In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Elizabeth and Zechariah “got it.” They understood that they would have a son, John, who would be the forerunner to the Savior that God had promised his people. Even John, who was still in Elizabeth’s womb, seemed to get it, leaping for joy at the presence of Mary and the pre born Jesus. They understood that Jesus was no ordinary child. He a was not just going to be a prophet or a teacher or a miracle worker. He was going to be Lord. He was going to be the Redeemer. He was going to be the horn of salvation. The deliverer. The one promised from the holy prophets from of old. The one through whom we obtain mercy. The one through whom we obtain the forgiveness of sins. Through whom we obtain peace with God.
For us, it’s easy for this truth to become “routine.” It’s easy to lose the astonishment of what God did in sending Christ on our behalf. We hear about it every year. We hear about it every Sunday. We read about it in our bibles throughout each week.
Familiar as it is, we must take care to not lose the staggering reality of what Christ has done for us. We must again and again be reminded of the absolutely unthinkable reality that God took on human flesh, dwelt among his rebellious created humanity and endured the wrath for sin in our place and gives his own righteousness to any and all who believe. Staggering truth. Truth that demands our attention from our God who deserves our adoration.
Rejoice! The Lord has shown us mercy and salvation through Jesus Christ!
- Has the message of Jesus Christ become too familiar to you that you’ve lost a sense of the magnitude of what he did for you?
- Do you remind yourself of the gospel often and live in response to that truth?
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