Luke wants us to understand that in the days that Mary received the angel’s message she went immediately to see her cousin. What kind of visitation did Mary and Elizabeth experience? Many things happen in this short passage. The angel practically extends the invitation for Mary to go see Elizabeth. This meeting by these two women is a providential coming together. In this meeting, or as it’s been called by the church through the centuries, “The Visitation,” we see the meeting of the Old Covenant with the New Covenant. Not only do we see Mary and Elizabeth coming together for fellowship and comfort but we see our Lord and John the Baptist meeting for the first time even before they’re born. It is an amazing prophetic, Holy Spirit empowered declaration that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. It’s more than a meeting to discuss the issues of pregnancy. This meeting of these two expectant women is more than a meeting to speak to each other about babies kicking and moving about. In this text of Scripture we have an amazing event taking place. In both cases the angel Gabriel came to make the announcement. Elizabeth, chosen to be the mother of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Messiah, and Mary, chosen to be the mother of Messiah, the Son of God. And it all begins with these two amazing conceptions. Nobody has heard from an angel or even from God in well over 400 years. There hasn't been a miracle in over 400 years there hasn't been a series of miracles in at least 500 years. And at that point God has injected Himself miraculously into the otherwise non-miraculous source of life. The whole miraculous coming of Christ begins with these two conception miracles. Introduction: These two conception miracles, these two miracles in the womb of two women launch the whole series of messianic miracles. Let us turn to Luke 1 and catch up with the narrative. Their conversation is no gossip but spirit-filled … Their meeting is nothing out of the ordinary. In today’s passage you will see the impactful visitation and meeting of two prophetically conceived women. I always desired to reach that level of worshiper of God. I have never seen anyone worship un-inhibit-idly like her. She was one who really knew how to worship God in Spirit and in Truth. Her innocent presence and demeanor swept my heart away. Their daughter who was around 7-8 years old and was diagnosed with down-syndrome taught me how to worship God. Whenever this family we knew in the Middle East visited us, brought joy and impacted our lives. The glory of God is everywhere and just, very occasionally, we see it in one another – but one day it will be all there is.Opening illustration: Think about which person/people’s visit to your home or life have impacted you immensely. ( Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 158) This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God within us….it is in everybody…if we could see it… I have no programme for this seeing. We can perhaps universalise this in the words of Thomas Merton:Īt the centre of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. And so, because two holy handmaids are receptive to the Lord, John the Baptist recognises Jesus in the womb of Mary and kicks for joy. This awareness has to begin somewhere and it begins best in those most dispossessed of self in the sense of being ‘poor in spirit’, pictured here as the lowly, the hungry, those considered least in the kingdom. People of Zion, all people, sing and shout for joyįor great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel. God’s presence in Israel is God’s presence to us all: God is in our midst, like a child in a womb – and this is God’s child in all of us. The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, 31st May 2021
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