Mary visits Elizabeth

After the angel Gabriel’s visit, Mary goes to see her relative Elizabeth, and Luke tells how the two expectant mothers meet with joy (Luke 1:39–56). The church calls this meeting the Visitation. It ends with Mary’s song, the Magnificat, one of the oldest hymns of the church.

The story in brief

Gabriel had told Mary that Elizabeth, old and long without children, was expecting a son. So Mary “arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste” (Luke 1:39) to the home of Elizabeth and her husband, the priest Zechariah.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. She called out, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:42). She wondered why “the mother of my Lord” would come to her (Luke 1:43) and told Mary that the baby had leaped for joy. “Blessed is she who believed,” she said (Luke 1:45).

Mary answered with a song: “My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46–47). She sang that God had looked on her humble state and that God’s mercy reaches every generation. Then she sang of a world set right:

He has put down princes from their thrones, and has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things.

Luke 1:52–53

Mary ended by remembering God’s promise to Abraham. She stayed with Elizabeth about three months and then went home (Luke 1:56). Soon Elizabeth’s son was born, and his parents named him John (John the Baptist).

The setting and background

Nazareth lies in Galilee, in the north. The hill country of Judea lies to the south around Jerusalem, several days away on foot. Luke does not name Elizabeth’s town; since Byzantine times Christians have linked it with Ein Karem, a village near Jerusalem.

Elizabeth and Zechariah were both “righteous before God,” and they had grown old without children (Luke 1:6–7). In that world a childless woman often carried shame, and Elizabeth said God had acted “to take away my reproach among men” (Luke 1:25). Zechariah could not speak at the time, because he had doubted the angel (Luke 1:20), so the greeting and the song in this story come from two women.

Elizabeth is older and the wife of a priest, and Mary is a young woman from a Galilean village, yet Elizabeth is the one who gives honor. She is the first person in Luke’s Gospel to call Jesus “Lord.”

Mary’s song echoes the prayer of Hannah, who gave thanks when her son Samuel was born: “My heart exults in the LORD!” (1 Samuel 2:1). Hannah also sang that God “raises up the poor out of the dust” (1 Samuel 2:8).

What the story means

In Luke, the first response to Jesus’s coming is joy. A baby leaps, a woman cries out a blessing, and a young woman sings. Advent waits for Christ with hope, and this story shows that the waiting can already be glad.

The two women welcome and bless each other. Each is glad for what God is doing in the other’s life, and Mary stays three months, until Elizabeth’s time is near.

Mary’s song is about God, and it is about the world. God has done “great things” for one humble young woman, and God’s mercy reaches the hungry and the lowly everywhere. The song prepares readers for Jesus, who will say, “Blessed are you who are poor, for God’s Kingdom is yours” (Luke 6:20). For more, see What does the Bible say about the poor?

How the early church read it

Ambrose, bishop of Milan in the late fourth century, wrote in his commentary on Luke that Mary’s soul should be in each believer to magnify the Lord, and her spirit in each to rejoice in God (Exposition of Luke 2.26). For Ambrose, every Christian could sing Mary’s song.

The Venerable Bede, an English monk of the early eighth century, called the singing of Mary’s hymn at evening prayer “an excellent and fruitful custom” of the church (Homilies on the Gospels 1.4). Western churches still sing it at Vespers and Evening Prayer. Orthodox churches sing it at Orthros, their morning service, with a refrain that praises Mary as “more honorable than the cherubim.”

The Reformers kept the song. Martin Luther finished a commentary on the Magnificat at the Wartburg Castle in 1521 and dedicated it to the young Duke John Frederick of Saxony, a future ruler.

What modern scholars notice

Scholars note that the Magnificat is full of phrases from the Hebrew Scriptures, above all Hannah’s song. Some think it began as a hymn of early Jewish followers of Jesus that Luke gave to Mary. A few ancient Latin manuscripts read “Elizabeth said” at the start of the song, and in 1900 the German scholar Adolf von Harnack argued for Elizabeth as the singer. Nearly all manuscripts give the song to Mary, and most interpreters follow them.

Preaching in London during Advent 1933, the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Magnificat the most passionate, the wildest, and perhaps the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.

Questions for reflection or discussion

1. Why do you think Mary hurried to see Elizabeth after the angel’s visit?
2. Elizabeth was older and more honored, yet she blessed Mary. What helps you be glad for someone else’s good news?
3. Who has welcomed and blessed you the way Elizabeth blessed Mary?
4. Which line of Mary’s song speaks most to you today?
5. Mary sings that God fills the hungry with good things. How might your church share in that work?

A prayer

God of mercy, you filled Elizabeth with your Spirit and put a song in Mary’s heart. Make us glad for one another, quick to bless, and ready to share our bread with the hungry. Let our souls magnify you, now and always. Amen.

For kids

Mary had big news. An angel told her she would have a baby named Jesus. The angel had more news too. Mary’s relative Elizabeth was going to have a baby! Elizabeth was old. She had waited a long, long time.

Mary hurried to see her. She walked for days, up and down the hills.

At last she came to Elizabeth’s house. “Hello, Elizabeth!” she called.

When Elizabeth heard Mary, her baby jumped inside her! Elizabeth was filled with joy. She said, “God has blessed you, Mary! God has blessed your baby too! When I heard your hello, my baby jumped for joy!”

Then Mary sang a happy song to God. “My soul magnifies the Lord!” Magnify means to make something look bigger. Mary’s song made God’s goodness look big!

She sang, “God cares for people who are small. God fills hungry people with good things.”

Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months. They helped each other and were glad together.

God’s good news makes us glad. We can share that joy, just like Mary and Elizabeth.