Amen. So Luke chapter one, and we're going to get to verse 39 here in a minute, 39 to 45. But as far as the immediate context of this passage, Luke is continuing the historical narrative about the circumstances of Jesus' conception and birth. And you might be thinking to yourself, wait a second, Dave, We're approaching Easter. This isn't Christmas time. Why are you preaching from this passage? And hopefully it'll make sense to you here in a little bit, but Luke is reporting details. that had been shared with him, most likely by Mary, but probably by others as well, and he made it clear at the beginning of his gospel that what he is writing was based on the fact that he had followed this history very closely himself. He had evidently done careful research, and the Lord inspired him to record it, not only for someone named Theophilus, we don't really know who Theophilus was, But for all of us as well, according to chapter 1 verses 1 through 4. Luke has reported that the angel Gabriel had appeared to Zacharias as he was performing the duties of the high priest in the temple. Gabriel told Zacharias that he and Elizabeth would have a son. Zacharias doubted, so Gabriel gave him a gift, the gift of being without speech as a sign that this was really going to happen, and as a reminder that it is never a good idea to doubt the word of God, right? And about six months later, Gabriel appeared to Mary and informed her that she was going to have a miraculous baby. Miraculous because Mary was not yet living with a husband and for an unmarried woman who was a virgin to conceive would be, of course, miraculous. The difference between Zacharias' response and Mary's response is instructive. Zacharias asked, how can I know this? He wanted some kind of proof, as if Gabriel's presence was not enough. Hey, you know what? If an angel from God shows up and tells you that something's going to happen, that's probably good enough, right? Or it should be. But he said, well, how can I know this? Mary simply asked, how can this be? She didn't doubt it. She just didn't understand it. And that was the difference. She was just curious because the ability to conceive a child without engaging in marital intimacy was obviously unheard of. In both cases, Gabriel gave appropriate responses. Zacharias doubted, so the angel gave him the gracious sign of a temporary disability. Mary asked how, and Gabriel gave her an explanation. I'm afraid I'm probably more inclined to be like Zacharias, though I want to be like Mary. But I'm inclined to want the proof when God asks me to just trust when I cannot see. Gabriel also told Mary that Elizabeth, her relative, King James' cousin, but it's cousin in the sense of kinsmen or relatives, so I'm not sure that we know exactly what that relationship was. But Elizabeth, who had been barren, had conceived and was now six months pregnant. And this is where we pick up their narrative, verses 39 and following. And Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste. into a city of Judah, and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth." Now that wasn't like this, right? You know, like, we think of saluting today like that, but it just was a greeting, right? She greeted her. And... And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she spake out with a loud voice and said, blessed are you among women, speaking to Mary, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation or greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. Mary was so excited after receiving this revelation from the Lord through Gabriel that she left for Judah as fast as she could to see Elizabeth. The word for haste in the text here also includes the idea of eagerness, kind of like the shepherds who went with haste. or eagerness to see the thing that the Lord had made known to them by the angels a little later in Luke chapter two, we read about that. For Mary, this trip would have been a journey of about five days, give or take, leaving from Nazareth in the north and traveling to Judah in the south, 60 to 80 miles. I'm guessing that today the trip could probably be made in an hour or so by car. As I thought about the events in this passage, lots of questions came to my mind. Was Mary hesitant to share with Joseph that Gabriel had visited her and told her she was to have a son by supernatural conception? That would have been an interesting conversation, to say the least, wouldn't it? Was she, and I'm not saying that she had that conversation, Was she hesitant to share with Joseph? I suspect maybe she was, given the fact that it was probably not something she could totally explain. Was she concerned about her older relative, Elizabeth, being pregnant at an advanced age? Is that one of the reasons she was in a hurry to go see Elizabeth? Was she mostly just eager to see for herself what Gabriel had told her about? Who wouldn't want to see it, right? Hearing good news is one thing, but we all like seeing things firsthand, right? Did she want to talk with Elizabeth about her own miraculous pregnancy? Maybe all of these things were going through her mind. And then I find myself wondering, did Mary travel by herself? You know, that was a long trip for a young woman to take. Did she take food to eat along the way, or did she buy what she needed each day? You know, there wasn't a quick trip, you know, around every bend, right, like there is here in Wisconsin. We have three of them just in Watertown, right? No cook trips, no 7-Elevens, no stop-and-go's or whatever. And then I thought, was there some kind of a caravan traveling regularly between Nazareth and Judah that she could travel with? I don't know. I don't know. And then I thought, well, where did she stay at night? Because this was not a one-day trip. So where did she spend her evenings along the way? You know, there was no hotwire.com or Trivago back then for her to arrange lodging ahead of time. So, you know, I don't know what the custom was. And then, you know, I wondered, did she walk the whole distance or did she have an animal to ride on, like a donkey, or to at least carry some belongings? Can you imagine making a 60 or 80 mile, you know, a 60 to 80 mile trip on foot You know, carrying your suitcase all the way, that would have been challenging. Suitcase, satchel, whatever it was she carried. She must have carried some clothes or something, right? I mean, you had to carry something with you. And then here I wondered, what did she tell her family about where she was going and why? And what responsibilities had to be covered by someone else in her absence? And what, if anything, did she say to Joseph before leaving? Hey Joe, I'm on my way to Judah, love you, not sure how long, I'll be gone, see you when I get back, bye. I don't know, it's like, I mean, she's gone for three months. It's not like she could send a telegram. It's not like she could take her cell phone out and say, hey, this is where I'm at tonight. I'll check in in the morning. It was just a different day and age, right? I don't go anywhere without this stupid thing, right? And I used to. Believe it or not, for you younger people, there was a day and age before there were cell phones. And I lived through that day and age part of it. And now we don't even think about going anywhere without them. Did she just leave a note on a scrap of papyrus and stick it on the front of the refrigerator telling her parents and Joseph where she was going? I don't know. So surely she let her family know where she was headed. Maybe since she was headed to see family, maybe making a trip like this wasn't that unusual. I think we can assume that she had visited Zacharias and Elizabeth's home in the past, possibly even once a year if her family traveled regularly to celebrate the annual feast of the Passover in Jerusalem. But we don't know these details. And then I thought about this. Can you imagine your relative, Mary, shows up at Zacharias and Elizabeth's house and says, hey, guys. Good to see you. I'll just plan on sticking around for a while. Not sure how long. Three months, right? When was the last time you had somebody come to your house who wasn't a renter and stuck around for three months? You know? And then, here's the thing, just when Elizabeth, she is due, right? Because it's been six months. When Mary gets the announcement, Mary heads down there, stays for three months. Elizabeth's due, and Mary up and leaves. And she's been there for three months, and now she bugs out when Elizabeth could probably use some help. And it's like, You know, I wonder what Elizabeth thought about that, you know? So, you know, and why did Mary leave at that point? Well, by now, you know, she probably didn't want to be a distraction. She's probably starting to show, right? And she probably knows that if she sticks around much longer, she's going to start raising questions, because she's not married. She's betrothed, but she's not married. And maybe she wasn't quite prepared to deal with questions from those folks in the area where Zacharias and Elizabeth were living. So I'm guessing Mary would have liked to stay and help with baby John, but by now she's three months pregnant. She's got this long trip back to Nazareth and probably didn't think it would be wise to hang around longer and then travel when she's even further along in her own So lots of questions that we might wonder about, right? Lots of questions. And while we can think of a lot of questions we would like to have answers to in order to satisfy our curiosity, God didn't give us his word just to satisfy our curiosity. So we need to focus on what we should learn from what he has revealed to us. And I think there are at least five important lessons for us to take from this passage. Because the central truth of this passage is the blessing of Mary's pregnancy, we'll save that one for last. So the first lesson I think we see here is that Mary was a person of faith and action, and I love that combination, right? Faith and action. Having been the recipient of Gabriel's messages, or message rather, and hearing that Elizabeth is also pregnant, she takes action. She wants to see for herself what God is doing. I don't know how common it was for a young woman to make a trip like Mary made, but that took a measure of faith too, to trust that God would take care of her on this journey. I find in my own life that it's a lot easier to talk about faith than it is to actually exercise it. I suspect that may be true for all of us, It is a lot easier to talk about faith than to actually exercise it. But I'm challenged by Mary's faith. She literally, literally put feet to her faith, right? She went to see Elizabeth. And then when she left Elizabeth to go back home, she had to exercise faith that God would get her through the challenges of being pregnant, even though she was not yet living with Joseph as husband and wife. You have got to, I mean, we have got to know that she had to be thinking about this. She's pregnant, and she's not married, and she's going back, and people are gonna know, and you know what people do. They talk, right? Same thing today as it was back then, or back then as it was today, as it is today, right? And we know that there was talk, because at one point in Jesus' ministry, the Pharisees said to him, we be not born of fornication. So you know that there had been talk, and she had to know that, and I'm sure she is thinking about this, and how are we gonna do this, and how is God gonna work all this out? And because it would be clear that the circumstances of Jesus Conception were not typical, right? So Mary needed faith to trust God to get her through these circumstances. But worse, worse than the inevitable gossip that she had to know she was going to face was the fact that she was going to have to face Joseph. So remember, Joseph still didn't know about this. He did not know that Gabriel had appeared to Mary and God had not yet spoken to Joseph. So that evidently did not happen until after Joseph became aware that Mary was pregnant. And can you imagine what that was like for Joseph? Here's the woman who is his betrothed wife who shows up pregnant. Joseph knows he is not the father. So there's only one other alternative, right? I mean, that's what Joseph is thinking. That's what any of us would be thinking. And here we wonder again, did Mary tell him about Gabriel's visit and explain that she had conceived a child as a result of God's supernatural activity? How inclined would anyone be to believe that story? Right? I mean, stop and think about it. You know, I have to think that Mary is telling Joseph this, and he is just beside himself for two reasons. First of all, she's pregnant, and it's not his child. And secondly, she's making this story up to explain it. And it's like, you've got to be kidding me. Talk about adding insult to injury. I can only imagine that that was going through his mind. At that point, it was critically important that God communicate to Joseph and assure him of Mary's faithfulness and trustworthiness. And in the meantime, Mary had to trust God that God knew what he was doing and would make everything turn out okay, which it did because God himself is faithful and trustworthy. So there is a blessing for believing God Even as Elizabeth remarks at the end of this passage, Mary was blessed with faith that God had worked in her, and she was blessed for acting on that same faith. So we need to also be people of faith. We need to be people who trust the Lord even when we cannot fully understand what is happening or why. We need to be people whose faith can be seen in our actions, right? The second lesson I see is the prominent role that women play in God's activity in the world. Clearly in this passage, women are prominent. Mary is the mother of Jesus, who's the savior of the world. Elizabeth is the mother of John, who was to go before Jesus and announce his coming and his identity. God did not choose just anyone for these roles. These were special women who loved God and were committed to living for him and serving him. And notice that upon Mary's arrival, Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit, and makes a loud proclamation recognizing that Mary's child was her, Elizabeth's, Lord, echoing Psalm 110 verse one. So women are special and men are special. We're just special in different ways. Don't resent that, right? Rejoice in it. And let's not get distracted by the culture. The culture is wrong about how it views men and women. In a lot of ways it's wrong, But don't let the culture squeeze you into its mold. If God made you a woman, rejoice in that reality, thank God for it, and serve God in all the ways that you rightly can and for which God has gifted you. I am what would be known in evangelical and Bible-believing circles today as a complementarian. That just means, while I believe men and women equally bear the image of God and stand on an equal plane before God, that nonetheless, men and women are different and that these differences are complementary. That is, they serve in completing roles, not competing roles. Okay? Completing roles, not competing roles. So I believe that biblically speaking, a man is to be the head of the family and he's ultimately responsible for the direction of the family and provision for the family. But that doesn't mean he should ignore the input and insight and wisdom and counsel of his wife. Likewise in ministry, I think there are roles for women to play in ministry, but I don't believe women are called to serve in pastoral capacities. Nonetheless, the role that women play in the church, in the family, and in life in general is critically important. We need to recognize that and appreciate that. Women are valuable to God and stand on equal footing to men before God. And I think that's a biblical view of men and women. And then a third lesson I see is the importance of humility. We saw it first in Mary's response to Gabriel when she said, behold the handmaid of the Lord. That word translated handmaid could be translated bond slave. That is what the word signified, someone who was a slave, someone whose life was totally controlled by someone else. We see that same kind of humility in Elizabeth. She is Mary's elder by many years, and not just her elder, but an older relative, and one who is also pregnant with a special child. Yet she expresses humility in the presence of Mary, the mother of the coming Messiah. I suspect that Elizabeth had, for the last six months reflected on God's goodness and grace to her and Zachariah. Every day Elizabeth wakes up and she's thinking to herself, I'm gonna have a baby. And there's just no way, humanly speaking, that that should be happening. And here I am, and I look down and I can see, I'm saying Elizabeth, right, not me. I might look like I'm having a baby, I'm not. But she could look down and see the baby bump. And maybe by that time, she's feeling John moving around, which has got to be an incredible thing. As a man, I could only view and sometimes feel my boys before they were born moving around in there. What an incredible, awesome thing that must be. But here she is, reflecting on God's goodness and grace to her. And then Mary shows up at her door, pregnant with the Messiah, and Elizabeth is appropriately humble in their presence, the presence of Mary and the unborn child, Jesus. Elizabeth clearly believed and understood that she was not special, that God owed her nothing, that she deserved nothing, least of all a visit from Mary. and her unborn child, Elizabeth's Lord. You know, and I think about that and I say, well, may God help all of us to be truly humble, right? To recognize that the gift of the Savior is a gift that we are utterly unworthy and undeserving of, and may biblical humility control all of our attitudes and thinking, all of our responses and expectations. And then a fourth lesson I see here is a reminder that God keeps his word. As Elizabeth said to Mary, there shall be a performance of those things which are told her from the Lord. God always keeps his word. He always keeps his promises. God may not do things the way we think he should. In fact, he rarely, if ever, does things the way we think he should. And he may not do things the way that we would like him to do. And he may not do things for us as quickly as we would like him to, but he always keeps his word. He always is working all things together for good. He always is working for our good and his glory. He always does what is right and what is best. He always keeps his promises. He is faithful. He is trustworthy. He will perform what he says he is going to do. Neither Mary nor Elizabeth fully understood what God was going to do and how he was going to do it when Elizabeth spoke these words, but God performed all that he had promised relative to sending a Messiah, a Savior. You know, I don't know what tomorrow holds for myself or any of us, but I know who holds tomorrow. I may not like what tomorrow holds. In fact, like probably most of you, There have been some tomorrows where I, in fact, did not at all like what the day held. And I may not want what tomorrow holds, but no matter what the future holds, we can rest assured that God will perform what he has promised. And here's the thing. When God does what he has committed himself to do, it's always so much better than anything we could imagine or think because he's a good God. And then the fifth and final lesson I want us to consider tonight is the value of unborn human life. Consider Elizabeth's remark to Mary, blessed is the fruit of your womb. I believe we could make a statement like that about every pregnancy. Every pregnancy is God's vote for life. I believe that God rejoices at the existence of every human life, regardless of the circumstances that brought that life into being. Children are our heritage from the Lord, Psalm 127, verse three. They are his gift to us, his blessing to us. Every human life is precious, is sacred, because every human being bears the image of God. That is the theological Latin phrase for that is the imago dei, the image of God. We live in a day and age, friends, and in a culture that is devaluing human life. Our culture treats people as objects, not as beings who bear the image of God, who as such deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. I submit to you that because we have lost As a society, as a culture, we have lost sight of the fact that human beings are image bearers, and that because of that, we think that we can do with our lives and with others' lives as we will, and we have gotten way off the rails. I would suggest to you that the problem with racism finds its roots right here. You know what? Every human being is an image bearer and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. But we have taken it on ourselves to decide whether or not an unborn human being gets to live in our country. The Supreme Court declared abortion to be a constitutional right, even though you can read the US Constitution very carefully and you won't find anything in it about abortion because it isn't there. May I say to you that abortion is not the unpardonable sin. But may I also say to you as kindly as I know how, that it is nevertheless a sin. but that God in his boundless love and mercy can and will forgive a person of it if they turn to him in repentance and faith. But how much better for us to recognize and understand and determine in our hearts and minds that God puts a premium on human life because every life is the life of an image bearer. The act of abortion should never even be a consideration for a child of God. We ought to be promoters of and supporters of all things that promote life. That's another message in its own right, probably a series of messages, but let me just remind all of us about some of the basic facts of human development. This is science, by the way, right? And we've been reminded in the last year or two, you know, believe the science, right? Well, okay, let's talk about the science. Let's talk about these objective facts. When conception occurs, a unique, that is, one-of-a-kind person comes into existence. This person has a unique genetic identity that never existed before and will never exist again. This individual, and this was true for every one of us sitting here today as well, started life smaller than a period on the printed page. When you look at me now, I know it's hard to imagine I was once as small as a tiny dot on a printed page, but it's the truth. It's a scientific fact. As soon as conception occurs, the new single cell begins dividing. During the first week following conception, this new life implants in the mother's womb on the wall of the uterus, and it is possible even at this point in time, to determine if the baby is a boy or a girl. And by the way, those are the only two options. By design, by creation. By day 18, just two and a half weeks, okay, day 18, the heart is forming. And by day 24, three weeks after conception, the heart is beating. and we're just a little over three weeks into the pregnancy. I think very often a woman doesn't even know yet that she's pregnant and yet the child has a beating heart. By day 40, the heart's energy output is 20% of the adult output. By day 42, the skeleton is formed and by day 43, brain waves can be recorded. At seven weeks, just 49 days, The lips are already sensitive to touch, and the ears may be taking on the family shape. Did you ever think about that? Ears kind of have a family shape. In fact, they can use ear prints to identify individuals, just like you use fingerprints. At eight weeks, just two months in, the unborn child is well proportioned, about three centimeters long. That's about an inch and a quarter. and weighs about a gram. Every organ is present and several of them are functioning at eight weeks, two months. At eight and a half weeks, the fingerprints are forming and they're unique and will never change. The eyelids and palms of the hand are sensitive to touch. At 10 weeks, just two and a half months, the entire body is sensitive to touch. This is all before the completion of that period of time that this thing we call the first trimester. So let's not kid ourselves or pretend to not know what we know. As a country, what we have sanctioned is the unlimited taking of the lives of pre-born humans. It is a scourge and we need to pray and work for its end. By the way, did you notice that when Mary greeted Elizabeth, Elizabeth says that the baby leaped in my womb for joy. I imagine that what the unborn John did was the equivalent of jumping for joy, right? Except you can't really jump in utero, but how else would you describe what he did? Here's the first instance of John acting as the forerunner of Messiah. He leaped for joy. He leaped for joy in the presence of the Messiah, who in his humanity was still, in the very earliest stages of his life. Think about that. The implication is clear. Not only was the six-month-old pre-born John a person who could experience and express emotion, but he also recognized the pre-born embryonic Jesus as a person worthy of recognition. And not just recognition, but exuberant recognition. He leaped for joy. You know, do you ever see anybody at a ball game leap for joy? Somebody scored, and you leap for joy, or the game was won. It was a nail-biter game, and your team won, and you leaped for joy. I've seen it happen hundreds, thousands of times, probably. In the big scheme of things, winning a ball game is insignificant. But here was something truly worth jumping for joy about. The Messiah had come. He was there, safely inside his mother, and when he was brought into the room where John was, also inside his mother, John leaped for joy. When you consider the significance of Jesus' coming, the love he demonstrated for us, The humility he displayed, the sacrifice he made, it should provoke us to leap for joy, at least on the inside, and then fall to our knees in humble gratitude. Babies are special. Unborn babies are special. Jesus and John were special. They both remind us that babies inside and outside the womb are lives worthy of protection and support. And so let me just take a minute once again and plug the choose life license plate, OK? Take the form along with you. There's some on the back table, but that's a great way to promote such a positive message to our culture that needs to hear that positive message that life is a good thing. Because it's a gift of God and. So, and as I think I mentioned this morning, we don't, we're not making any money on this, right? We, that's not why we do this. We do this to help provide a funding stream to the pro-life pregnancy resource centers in our state. So, and to date, well over $120,000 has been given to pro-life pregnancy resource centers in our state because of the sale of these plates. Please consider getting one. Take the paperwork along and do more than just consider it. Just do it, right? Just do it. So take action, right? Because that's what faith does. It takes action. And that's one way you can make a difference. It's not the only way, for sure, and maybe not even the most important way, but it is a way that you can make a difference. And you already have made a difference if you have one of those plates. And then there are other things you can do, right? I don't know, does your church, has your church ever participated in the baby bottle drive? Have you seen that? So, wonderful way to participate and help do that. And again, just to highlight and keep in front of you, keep in front of you as a church family, the importance of the pro-life message and ethics. But here's the key point that I want to make. Human life is precious and is deserving of protection and support and of being treated with dignity and respect from conception until natural death. So Mary's child was a blessing because every child is a blessing, but more importantly, Mary's child was also a unique blessing because this child of Mary's was the unique, one-of-a-kind, only begotten Son of God. He came on a mission. He was born to die. His purpose in coming was to pay the price of all the sin of all mankind. When Elizabeth said that this child was blessed, she was communicating that God had graciously provided to the world a Redeemer, a Savior, a Deliverer, Jesus. Bible history and the history of all humanity revolve around the fact of Jesus' coming. his advent, his life, his death, his burial, and his resurrection. So I think this observation by Elizabeth, blessed is the fruit of your womb, is the central focus of this passage, just as it is the central focus of all history. The fact of Jesus coming and all that he came to accomplish is the blessing of all blessings. So here are some observations from this passage that should encourage and challenge us today. First, Mary was a person of faith and action. That should be true of us today, too. Second, God used and still uses women to accomplish critically important work in our world today, and we should be grateful for that. Third, let's work at exercising humility before God and others. Fourth, let's be reminded that God always keeps his word. And finally, Let's always remember the value of unborn human life. And let's especially rejoice in God's good and perfect gift to us in the person of his son, our Savior. So I hope these observations will be an encouragement to you. in the days and weeks ahead as you contemplate not only what God has done in the past and in your past, but as you trust God for your future. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, as we contemplate the amazing, astounding truth of your coming, that you came to earth, took on human flesh, that you lived and died to pay the penalty of our sins, of my sin, that you rose again for our justification. Help our hearts to be filled with wonder and awe and worship for you, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And it's in your name that we ask these favors.