PREVIOUSLY, WE READ Luke’s description of Gabriel’s appearance to Mary. This second annunciation story was in many ways quite similar to the first, when Gabriel visited Zechariah—but in a way that made the differences between the two stand out in bolder relief. As we’ll see shortly, Zechariah will have another opportunity to respond faithfully after his son John is born. For now, however, the two women, Elizabeth and Mary, take center stage.

Luke has already closely tied the women together in the story. He describes the annunciation to Mary as taking place in “the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy” (Luke 1:26), that is, just after Elizabeth had come out of seclusion. And when Mary asks Gabriel to explain how a virgin could conceive and bear a child, the angel essentially tells her that God can do anything, and then gives her the wonderful, impossible news that even Elizabeth, her much older relative, is six months pregnant.

How did Mary respond to this news? She hurried off to see Elizabeth:

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:39-45, NIV)

It would have been highly unusual for a girl of Mary’s age to make such a long journey, presumably by herself, and Luke will tell us later that she stayed with Elizabeth for three months. Surely all of this would need to be explained to Mary’s family, but Luke says nothing about it. Mary, it seems, is rushing to see Elizabeth to confirm what Gabriel told her, taking the angel’s words as a sign.

And indeed, Mary gets a sign she didn’t expect. She enters the house and greets Elizabeth, probably in the respectful and deferential way appropriate to the difference in age and status between them. But Elizabeth’s response flips the status roles on their head; she treats Mary as her superior, because she knows that Mary will be the mother of the Messiah.

How does she know this? We’re told that she is “filled with the Holy Spirit.” This is already the third mention of the Spirit in Luke’s gospel. The first was when Gabriel told Zechariah that his son John would “be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born” (vs. 15); the second was in Gabriel’s explanation to Mary that she would conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth is now filled with the Spirit herself, by whom she already knows of the blessing God has bestowed upon Mary before Mary can say a word.

Or perhaps we should say it this way: John, who is still only a fetus entering his third trimester, is the one who knows first, because he is already filled with the Holy Spirit. He leaps for joy, because he’s the herald of the Messiah, and has recognized the voice of the mother of his Lord. Another mother might merely have put her hand to her belly and said, “Ooh, wow—that was a big kick.” But Elizabeth, filled with the Spirit herself, rightly reads and understands the sign and responds with joy as well.

Elizabeth blesses both Mary and the child she will eventually bear. Is Mary therefore already pregnant? Luke doesn’t say. Given how quickly she left after Gabriel’s announcement, however, I would guess that she wasn’t, not yet. But it hardly matters; God is the one who has revealed the truth to Elizabeth. She blesses Mary twice: once for being chosen to be the one to bear the Savior, and a second time for responding faithfully to the angel’s announcement by believing what he said.

One wonders whether Elizabeth is thinking about her husband as she gives the second blessing: “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her…unlike some people we know who shall remain nameless.” Again, Luke doesn’t say. But a reader could hardly miss the contrast between Zechariah’s response and the way Elizabeth describes Mary’s.

What’s notable about Elizabeth’s response to Mary’s greeting, however, is not simply that she knows the truth by miraculous means. Like Mary, she responds to that truth as a humble servant of God. In her relationship with Mary, she is clearly the superior, but she rejoices in what God has done for Mary and treats her with the deference due to the mother of the Messiah. She doesn’t say, “Mary! What a pleasant surprise! What brings you here?” Instead, she asks humbly, “Why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

The baby has yet to be born, perhaps even conceived; but Elizabeth refers to him as “my Lord.” She herself has already been blessed by the gift of an impossible pregnancy, and her earlier faithful response praised God for taking away the shame of her childlessness. But now she takes it as an additional blessing to have Mary come to her home, as if Mary were visiting royalty and not just a teenage relative.

Again, we’re not told explicitly why Mary was in such a hurry to see Elizabeth. If it was to confirm what Gabriel had told her, it would have been enough to see her cousin’s swollen belly. She would not have expected to hear what Elizabeth proclaimed with such joy. Elizabeth’s belly confirmed that God can indeed do anything; but her words confirmed the angel’s promise of what God would do through Mary.

Not surprisingly, Mary was filled with wonder and joy at Elizabeth’s prophetic words—so much so that she broke out in song, as we’ll see next.