Advent Meditation #1

From John Piper’s Good News of Great Joy (a free e-book download):

“Mary and Elizabeth are wonderful heroines in Luke’s

account. He loves the faith of these women. The thing that

impresses him most, it appears, and the thing he wants to

impress on Theophilus, his noble reader, is the lowliness and

cheerful humility of Elizabeth and Mary.

Elizabeth says,“Why is this granted to me that the mother of

my Lord would come to me?” (Luke 1:43). And Mary says, “He

has looked on the humble estate of his servant” (Luke 1:48).

The only people whose soul can truly magnify the Lord are

people like Elizabeth and Mary—people who acknowledge

their lowly estate and are overwhelmed by the condescension

of the magnificent God.”