Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• In this section the two storylines, the angel’s announcement to Zechariah that his wife would bear a son, and the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear a son, come together.
• Several parts of this story fulfill the signs described in the encounter between Zechariah and the angel Gabriel. 1) Zechariah is speechless, 2) Elizabeth conceived, and now 3) the child leapt at the approach of Mary, fulfilling Luke 1:15 that “even before his birth the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
• In Luke’s Gospel, the coming of the Holy Spirit always indicates action. When the Holy Spirit comes upon someone, they are transformed. Example Acts 2:1-20.
• The story says Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, alerting us to her next words as words from God. That Mary and the child will be blessed, that Mary is the “mother of my Lord,” that the movement of her own child is a leap of joy, and a beatitude to Mary for her faith and that the promise to her would be fulfilled.
• The Magnificat, Mary’s response to Elizabeth is a theological reflection on the meaning of the incarnation in Luke. It contains echoes of the song of Hannah in 1 Sam 2:1-10. It also draws from other biblical imagery, like the mighty hand of God leading Israel through the wilderness.
Works Sourced:
Culpepper, R. Alan. “The Gospel of Luke.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
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