The Five Words of Christmas: Blessed
Luke 1:41-42
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes, Pastor
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Greeley, Colorado
December 5, 2021
“… and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’”
Luke 1:41-42
When Jesus meets His cousin, John the Baptist for the first time, they are both still being carried within their mothers’ wombs.
Two related women- one a teen and the other well advanced in years- find themselves eternally linked together in the greatest story ever told. Both pregnancies have been preceded by a visitation from the archangel Gabriel. Both are miraculous, but in different ways and degrees. Both unborn children had been foretold in Old Testament prophecies. One is the Messiah. One is the Messiah’s “forerunner” who prepares the hearts of a remnant of Israel to receive the Messiah’s message.
Together they represent the culmination of everything God has been planning, preparing, and pointing to for thousands of years. The Old Testament’s “scarlet thread of redemption” runs directly from the Garden of Eden; through the call of Abraham, a man willing to sacrifice his own son; through the Passover sacrifices of unblemished lambs, to the King-Priest David; right to this meeting between Mary of Nazareth and Elizabeth of Hebron.
Mary learned of Elizabeth’s advancing pregnancy during her encounter with Gabriel. It seems Mary didn’t’ waste any time following up on the angelic messenger’s news, because in the very next verse, we read:
Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. (Luke 1:39-40)
Mary must have begun preparing for the one-hundred-mile journey the very next day. Keep in mind that Elizabeth is six or seven months farther along than Mary at this point. We don’t know how long it’s been since these two have seen each other. What we do know if that the moment Mary enters the house and says hello to her relative, something truly extraordinary happens:
And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. (Luke 1:41)
It’s likely Elizabeth’s unborn child, John, was filled with the Spirit at this moment as well. How do we know this? Because one of the things the angel Gabriel told Zacharias beside the altar of incense was that his son would “be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15).
Elizabeth experiences something many of the Old Testament prophets experienced. A temporary infilling of the Holy Spirit that inspires her to speak words from God. (That’s really all prophecy is – speaking by inspiration of God’s Spirit.) Immediately, Elizabeth begins to speak a prophetic word to Mary. She says:
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.” (Luke 1:42-45)
Three times, in this brief explosion of joy and wonder, Elizabeth used the word blessed. Our second word of Christmas. But as we’re about to discover, as is so often the case, there is more truth in Luke’s original Greek than comes through in the English translation.
As we’ve noted, Elizabeth used the word blessed three times in on short prophetic outburst. We twenty-century Christians use that word a lot, too.
We bless our food before we eat it. When asked how we’re doing, we say, “I’m blessed!” In the south people bless each other’s hearts. For those of us who live in the north or Midwest, if someone from the south says “Bless your heart, sweetie” it means one of two things. Either the person has genuine sympathy for your plight, or they think you’re sort of clueless. When I was at the University of Northern Colorado working on my second masters there was a woman from Louisiana in my class. I made a affirmation that resonated with the class and with this lady and she quickly said, “Oh, bless your heart, Juvenal.” She probably meant, “Juvenal, you’re clueless.” The point is, we throw that word around a great deal.
Elizabeth used this word under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The mere sound of the voice of the woman carrying the only begotten Son of God in her womb is enough to bring the Spirit of God down upon both Elizabeth and her unborn son. In that moment, she becomes aware of Mary’s unique condition. Her response in instantaneous:
Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!... Blessed is she who believed, for there will be fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.” (Luke 1:42, 45)
What’s not apparent in our English Bibles is that Elizabeth uses two very different Greek words here, both of which are translated as “blessed” in most versions of the Bible. This tells us there are two kinds of blessings, and both of them are proclaimed here.
Looking at the original Greek, Elizabeth twice uses the word eulogeo in that first sentence above. Speaking of Mary and the unborn Savior, she says “Blessed (eulogeo) are you among women…” And speaking of Jesus, she cries out, “and blessed (eulogeo) is he fruit of your womb.”
You may recognize this Greek word as being the root of our English word “eulogy,” which is basically a speech in which someone says nice things about someone who has passed away. To eulogeo does involve speaking, but it is much stronger, much more powerful than that. It describes the power of the spoken blessing- a holy act of declaring good and wonderful things over someone, fully believing that those good things will come to pass. This kind of “blessing” requires speaking.
The writer of the book of Hebrews uses this word to describe the blessing that Melchizedek spoke over Abraham; and the blessings that Isaac spoke over his sons Jacob and Esau (Hebrews 7:1; 11:20). James uses this word and contrasts it with its extreme opposite- cursing.
With it we bless (eulogeo) our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing (eulogia) and cursing. (James 3:9-10)
To speak a curse upon someone is to call for supernatural bad things to happen to them. To speak a blessing over someone is to call for supernatural things for them. And when it’s God who speaks a blessing over you, you’re very blessed indeed. This is what Elizabeth, by inspiration of God’s Spirit, is declaring. She is revealing that God has declared wonderful things over Mary and over the boy she carries.
This is a powerful Christmas word for the rest of us, as well. The birth of Jesus Christ was accompanied by declarations of blessing over you and me. In the very next chapter in Luke, angels appear to shepherds near Bethlehem and declare “good tidings of great joy which will be to all people” (Luke 2:10). “All people”! Those same angels spoke heavenly blessing: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!” (Luke 2:14). That’s us, too!
Even so, there is another aspect of being “blessed” hidden in Elizabeth’s prophetic word.
After declaring two eulogeo blessings- one over Mary and one over the Messiah she carries, Elizabeth ended her prophetic word by declaring:
Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.” (Luke 1:45)
The Greek word translated as “blessed” here is a completely different word than the one translated the same way at the beginning of Elizabeth’s Holy Spirit- inspired prophecy. Here the word is makarios and it simply means “happy.” Deeply, profoundly happy. Jesus used this word repeatedly in the portion of His Sermon on the Mount that we call the Beatitudes.
There Jesus makes statements like: “Blessed (makarios) are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6).
Eight consecutive times in this passage Jesus describes a group of people and declares them to be “happy” because, when His kingdom arrives after His death and resurrection, they are going to get what they have desired.
Happiness is an emotion, and the word makarios speaks to our emotional well-being. I appreciate the fact that Jesus made these declarations because it reveals that God cares about every part of who we are, including our emotions. This may come as a shock to those who were raised in a grim, harsh religious tradition, but Jesus came to make you happy. It’s not the only things He came to do, but it’s certainly part of it. Why? Because God is good, and He loves us!
One of Satan’s most common deceptions is that if you give your life to Jesus, you’ll never be happy again. He sells this lie to people who do not yet know Jesus, whispering, “You like to have fun, don’t you? We’ll if you follow Jesus, your days of fun will be over!”
What nonsense. A 12-year-old boy, I was old enough when I gave my life to Christ to remember what it was like before that day. There was nothing fun about feeling chronically empty, purposeless, self-absorbed, insecure, and filled with shame. It was a miserable way to live. I was anything but happy.
Jesus changed all that because that is what He came to do. The third chapter of Acts records Peter delivering one of the very first sermons preached under the New Covenant enacted by Jesus’ death and resurrection. In the previous chapter the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, which makes this one of the first sermons every preached under the power of the Holy Spirit. Take note of what Peter says here:
“To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” (Acts 3:26)
Why did God send Jesus? To bless you! Jesus spoke and extraordinary blessing over you in John 17 (His “High Priestly Prayer”). Your happiness matters to your heavenly Father. Blessed and happy indeed are they who believe.
One synonym for the word happy is merry. No wonder we wish one another a merry Christmas. Blessed is the second word of Christmas.