Connect360: When Your Heart is Full

• The Christmas lesson included in the Connect 360 unit “The Beauty of Restoration: The Final Days of Jesus” focuses on Luke 1:39-56.

Presumably, Mary was only a few weeks along in her pregnancy when she left Nazareth for “the hill country of Judea”1 (Luke 1:39). Where did she go? Catholic tradition identifies Ein Karem, four miles south of Jerusalem. Other possibilities include Hebron or Juttah, Levitical towns in the Judean hill country (Joshua 21:9-16). Since Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband, was a priest, and she was of the Levitical line, any are plausible.

Exactly why Mary took this journey is uncertain; the angel did not tell her to go. Although we traditionally believe Elizabeth was a distant cousin, the Greek word sungenis (“kinswoman,” translated “relative”) in Luke 1:36 might mean she was an aunt or great-aunt. Perhaps, as family, Mary was excited about Elizabeth’s pregnancy and wanted to help prepare, or she thought seeing Elizabeth would further validate the miracle happening in her own body. Moreover, if anyone knew of her pregnancy, Mary might have been escaping disapproving stares and gossiping lips in Nazareth.

Verse 40 mentions Mary “greeted Elizabeth.” Presumably, Mary used the era’s standard greeting: “peace unto you” (Heb. shalom aleichem). The other person was expected to respond, “unto you peace” (aleichem shalom). However, Elizabeth did not respond as expected. Instead, prodded by her child and filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth recognized Mary as “blessed among women” and “the mother of my Lord.” She spoke these welcoming and honoring words “in a loud voice,” a term frequently indicating God-inspired words.

So why this response? Elizabeth’s child, six months in utero, was developmentally on track. At this stage, unborn babies can focus on and respond to noises and voices by moving, kicking, jabbing, and rolling. When the unborn John heard Mary’s voice, he leaped, not because he recognized her, but because he recognized God’s presence within her (1:41). In so doing, he announced the Messiah’s arrival to his mother, thereby performing his first act of preparing the way for the Lord (1:17,76). Thus, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling imparted a supernatural understanding, making John and Elizabeth the first to realize Mary’s child as the Christ.

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