The Meeting of the Moms

In the passages concerning the first Christmas there is an interesting “meeting of the Moms”, if you will, in Luke 1.  One stark lesson emerged when Mary came to visit her cousin Elisabeth: humility !  There’s an old adage that says, “the higher the ape climbs the more he shows his tail” !  These two had genuine humility.

First, note Elisabeth’s as she first sees Mary.  Most people would’ve been chomping at the bit to tell the other person all about what’s up with them, not Elisabeth here. She is other-person focused because God is ruling her heart  – verse 41 says, “Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost”.    If I’m cranky God isn’t ruling, if I’m easily angered, quick to find fault and resistant to criticism God isn’t ruling, and if its always about me when we meet or chat with others, how can God truly be first in me?   Instead, Elisabeth is  focused on Mary and the Lord within her cousin !   She wasn’t competing with Mary, she was congratulatory !!

Then, too, note Mary’s humility as in verse 46 she isn’t bragging at all, far from it when she says, “My soul doth magnify the Lord”. Her meaning her is not that she’s emphasizing her but her Lord and Savior !  “Magnify” is the verb here and it means to declare as great, praise, glorify. The tense of the verb suggests this was not just Mary being this way for appearances sake with her relative but rather a pattern in her !  She is not patting herself on the back, but God and she is telling us a lot about where she was at then spiritually just as we do by how we handle, not only criticism but personal praise.   She was saying the very core of her being praised God.  We need this attitude when we worship Him, when we sing TO Him, when we have the good and the bad in our lives. We don’t seek to be gods and bellyache about the bad, we humbly accept the hand He has dealt us then. Nor does the truly humble person neglect to proclaim our gratitude about the good.  And Mary was humble because she REALLY believed  Who God is.  Note in verse 49 she refers to Him as “mighty”  (we get our word dynamite from this).  She honestly believed Him to be POWERFUL in contrast to what she was like. She was rightly humbled in this notion.  We must be careful to ever keep the attributes of God in our hearts.  He is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, EVER loving, etc !!  Those traits of the Lord will keep things in proper perspective and keep you from getting too big for your britches !  So think on this “meeting of the moms'”  it has much to teach us !!