“Jumping for Joy”

Luke 1:39-45

Luke 1:41: When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb…

Luke 1:46-49: And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

[prayer]

“There’s somethin’ happening here; what it is ain’t exactly clear…” Folks of my generation will probably recognize those words from a song sung by Buffalo Springfield way back in the Sixties. Those words do and do not apply to this morning’s text from Luke.

Something was going on. In terms of rational thought, the conventional wisdom of the day, and traditional expectations regarding the coming of the Messiah, what was going on really wasn’t exactly clear. A pregnant virgin, a way past post-menopausal woman with child, and the Spirit-driven responses of one unborn baby to another yet to be born child: what in the name of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was going on?

God was what was going on. More specifically God’s saving work in the yet to be born Jesus of Nazareth. His Holy Spirit was abroad in the world and at work in the lives of two unlikely women. Maybe nobody else could get a handle on what was happening – Zechariah had been struck dumb in his disbelief and Joseph was struggling with the divine truth of Mary’s pregnancy – but Elizabeth and Mary knew exactly what was going on. Something was happening, and to them it was crystal clear.

Both women were expecting very special babies. One carried the Messiah; the other was bearing the prophet who would announce the Messiah’s coming. How all this had come about was truly a miracle of God. It was strange and mysterious, in some ways exciting and in others terrifying. In the words of William Barclay, “It is the paradox of blessedness that it confers on a person at one and the same time the greatest joy and the greatest task in all the world.”

This thing should not have been happening at all, but it was! It was beyond belief, but Elizabeth and Mary believed. And a yet to be born John the Baptist believed it too. He literally jumped for joy in his mother’s womb. God’s Word had been uttered, then fulfilled. And Elizabeth and Mary had taken that Word on faith. They had believed that Word and obeyed it.

And they did so at the risk of being thought insane. Crazy or not, however, Elizabeth had the physical proof of her pregnancy. She was showing. Doubters could doubt all they wanted, but the truth was there for all to see.

Mary’s supposed craziness was a whole lot harder to disprove. She was pregnant. There was nothing miraculous about that, at least physically. She was of a childbearing age. Women her age were expected to have babies.

They were also expected to get married first, and then let human nature take its course. But Mary, though engaged, was still single. She and Joseph had not been physically intimate – he did not yet “know her” in the biblical sense. No one in their right mind was going to believe her story of angelic visitations and otherworldly encounters with God. Most folks would think the usual thoughts about an unwed pregnant girl.

But Mary knew. She took God at his Word. As a matter of faith and obedience she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that what the angel Gabriel had predicted had come true. She was pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Elizabeth knew it too. Just as she had no doubts about the miraculous reality of her own conception, she had no doubts about Mary’s. Before Mary ever said a word to her about it, Elizabeth knew that Mary was carrying the Messiah. She knew and she believed. Empowered by the Holy Spirit she said so in prophetic terms.

Some commentators call Mary the first disciple. By faith she believed the truth about Jesus, even before he was born. By faith she heard the Word of God and obeyed it. By faith she put her very life into the hands of God. She didn’t have all the details figured out, but she knew that, some way, somehow, God would keep her and her baby

safe. She even trusted God to deal with Joseph’s doubt and confusion.

And as for Elizabeth, she wasn’t so much a disciple as she was a prophet. Inspired by the Holy Spirit she validated Mary’s faith. She saw and proclaimed the truth of God’s handiwork. Just as her son would one day prophetically announce the impending arrival of a Savior, she announced that the coming Savior was already in the world, living his unborn life as the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb. And as for little baby John, even in the womb he knew who Jesus was. He knew and rejoiced!

Elizabeth declared Mary to be blessed, her blessedness revealed both in her pregnancy and her obedience. In the verses following today’s text, those verses we know as the Magnificat, Mary would sing of her own blessedness. She understood herself to be an instrument of God’s healing and saving power, an instrument of his peace.

She knew her role. She would not be Israel’s Savior. She could not be God’s incarnation on earth. But she was blessed because she was willing to be that Savior's mother, because she was willing to play a vital part in the bringing of Emmanuel – God-with-us – into the world. Through her God would become the Word made flesh in Jesus. Through her the Redeemer of creation, the God who would die on a cross, became a reality. She was indeed blessed among women. More than that she was a blessing.

Reading the entire first chapter of Luke, we encounter an abundance of joy. Mary’s joyful, even in her understandable terror, at the prospect of giving birth to the long awaited Messiah. Not only is Elizabeth quite happy about her own pregnancy, she is enthralled by the reality of what had happened to Mary. So too is baby John. As was said earlier he was literally jumping for joy.

According to verse fifty-eight, Elizabeth’s friends and neighbors rejoiced when John was born. Zechariah was positively overwhelmed by the birth of John. Some folks would be speechless with joy. Zechariah’s response was quite the opposite. For the first time in a long time he was finally ably to speak.

All that leads to a question. How happy are we about the birth of Jesus? Are we jumping for joy? Do we consider our Lord’s birth to be the greatest event in human history, the most spectacular thing ever? When we sing “Joy to the World” do we do so with unbridled exuberance? Do the words of such carols strike a joyful note in our hearts? Are we aware of that tumult of joy of which we sing when we join together in the carol “There’s a Song in the Air?” Do we, as the carol says, rejoice in the light?

Or has it all become sort of ho-hum? As Christians we believe that a virgin became pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit and gave birth to Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We accept on faith that Jesus is the long awaited Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world. We are, after all, his followers – his disciples, his apostles.

But are we happy disciples? Do we feel blessed? Does the name of Jesus bring about a visceral, gut level response in us? Are we quick to share our joyful sense of blessedness with others? Do others look at us and read the joy of Jesus on our faces?

Maybe not. This world in which we live can suck the joy right out of us. Whenever it is able to do so – whenever we allow it to do so - our culture of cynical disbelief suppresses faithful, hopeful, or joyful responses to the miraculous. The real wonder of Christmas has a way of getting lost amid all the glittering secular hullabaloo of buying, wrapping, giving, and receiving things we mostly don’t need and often can’t afford. The simple, innocent joy at the birth of Jesus is overwhelmed by all the false gaiety of parties, parades, and presents. Peace and goodwill dissipate in the face of the stress of shopping and the culturally induced guilt of somehow never being able to afford enough.

I’m not asking us to imitate Ebenezer Scrooge or the Grinch who stole Christmas. Many of the traditional secular aspects of Christmas are enjoyable, even commendable. They are part of our family and community histories. Let’s not bah-humbug them!

Let’s do remember what it’s all about. Let’s slow down and try to recapture the original joy of Christmas. Let’s get back in touch with its true blessedness. Let’s look again to God’s Word for the beautiful truth and meaning of Emmanuel. Let’s open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, allowing him to touch our hearts with joy. And in doing so, be so moved that something within us literally leaps at the Good News of our Savior’s birth. Then something will indeed be happening here. Amen.