GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 1:39-41
Mary Visits Elizabeth
39 In those days Mary got up and went eagerly to the hill country, to a town of Judah.
We are never told exactly which town of Judah it was where Elizabeth and Zechariah lived. But Mary knew, and as soon as the angel left her, she got ready and made her way there. The Greek word spoudē (σπουδή) can mean diligence, eagerness, an effort, or haste. In Mary’s case, almost all of these fit the context.
40 She entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 Just as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
This scene, because of Elizabeth’s explanation (guided as she is by the Holy Spirit present within her), is proof for us that an unborn baby can have knowledge of the outside world, and proof that an unborn baby can also have faith in Christ. It is not, however, proof that every single baby has such a faith.
First, it should be obvious to everyone that a baby in the womb has some comprehension of the world outside that womb. There is light, air pressure, and sound. The change in light from one room to another, even at different times of day, can tell the baby whether Mama is in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the barn, or walking down the street. The change in air pressure (and, to a limited extent, temperature), can tell the baby whether or not Mama is alone, or in a large room or a small one. Most of us are unconscious of this ability except when we get the feeling (we think) that someone else is there, unseen, nearby. But sound travels through water, even the waters of the womb, and so the baby will come to know Mama’s voice and others, their emotions, and perhaps a great deal more.
Proof that a baby can have faith is clear from this passage. Elizabeth will explain: “As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy” (1:44). This is not merely a romantic view of events or a dim hope for the distant future. When my mother was in the hospital after delivering me into the world, another woman from our village was also there, having delivered a baby shortly before. Mom told me that they joked at the time that they were future mothers-in-law, and as it turned out, the girl and I were childhood playmates (they lived next to my Dad’s paint store). But their words weren’t prophetic. Marilee and I married other people and we live in different states. Our mothers, though Christian, were not augurs or seers. But Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, who gave her insight into what was taking place and perhaps aided her in finding the words to her approaching benediction. In the womb, John knew that Mary’s baby was Christ the Lord, even though John was a developing infant still three months from birth, and Christ himself was more than eight months from birth.
But not every baby necessarily has faith in the womb. “Faith comes through hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). The means of grace, the means through which God channels his grace and forgiveness to us, and our faith as well, is the gospel. The gospel comes through the Word of God (read, spoken, sung or preached) and through the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Neither baptism nor communion are available to a baby in the womb, but the word of God is there. How much does a baby understand? That isn’t for us to say, but neither is it our place to say that a baby can understand nothing at all. The Lord works through his appointed tools, the means of grace. It would be monstrous of us to withhold the gospel because we don’t understand it. It is the task of parents to give their children the gift of the gospel, the habit of regular worship, and conversation and instruction in the word of the Lord from the moment the child is conceived and for the rest of their lives.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota