Sermon Tone Analysis

We will look this morning at what has quickly risen for me among my ever growing list of favorite passages.

I say that because in the study of this passage, I have found that this short narrative, that describes the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth as well as the sons they each carried and the resulting excitement and joy they had, has given me great joy and excitement and interest as I have contemplated its meaning over the past many days of studying it.

In so many ways, this passage has sharpened for me certain beliefs that I held.

Perhaps I could say that things I already believed I believe with even more confidence after having prepared this message.

I will explain more as we get into it, but let me give one example.

I have always believed that life begins at conception, that all life is sacred, even while still in the womb, but from this day forward, if I have any conversations about the sanctity of life, I will not fail to mention the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth.

I believe that the Christian is compelled by scripture to be pro-life, and this passage very clearly for me makes the case much stronger.

We will get into that at some point, but let us first consider what it is that we are to take away from this passage.

In fact, I believe this is one of those short passages that could be preached with many focuses, all of them valid and correct.

A sermon series could easily be made of just these seven verses.

However, in the interest of reaching Luke 2 by Christmas time, we will keep to just one sermon on this passage, unless i change my mind during the week, which is entirely possible.

The Big Idea that I am going to focus on for this morning, however, is this:

When God confirms His Word, we should joyfully celebrate his gifts to us.

As we look to that main idea, let us consider the following things that all happen in this brief encounter:

Energy

Excitement

Explanation

Encouragement

Energy - Mary quickly put her faith into action and went to Elizabeth (Holy Spirit empowerment)

Excitement - Elizabeth and John reacted (Holy Spirit endorsement)

Explanation - Elizabeth explained her excitement (Holy Spirit Exposition)

Encouragement - Elizabeth encouraged Mary (Holy Spirit Exhortation)

Let me quickly set up this passage by reminding you of where we were last week.

Last week, we looked at how the angel Gabriel came to speak with Mary to give her the news of how she was going to be God’s servant in one of the most amazing and certainly the most unique roles in all of His salvation story.

Unique because no other virgin girl or woman has ever had the role of having a baby for any reason, much less to be chosen to bear the very Son of God.

And Mary submitted to the role she was given with great faith, and now we move into what she does next, which is to travel to see Elizabeth, who the angel has just told her was in her sixth month.

When God confirms His Word, we should joyfully celebrate his gifts to us.

Energy

Excitement

Explanation

Encouragement

You may have noticed I am using the letter E this morning, so hang in there, it will go even further with those Es.

In fact, there is a whole other set of E’s that we will use.

The First E we will discuss is Energy.

And linked to that E, Energy, is another E, empowerment.

Holy Spirit Empowerment

Energy: Mary quickly put her faith into action and went to Elizabeth.

(Holy Spirit Empowerment)

Mary hurried, or went with haste, she moved with great energy.

This energy came from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

We can be grateful for Luke, he taught us a lot about how the Holy Spirit gives people empowerment.

Mary’s energy was not all of her own energy.

She is empowered by the Holy Spirit.

And she hurried, went with haste.

And so it is that many Bible scholars agree that Mary was probably at this meeting with Elizabeth within about 4 days of her meeting with Gabriel.

We may be left with questions about her hurrying to Elizabeth.

Did she explain things to her parents?

Did she tell them at all?

How well did she even know Elizabeth?

Were they close like some relatives, where they had a deep love and affection for one another, or were they more like some relatives, where we know who they are and have seen them but we really don’t know much about them?

Scripture does not tell us all of this, but we do know that the journey by foot that Mary took was about 3-4 days.

But the wording Luke uses is that she went in a hurry or with great haste.

She moved with intention.

And why not?

She had the encounter with Gabriel, and we can safely assume that almost immediately the Holy Spirit had come upon her to bring about the miracle of the baby Jesus in her womb.

Did she have a sense of when this happened?

Did a warm feeling come over her? Did she understand that the baby was already beginning to grow?

We only know she offered herself in obedience and submission and in humility.

But as the angel was telling her about what would happen to her, as a further confirmation of the truth of this message, he told her that her relative, Elizabeth, in her old age had conceived a son and she was already in her sixth month of pregnancy.

Of course, this was probably new to Mary that she was just receiving.

But after the announcement, something compelled her to rush to Elizabeth.

And why did she rush to Elizabeth?

Perhaps she wanted her faith increased by verifying the truth of Gabriel’s message.

Or maybe she just was so excited about what was happening to her that she wanted to talk about it with someone who was also experiencing the hand of God in an amazing way.

Certainly we could understand if she wanted to share her excitement with someone.

Some have said that she was fleeing her familiar surroundings to protect herself from being condemned as an adulteress, but I am not so inclined to take this reason as seriously.

For one, scripture doesn’t tell us directly that this was the case.

But also, we will learn later that she would stay with Elizabeth about 3 months and then go back home.

Since the first three months of a pregnancy can be easily hidden, would it not make more sense, if her concern was the neighbors talking, that she would leave, not for the first 3 months, but for the last several months?

At any rate, Mary was in a hurry, and she was energized by the holy spirit, who empowers people to do things.

When God confirms His Word, we should joyfully celebrate his gifts to us.

Our next E is Excitement:

Excitement: Elizabeth and John reacted to the arrival of Mary (and Jesus).

This excitement shows us the Holy Spirit endorsement of Mary’s chid.

This excitement is explained by both action and word.

In action, the baby, John, leaped in Elizabeth’s womb.

When a mother is carrying a baby in the womb, there is a point where she begins to feel the movement of the baby.

And sometimes it becomes clear that the baby is reacting to the sound of the parent’s voice.

A baby may move, kick outward, turn around.

We know even more about this than Mary and Elizabeth, since ultrasounds have shown babies will grab their feet, suck their thumb, and do other actions in the womb.

But even without ultrasounds, mothers throughout human history have had the excitement of feeling their baby move within the womb.

In scripture we see another example of this.

Scripture tells us that Rebekah’s children struggled within her.

And she must have realized this, because she asked “why is this happening to me?”

You see, that is the thing about her twin boys, they were already struggling with each other, even before they were born.

But the movement of babies in the womb is quite normal.

In this case, however, something was clearly different.

This baby, John, leaped in the womb.

This action was something other than what Elizabeth had normally observed.

This was different.

And certainly this is one of those verifications of what has been told thus far.

Remember what Gabriel had told Zechariah about this child, “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.

You see, it is normal for a baby to make a movement in reaction to his mother’s voice.

But it is not normal for a baby to leap at the arrival of a stranger.

When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.

Leaping is a sign of excitement.

You may remember that David leaped and danced when the ark arrived.

So much that his wife Michal saw his uncontainable joy that she despised him, and as a result she never had a child.

But in this case, the excitement of the baby John was a contagious excitement that Elizabeth joined in on.

The excitement of the baby was evidenced by movement, the excitement of Elizabeth was manifested in words.