Luke 1:39-45 

My daughter is expecting a baby in less than a week! My daughter-in-law is expecting in two months. While they don’t see each other frequently, it’s wonderful to watch them when they do. They excitedly talk, non-stop, to each other about their pregnancies. Of course they do; they have a shared joy, a shared expectancy, a shared experience. 

I definitely don’t mean to imply Lauren and Sophia are carrying a prophet or a foretold messiah, but they do share similarities with Elizabeth and Mary. Consider the waiting involved. Mary has nine months to go; Elizabeth has three. Lauren and Sophia have even less time, and as delivery dates s-l-o-w-l-y approach, the waiting must seem interminable. But that wait is almost insignificant compared to what Israel has endured. And now, centuries of waiting are coming to an end for the Jewish people through the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. 

Consider communication barriers. Elizabeth can’t talk with John since he has been rendered temporarily mute for not believing the angel who announced his barren-for-decades wife’s impending pregnancy. Mary can’t talk to anyone besides Joseph. Not only would townspeople and perhaps even family not believe her “tale” of virginal conception, but also, once they know she’s pregnant (and unwed), those same people will likely have nothing to do with her. What consolation the two women must have found in each other! Lauren and Sophia have family and friends with whom they can easily and freely discuss the coming babies, but (and here I address my women readers!), honestly, no one but another woman who's been through pregnancy can really understand.

Finally, consider how joy eclipses the discomforts of a pregnancy. The passage doesn’t show Elizabeth with any physical ailments, but we know she’s experienced them, as Mary will, as Lauren and Sophia have. But instead of greeting Mary with “oh, my back hurts; let’s sit down,” Elizabeth - filled with the Holy Spirit - loudly blesses Mary (verses 41-42). I’m confident Elizabeth and Mary shared their pregnancy pains, as Lauren and Sophia do, but compensating for those will be each woman’s deeper joy at bringing forth a child. 

Pastor Alex last week coined a word for the joy permanently residing below (sometimes well below) the surface: permajoy. It’s why mothers will tell you that after a few months (ok, maybe years), they don’t even remember the pain of childbirth. Joy prevailed.

This short passage in Luke fairly bursts with joy - Mary “hurries,” baby John “leaps for joy,” and Elizabeth loudly blesses. The best is yet to come, though; read Mary’s Song of Rejoicing starting in verse 46. Joy to the world indeed.

You don’t have to be pregnant to experience permajoy! Can you think of a time when heartache or difficulty beset you but you were able to overcome the tough time by digging down a few inches and drawing on that layer of joy? It can be tough; problems can be overwhelming. But in Christ, we do have that joy, joy, joy, joy down in our hearts.