O Come Let Us Adore…A Zygote? [Day 8]

The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in Luke 1 with good news: You’re gonna have a baby!  Don’t you want to share good news when you have it?

So did Mary.  Verse 39 says she left “with haste” to visit her relative Elizabeth.  Elizabeth was six months pregnant with John the Baptist, the forerunner whose job it was to announce the coming Messiah.  When she arrived, John—filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb—leaped for joy.  A womb-to-womb worship service broke out!  Was John an early Pentecostal?  You can ask him in heaven.

Where did Mary live?  That’s easy.  The text tells us Nazareth.  And Elizabeth?  Not as easy.  It only says generally “the hill country…a town in Judah.”  But remember that Elizabeth was married to Zechariah, who was what by profession?  A priest.  Where?  In the temple.  Where was the temple?  In Jerusalem.  The little town was a bedroom community of Jerusalem.

The normal walking route between Nazareth and Jerusalem was about 115 miles.  Long walk, but not uncommon in those days.  Jesus did it three times during his ministry.  It normally took three to five days.

When Gabriel departed from Mary she was not pregnant (“you will conceive in your womb and bear a son”).  She left with haste, probably a day or two after her angelic visit.

So how old was Jesus when the leaping John announced the arrival of the Messiah to his mom?  Who knows—maybe three, five, perhaps ten days old?  A zygote.  Too small to see.

Yet John worshipped Him as fully God and fully human.

At conception we become whole, distinct, living human beings.  The science of Embryology agrees with what the Bible taught long ago.

The Christmas story is a bedrock for the pro-life convictions of Bible-believing Christians.

GUEST WRITER: Mark Nicholson