seed. His promised mercy is the Christ, the Son of God who would die for the sins of the entire world and make perfect atonement for them, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16). His promised mercy is in the very room in which Mary sings her song. God’s promised mercy is in Mary’s very womb. That is what makes this visitation worth remembering, commemorating, and meditating upon. For we see in Mary an example of faith. She hears God’s word and believes it without wavering. Mary’s faith with which she replied to the angel Gabriel, “Let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), if faith which hears God’s promise and in spite of everything else says, “This is most certainly true.” In this Mary is an example for us of true blessedness. While it is true that all generations will call her blessed as the Mother of God, and this title only applies to her throughout all human history, we are blessed more than that! In Luke 11 when a woman from the crowd cried out, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!” Jesus responds, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:27-28). Mary is blessed among women. But more than that, blessed are you who hear God’s word and keep it as she heard God’s word and kept it. This is true blessedness. Not wealth, honor, power, and prestige, and all the things the proud and mighty pursue. True blessedness is faith in God’s promise, because by faith we receive everything He wants us to have, everything the child in Mary’s womb wins for us, beginning with forgiveness of every sin and the Holy Spirit to live new lives, culminating in the bliss of everlasting life. Remember the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth and the great works of God He does for those women and through the sons they bore by God’s grace. Amen.
The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
