Merry Christmas! Welcome to church on Tuesday 5:30-7 pm for a special Food bank/Soup Sisters, and on Christmas Eve (Thursday) at 6 pm for a special candlelight service.
Message by guest speaker Suzanne Wall
Christmas Love — Luke 1:39-45
The Bible passage for today from Luke describes an event that happened before Jesus was born, when Mary went to visit her relative Elizabeth. At first glance, our passage is not one of the exciting parts of the Christmas story.
On the surface, here’s all that happens: 1. Mary hurried to Elizabeth’s house. 2. Mary arrived at the house and said hello. 3. Elizabeth answered with a welcome. And that’s it, that’s whole passage. No stars, no angels. This scene rarely makes it on to Christmas cards, and if it does, there’s nothing to show except two women giving each other a hug.
But at closer look, this passage shows heaven and earth coming together, like in other parts of the Christmas story. God’s Holy Spirit shows up, and a message from heaven gets delivered. And this happens through people just having a visit at home.
I’ll start by introducing the characters in the passage, then read it, then comment on a few points. And finally conclude by considering what this story has to do with “love,” which is the theme for today.
Today’s story has five characters: two women, their unborn babies, and the Holy Spirit.
Let’s start with Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John. Elizabeth was from a family of priests and also married to a priest. She’d lived a good long life, but struggled with infertility. But six months earlier, her husband had gotten a surprise visit from an angel, who announced that Elizabeth was going to give birth. The angel elaborated that the child should be called John, that he’d be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth, and that he’d go before the Lord, bringing people back to God and preparing the way for the Lord. Zechariah could hardly believe it, considering how old he and Elizabeth were. But Elizabeth happily accepted the news as an answer to prayer. She became pregnant, hunkered down at home.
As for John, you got introduced to him as an adult in the last couple weeks by David and Dave, who talked about John’s powerful sermons. At the time of our story, John really couldn’t really do anything yet except bounce around in his mother’s womb. But even with that limited skill set, he gets a part.
Another invisible but important character is the Holy Spirit. Every time I do a sermon I run into a word that makes me think “wait a minute, I think I know what this means but what does it mean.” And this time it was “Holy Spirit” that had me running back to the dictionary and Google and Bible key word search.
Basically, the Holy Spirit is God in action as a spirit. I reviewed the passages in Luke and Acts that mention the Holy Spirit, and two things stood out to me.
One is that if a sentence in the Bible starts with “they were filled with the Holy Spirit,” that sentence is probably going to end with “and they spoke.” I see that the Holy Spirit is what gives people the power to carry messages from God.
Another fact about the Holy Spirit – it’s transmissible, kind of like a virus going from one person to another. The book of Acts talks about how the Holy Spirit came down from heaven in Jerusalem on Pentecost, then it got to the believers in Samaria when John touched them, to people in Caesarea from hearing Peter speak, to Paul when Ananias touched him, to people in Ephesus when Paul touched them. Watch for that kind of chain reaction through voice and touch in our passage today.
And now to Mary. She was related to Elizabeth, but they didn’t live very close to each other. I looked up their villages on Google Maps and asked for walking directions, and Google told me it’s a 30-hour walk from Nazareth to Ein Karem. So I’m pretty impressed that Mary made that journey in a hurry, as the passage says.
Anyway Mary was young, engaged to a carpenter but not married yet, and she set off in a hurry to see Elizabeth after getting a surprise visit from an angel. The passage right before ours tells how the angel Gabriel appeared to her and said “Greetings, you who are highly favored, the Lord is with you!” And Mary’s response “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.”
The angel went on to basically tell Mary: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to give birth to a son who will be called Jesus and Son of the Most High and have a kingdom that will never end.
That was quite a mission. Mary asked for a clarification: where is this baby going to come from? The angel explained that the pregnancy would be a miracle, and then offered a sign, saying that Elizabeth, her relative, was right now in the middle of a miracle pregnancy. Mary answered by accepting the mission offered to her. Then the angel departed, and there was Mary left in Nazareth figuring how to deal with the news.
And what she did next is our passage for today, Luke 1:39-45.
39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
45 Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
Let’s go back to the top, at verse 39-40.
At that time, right after the angel Gabriel’s visit, Mary hurried to where Elizabeth lived, following up on the sign the angel had mentioned to her. When she arrived, Mary entered the house, and gave a greeting.
I can’t help wondering on that 30-hour walk, how much time Mary spent thinking, I wonder how I’m going to tell Elizabeth, “I’m pregnant.” But it turned out Mary hardly had to say anything. She just arrived and said hello, and the Holy Spirit took it from there. Here comes one of those chain reaction moments.
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Note who shows up in the middle of this transmission, between Mary and Elizabeth: Baby John. Remember about the prophecy that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born. Here we see how that could look. As a fetus, John had no way to communicate at that point except to bounce, but bounce he did. In fact, being as loud as he could about it, he leaped. His mother felt that, and understood a message. Elizabeth in turn was filled with the Holy Spirit and passed on a message to Mary. Like-mother-like-son, she turned up the volume too.
42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
The Bible notes tell me that Elizabeth uses a special word for “blessed” that only shows up twice in the Bible, here and on Palm Sunday, basically means “honored.” Elizabeth prophesied that Mary and her child would be blessed in the sense that people would praise them. Mary might well have worried about how people were going to react to her mysterious pregnancy, but here’s Elizabeth encouraging her that she’ll have honor from other women, and her child will be honored.
Then Elizabeth speaks for herself, talking about how favored she feels by Mary’s visit, talking about the joyful message she felt from John. Elizabeth becomes the first human to call Jesus Lord, which is a word that means “Master” and can also refer to God. And Elizabeth talks about how much happiness Mary must get from believing that God’s promises would come true.
There are a few tip-offs that these aren’t just Elizabeth’s words, but a prophecy, meaning a message from God. We know that Luke recognized this as prophecy, because he introduced it with those key words “filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Then there’s the point that that humanly speaking, Elizabeth had no way to know yet what Mary believed, that Mary was even pregnant, that Mary’s baby would be her Lord, or that people would end up blessing them.
And finally, Elizabeth’s words repeat same message that the angel had delivered back in Nazareth. The angel had told Mary how favored she was and how important her child would be. Mary had accepted that message, but also felt troubled and wondered at the angel’s words. And now here’s her friendly relative Elizabeth saying the very same thing, the minute Mary walks in her door: blessed are you and blessed is the child you will bear. Imagine what a confirmation that must have been.
Elizabeth’s words came from God through the Holy Spirit. At the same time, it’s a human message, with no wings or halos or anything involved. God could’ve just had the angel Gabriel blast down from heaven and say everything that needed to be said, end of story. But that’s not how it happened; God spoke through Elizabeth too. I can imagine how much it meant to Mary to hear the message through another person, her family member, a respected older woman, someone who could understand what she was going through and share the experience.
And we know, because Elizabeth says so, how much it meant to her and John to have Mary visit. There’s a whole other sermon her that focuses on Mary, and how significant it was that she came and literally brought Jesus to Elizabeth and John.
Mary went on to stay with Elizabeth for the next three months. That meant Elizabeth helped Mary through the first months of her pregnancy with Jesus, and Mary helped Elizabeth through the last months of her pregnancy with John. It would be tough to say who blessed who more during that time. If asked, I bet each of them would answer “she did.”
Which brings us back to the topic of love. I’m going to read a few verses from Romans 12, from a section called “Love in Action.” Here’s how love looks in everyday life.
Romans 12:10-13
10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Words that here that especially apply to Elizabeth: “honor one another above yourselves” and “practice hospitality.” She did that when she rushed to welcome and praise and encourage young Mary at the very start of her mission, and then opened her home.
I see that happening at First Baptist, too. I’m thinking about Connie and Junie who are back in the kitchen right now pulling turkeys and hams out of the oven, so we can go experience some love in action after the service. I’m thinking about Food bank and Soup Sisters and the backpacks and Christmas families, and all the ways to honor the Lord’s people who are in need. And I’m thinking about the Board election we’re about to have, and opportunities to encourage people who are taking on tough commissions.
When you look at someone who’s facing a difficult task and say “this is going to turn out great, everyone’s going to bless you for this, and I’ll stand by to help,” that’s love. Especially if when it’s an Elizabeth/Mary situation, where it’s an experienced older person who’s encouraging someone just getting started. And especially when it’s not just nice words off the top of the head, but something the Holy Spirit prompted to say.
It makes me think of that song “And they’ll know we are Christians.” One of the verses goes:
We will work with each other, we will work side by side;
And we’ll guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride.
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love
Elizabeth did that, and we can too.
I’m going to close with one more passage about love from 1st John that talks about how love makes a connection between God and us.
This passage is about Christmas and love at the same time, because in a way Christmas and love are about the same thing: heaven and earth coming together.
Christmas is God coming to live among us. Love is God reaching out to us, and our way to reach back.
1 John 4:9-12
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.