Worship in the Womb Text: Luke 1:39-45
Introduction: The Blessed Collision
We live in an age that is desperately confused about everything that matters. We are confused about what a man is, what a woman is, what a marriage is, and most consequentially, what a human being is. Our culture has declared war on the unborn, treating the womb not as a sanctuary of life, but as a tomb. But when we come to the Word of God, we find that the floodlights of divine revelation have been on from the very beginning, exposing the darkness of our modern conceits. The story of the Incarnation does not begin in a manger. It begins nine months earlier, in a womb.
The scene before us is not merely a heartwarming family reunion between two expectant cousins. This is a moment of profound theological gravity. It is a blessed collision. Here, the Old Covenant, represented by John the Baptist, the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophets, meets the New Covenant, Jesus Christ, in the wombs of their mothers. This is the first worship service of the new creation, and the congregation consists of two women and two unborn children. The first testimony to the deity of Christ is not from Peter at Caesarea Philippi, but from an unborn baby in the hill country of Judah. The first person to be filled with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is not an apostle at Pentecost, but Elizabeth, in her living room. And the first human to recognize Jesus as Lord is not a disciple, but this same faithful woman, prompted by her leaping son.
This passage is a direct assault on the sensibilities of our sterile, secular, and sophisticated age. God delights in using the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He does not announce the arrival of the King in the courts of power in Rome or Jerusalem. He announces it in a quiet home, through the mouths of women and the movements of the unborn. If we are to understand the gospel, we must understand this. God's kingdom advances not through political machination, but through faithful obedience in the small places, through lives that have simply and profoundly believed the Word of the Lord.
The Text
Now at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened that when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.”
(Luke 1:39-45 LSB)
The Haste of Faith (vv. 39-40)
The narrative begins with Mary's immediate response to the angelic announcement.
"Now at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth." (Luke 1:39-40)
Mary's response is characterized by two things: she arose, and she went in a hurry. This is not the frantic haste of anxiety, but the joyful urgency of faith. She has just received the most staggering news in human history, and her response is not to sit and navel-gaze, but to act. True faith is never passive. When God speaks, faith gets up and goes. Her great confession, "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word," was not just a pious sentiment. It was a commitment, and here we see her living it out.
Why did she go to Elizabeth? The angel had given her Elizabeth's miraculous pregnancy as a sign. "And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age" (Luke 1:36). Mary goes to see the sign, not because she needs proof, but because she wants fellowship. She goes to the one person on earth who could possibly comprehend what she was experiencing. This is a fundamental principle of the Christian life. When God does a mighty work in you, He will also direct you to the fellowship of the saints. Faith seeks confirmation and community. She went to share in the joy and to have her own joy multiplied. The simple greeting, "she...greeted Elizabeth," is the spark that ignites a powder keg of spiritual revelation.
The Unborn Prophet's Adoration (vv. 41, 44)
Elizabeth's response is triggered by a miraculous event within her.
"And it happened that when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb... For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy." (Luke 1:41, 44 LSB)
Let us be absolutely clear about what is happening here. This is the first act of prophetic worship in the New Covenant era, and it is performed by an unborn child. John the Baptist, who was appointed to be the forerunner of the Messiah, begins his ministry here, in the third trimester. His mission was to point to Christ, and this is precisely what he does. The text is explicit: the leap was "for joy." This was not a random uterine kick or a reaction to a sound. This was a Spirit-prompted, intelligent, emotional response to the presence of his Lord, who was at that point nothing more than a cluster of cells in the womb of Mary.
This single event demolishes the central lie of our abortion culture. The world wants us to believe that the unborn are sub-human, that they are mere tissue, that they have no consciousness or value. The Bible declares that the unborn are persons, capable of emotion (joy), capable of spiritual recognition, and fit for prophetic ministry. John was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb (Luke 1:15), and this is the evidence of it. He recognizes his King and he worships Him. This is in-utero adoration. Every argument for abortion shatters on the rock of this text. If an unborn baby can worship God, then to kill that baby is to murder a worshiper of God.
The Spirit's Confession (vv. 41b-43)
The baby's leap is immediately followed by the mother's Spirit-filled utterance.
"...and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me?'" (Luke 1:41b-43 LSB)
Notice the chain of events. Mary speaks, John leaps, the Spirit fills, and Elizabeth prophesies. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is not an occasion for ecstatic, unintelligible babble. It is an occasion for loud, clear, Christ-centered, theological confession. The first thing the Spirit does is confirm the Word of God. Elizabeth's words are a divine echo of the angel Gabriel's words to Mary. She blesses Mary, and she blesses the "fruit of your womb."
But then she says something truly staggering. "And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me?" How did she know? Mary had not said a word about her condition. This was supernatural knowledge, given by the Spirit. More than that, look at the title she uses. "My Lord." This is the Greek word Kyrios, the same word used in the Septuagint to translate the sacred name of God, Yahweh. Elizabeth, an old, righteous woman, wife of a priest, looks at her young, unmarried, and likely bewildered cousin, and calls the embryo in her womb "my Lord." This is one of the clearest and earliest declarations of the deity of Jesus Christ in all of Scripture. The incarnation is not a gradual process. From the moment of conception, the Son of God was truly God and truly man, worthy of the title, "my Lord."
The Beatitude of Belief (v. 45)
Elizabeth concludes her prophecy with a beatitude, a declaration of blessing that gets to the very heart of the matter.
"And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord." (Luke 1:45 LSB)
This is the central lesson of the entire narrative. Why is Mary blessed? Is it simply because she was chosen for this high honor? No. She is blessed because she believed. The blessing is attached to the faith. Mary heard an impossible promise from God, a promise that would upend her life, threaten her reputation, and defy all biological reality. And she simply said yes to God. She took God at His word.
And in this, she stands in stark contrast to Elizabeth's own husband, Zechariah. He was a priest, ministering in the holy place, when an angel of the Lord appeared to him with a glorious promise. And what was his response? Doubt. "How will I know this for certain?" (Luke 1:18). As a result, he was struck mute. Mary, a young girl in a backwater town, receives an even more impossible promise, and her response is faith. As a result, her mouth is opened in praise, and Elizabeth's mouth is opened in prophecy. The contrast could not be sharper. Unbelief in the presence of God's promise leads to silence and judgment. Faith in the presence of God's promise leads to blessing and joyful praise. God is not impressed by our religious pedigrees. He is looking for men and women who will simply trust Him.
Conclusion: The Joy of Believing
This encounter in the Judean hills is a microcosm of the Christian life. The gospel comes to us as a spoken word, a promise from the Lord. To the unbelieving world, it sounds like foolishness. That God became man, that He died for our sins, that He was raised from the dead, that He can take our dead, rebellious hearts and make them new, these are impossible things.
But when the Holy Spirit works, He quickens us. Like John in the womb, there is a leap of new life within us, a joyful recognition of the presence of our Lord. We may have been dead in trespasses and sins, but the voice of Christ reaches our ears, and we leap for joy. This internal work of the Spirit then results in an external confession. We, like Elizabeth, are enabled to cry out, "Jesus is my Lord!"
And the blessing is always tied to the believing. "Blessed is she who believed." Do you want the blessing of God? Then you must believe the Word of God. You must take His promises, as outlandish as they may seem to your natural reason, and say with Mary, "Be it done to me according to your word." When we do this, we find ourselves, like Mary and Elizabeth, in the fellowship of the saints, sharing a joy that the world cannot understand. The joy of John in the womb is the joy of every sinner who has been brought into the presence of the Savior. It is the joy of believing.