December 11, 2025 - Mary's Other Journey

Mary's Other Journey

By: Diana Groe

Thursday, December 11, 2025

While I was pregnant with our second daughter, we moved twice. Once was cross-country, from Denver to Minneapolis where my husband had taken a new job with a new airline. The other move was across the river a few months later, from our temporary apartment to the house we'd bought in St. Paul Park. What I remember most about that time was the sense of being terribly unsettled when all I really wanted to do, as my belly swelled, was nest somewhere, cuddle with our toddler, and put my feet up. 

When my hubby was at work, I was also feeling alone. We knew no one in the Twin Cities, had no church home, and back in the time of no GPS, I had to learn my way around two massive cities that had morphed into one giant megalopolis. We didn't even have a doctor picked out for our upcoming arrival. It was a frenetic time. 

But my uneasiness during our season of upheaval was trivial compared with the challenges and journeys that faced Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Yes, I said "journeys." 

We all remember that epic, "how-on-earth-did-she-manage-90-miles-on-a-donkey" trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem. But we tend to gloss over Mary's first long trek while carrying Our Lord in her young body.

It was to visit her cousin Elisabeth. 

After the angel Gabriel told Mary she would bear God's Son and answered her straightforward questions about how something like that could happen, she didn't ask for a sign or proof.

But God gave her one anyway.

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elisabeth, your relative, is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail." Luke 1: 35-38

Mary believed God, but she had also been given an incredible gift of knowledge about something momentous that was about to happen. Something she had to see for herself. She knew she must go to Elisabeth.

Scripture is light on details of this trip, but we know it must have been quite an undertaking. Nazareth is located in the north, just southwest of the Sea of Galilee. Elisabeth lived with her husband Zechariah, in the hill country of Judea far to the south, but near enough to Jerusalem for Zechariah to serve as priest at the Temple periodically. (In fact, it was during his last service in the Temple that the angel Gabriel appeared to him to announce that God was giving Zechariah and Elisabeth a much longed-for son, who would be called John. He was struck dumb till the boy was born because he was foolish enough to ask for a sign!) 

The distance between Nazareth and Elisabeth's home was bad enough. The trip was complicated by the need to avoid the more direct route through Samaria, because Jews and Samaritans weren't on the best of terms. So Mary, likely in the company of a small caravan since solo travel would invite bandits and all sorts of dangers, probably followed a route along the Jordan River to the Dead Sea, then climbed over 3100ft past Jerusalem into the hill country. 

But the trip was so worth the effort. 

We don't know if Mary told Joseph about her pregancy before she left Nazareth. My guess is yes, since he needed a special word from God before deciding to go forward with their marriage. How difficult, how heart-wrenching that conversation must have been on both sides. 

And how crushing for Mary not to be believed. 

But Mary didn't even need to tell Elisabeth what was happening in her body. She already knew. 

When Elisabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb , and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice, she exclaimed, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!" Luke 1: 41-45

What an affirmation! Imagine how important that confirmation from Elisabeth must have felt to Mary's heart. God had revealed to Elisabeth that her much younger cousin Mary was being used to bring the Savior, the Lord, into the world. Mary had been carrying the most explosive secret since the world began and if Joseph's initial reaction was any indication, it wasn't going to be easily accepted. 

But to have God's outrageous plan to save humankind be greeted with such joy must have been a respite to Mary's weary soul. She entered into an ecstatic stream of worship and praise that resounds through the centuries. 

Mary didn't know yet what was to come. She hadn't heard Simeon's ominous warning that "a sword would pierce [her] own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts might be revealed." She didn't foresee that when God's Son died, it was her son who would bear the pain and anguish.   

But in this precious moment with her cousin Elisabeth, Mary's faith became unshakeable. No matter what would come, she knew God was merciful and He was using her to do a mighty thing in His world.  

In this holy season, I'm reminded that we cannot see all ends. But we trust the One who can. Jesus Christ is the definitive Word of God, sent to redeem us. 

And as Gabriel said, "No word from God will ever fail."  

Thank You, gracious LORD, that we can trust Your Word because

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." 

Let us see the Lord Jesus more clearly than ever during this blessed season. 

And may we be changed by the seeing. Amen.