In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.
Luke 1:26-27 New International Version (NIV)
The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Luke 1:28-33 (NIV)
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
Luke 22:42 (NIV)
“How can this be,” Mary asked the angel, “Since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
Luke 1:34-37 (NIV)
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD.
For no word from God will ever fail.
Luke 1:37
Where is it in your life that God brought about a possibility that at first seemed unbelievable?
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Luke 1:38 (NIV)
In a loud voice she [Elizabeth] 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 1:42-45 (NIV)
My soul, my soul magnifies the Lord
My soul magnifies the Lord
He has done great things for me
Great things for me
My Soul Magnifies the Lord, Tomlin & Carson
M. Craig Barnes. An Extravagant Mercy (p. 63)
They made an interesting pair. Elizabeth was “getting on in years” when she became pregnant with a boy who would become John the Baptist, her first pregnancy after many years of trying to have a child with her husband. By contrast, her young cousin Mary assumed she would need to have a husband before she started having babies. So it was too late for Elizabeth to have a child and too early for Mary. Unless, of course, you are God, in which case these pregnancies make perfect sense. [When Mary learned of Elizabeth’s pregnancy and went to her home] they formed the first community of Christ because they were two people gathered in his name (three, if you count John, who leaped up in Elizabeth’s womb because he was so excited about the coming Savior). Years later, Jesus would say that whenever two or three were gathered in his name, he would always be in their midst. To this day, whenever the community of Christ gathers, it is a community of interrupted lives. Some of us, like Elizabeth, have discovered life isn’t what we had settled for. Others, like Mary, have discovered life isn’t what we had hoped for. All of us have discovered that when a Savior is in our midst, life isn’t limited by our despair or our hopes.