Or, Blessed Is She Who Believed
Scripture: Luke 1:39-56
Date: March 1, 2026
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Luke weaves together the stories of two sons in the first couple chapters of his book. There’s an announcement for each, and then the birth of each. But the section we’re considering today is in between, when the two moms meet. Mary’s response to Elizabeth’s response lets us stop and worship a little though no kid has even been born yet.
Mary got more of a sign than she expected. The angel told her that her barren relative Elizabeth was going to have a baby. Mary went with haste, with spoude. It was probably a 3-4 day walk over 80+ miles and, though the text doesn’t explicitly say one way or another, it seems that she went alone.
Elizabeth had been staying at home; she hadn’t really talked to anyone, including her husband Zechariah, for six months. Enter Mary. And when Mary said hello, Elizabeth didn’t jump as if startled, but her baby jumped as if recognizing something. Elizabeth was excited, but the baby moved on his own. Inside-baby John was taking his first prophetic steps.
We know this because the Holy Spirit enabled Elizabeth to know this. She knew why her baby leapt, she knew something about Mary that maybe no one else on the planet knew, maybe more than even Mary at that very moment. Elizabeth knew that Mary was pregnant, and the window for conception was probably just a week or at most two. And somehow, again by the direct communication of the Spirit, Elizabeth knew that Mary’s child was the Lord.
You’ll sometimes hear the term Theotokos/Θεοτόκος, “bearer of God” or interpreted as “mother of God” in the Hail Mary prayer. This is not meant to focus on Mary’s status as much as it is to clarify that the human baby Jesus was also God from the moment of conception. The Council of Ephesus (AD 431) affirmed this truth against the idea that the divine and human natures of Jesus were completely separate.
It’s blesseds all around. Mary is blessed because of her calling to mother this Son of God (verse 42), and Mary is blessed because she believed the revelation of God (verse 45). Both of these are passive forms, emphasizing again that Mary is a recipient of God’s favor (as in 1:28). The fruit of the womb is also blessed, and Elizabeth knows who He is and that she has been blessed to even be in her Lord’s presence. This is the first, but not the last time, Jesus is identified as Lord in Luke.
By the Spirit Elizabeth is able to interpret the womb jumping as a conscious reaction of her son and also interpret it as his joyful reaction. John was jumping for joy that Jesus was there.
Mary believed that there would be a fulfillment . God does what He says He will do.
One part about this scene that is easy to see as quaint/serene that is anything but, is the small number of people that know about any of this and the location of the revelation. Two women, one past child bearing age and the other pre-wed, and an old man who’s been mute and deaf for half a year, couldn’t tell anyone if he wanted. The Holy Spirit Himself, not an angel, has come and made known that God is moving, but the spiritual forces of evil are in the dark. More is at play than two hormonal but giddy pregnant ladies getting together one afternoon.
More than wondering how Mary could talk like this, maybe we should ask why don’t we? We have our own complete copies of the canon, we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and we should be talking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Mary makes us look quite immature, and ignorant.
Luke is the only author who included the “songs” of Mary and Zechariah; one commentator pointed out that they are like what we think of as an aria, a solo. Such poetic hymns are not out of context, but they are interruptions to the action. The pause helps us. Life is not quite a musical, but sometimes you need a song to sort of let you sit in the moment and soak up what’s happening around you.
Mary’s song came to be called the Magnificat after the first word in the Latin translation (see also Psalm 34:2-3). It’s a hymn of praise. She praises God for how He’s treating her, how He’s working for all those who fear Him, and how He’s fulfilling His covenant with Abraham in particular to the house of Jacob. It’s full of Old Testament echoes, Hannah (1 Samuel 2:1-2) and Habakkuk (3:18), Psalms of conflict and of covenant. Was it an immediate impromptu? No matter, it is persuasive.
Look at all the first person singulars, “my” and “me.” Mary understands that the Lord is great and that God is her Savior. She is not great, she is of humble estate. She wasn’t powerful or influential in a way the world would recognize, though now we do recognize her as the recipient of great things that God did for her. Here we are, another generation, calling her blessed.
God has been working from generation to generation. His work includes mercy, protection, and food for those who depend on Him.
God has scattered the proud. He resists those who self-exalt their own self-sufficiency.
One of the themes we’ll see throughout Luke is the rich and the poor. I read a book called The Good of Affluence (by John Schneider) and will be referencing it, and recommending it, throughout this series. There is a simplistic way to become a Marxist, believing that “all the rich are evil and all the poor are saints.” It is true that many of the “haves” deserved judgment. But there are at least four groups, not two.
There are Haves and Have-Nots, and there are the humble and the proud. There are humble Haves and proud Haves, even if having is a great temptation to pride. There are also humble Have-Nots and proud Have-Nots, those who think they don’t deserve the trouble. A genuine Marxist is mad at the mistreatment, and can take matters into his own hands like nobody’s business.
In other words, the economic status is a visible factor, but it is the spiritual condition that is determinative. God does not endlessly bless the proud, even if for a while it seems like they are getting away with it. God does not endlessly burden the poor, even if they go through long stretches of struggle.
Taking the long view of history, generations at a time, those who fear God see God reversing the surface answers. Mary sees another application of this through the boy in her belly.
We can celebrate a lot of things in addition to the things in these two verses, but we cannot change what Mary celebrates.
The Lord has helped his servant Israel. It’s common in some circles to hear that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises to Israel. That Jesus Himself is the servant, the true Israel. And while that is one description of Him, Mary is talking about her nation not about the Messiah. In fact, God is helping Israel at this very moment by sending Israel’s Messiah. This is because God loves to show his mercy.
It’s an ancient promise. The patriarchs (Isaac and Jacob) and others, starting with the covenant to Abraham to give Abraham offspring plural, while also recognizing Jesus in a unique way as the offspring singular. They became a nation, and Jesus came “for the Jew first and also for the Gentile,” though the work of her Son for those outside Israel was not in Mary’s mind at this moment.
The Church that Jesus is building is great (Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 3:10), but the church is not the fulfillment of this praise. Mary’s praise is more particular.
According to verse 56 Mary went back home about the time that Elizabeth was due. The next scene is of John’s birth, but Mary isn’t mentioned.
Of course there are people, especially “scholars,” who think they know so much that they know that there’s no way Mary could have come up with all this. Again, maybe her verbal first draft got some later edits. But she had something to say for praise because she’d heard what God had said previously. Mary sang because she knew the Bible (without actually having one). Do we?
And one of the reasons Mary responded by believing the revelation she was given is because she’d already been meditating on the revelation she had heard. When the Word dwells in us our words are full of wisdom and lyrics and thankfulness (see Colossians 3:16). Is our confidence in God low because we’re consuming other things?
Certainty (1:4) comes from God’s Word by God’s Spirit! Even Luke’s words are written that the Found would be faithful to magnify the Lord!
Beloved, walk by the Spirit. Let the Spirit lead as He fills you with hope in God’s Word. Live by the Spirit, and keep in step with the Spirit, as He enables you to LIVE IN HUMILITY, not becoming conceited, or provoking, or envying one another. (Galatians 5:25–26)
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:5b–7 ESV)