The young lady was confused and overwhelmed. How could she be pregnant when she had never had sexual relations? But she was reassured that this was God at work and that her baby would be very special!

               Mary went to see her older cousin – whom she found out was also pregnant – six months along. When she arrived and called out a greeting to let her know she was there, her cousin reacted with intense surprise and emotion. Elizabeth was literally hit by a revelation that Mary was pregnant with the Lord! She exclaimed this in prophecy over Mary. And she went on to say how the baby within her had “leaped in my womb for joy” at the sound of Mary’s greeting (Luke 1:39-45).

               At Christmas, we sing:  “Joy to the world the Lord is come! …” 

               Interesting, isn’t it, that John the Baptist, while still in his mother’s womb, was the first to react with an outburst of joy at the incarnation of the Lord of all Creation? And interesting, too, how Elizabeth felt the joy of the baby within her. Elizabeth reacted with great joy herself, prophesying over Mary. Then Mary responded likewise in great joy and inspiration with what has become known as “The Magnificat”, one of the Bible’s great songs of praise and worship: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior”… (Luke 1:46-55). Joy is contagious, and the joy of the Lord is an especially good contagion!

               God gave us emotions. And there are emotional connections to physical reality. Our Creator God “is a Spirit” (John 4:24), and that Spirit gave birth to and breathes life into the physical reality of His creation – immaterial things are connected with material things. Science is bearing that out more and more.

               We know, for example, that the heart emits an electromagnetic field that can be measured by electrocardiogram. Brainwaves can also be measured by electroencephalograms. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used not only to differentiate disease from healthy organs and muscle tissue but also now to map the human brain. People’s brains are activated in different regions depending on their emotional responses as they view and experience different things. And functional MRIs can “see” the different regional activity.

               Different emotional states also cause the body to produce different chemical hormones in our heart, our belly/gut, and our brain. There are hormones which associate with fear and anger, for example, and there are others that are “feel good” hormones. They react in the body electro-chemically and promote physical reactions in the various muscles and other organs of our body. Babies who do not get held and touched in love, for example, can have “failure-to-thrive” syndrome. Their bodies simply don’t grow and develop at the right pace because they do not get the proper love and emotional security.

               The truth is that we have invisible phenomena leading to tangible, tactile, and material results. Thus, we read about little baby John the Baptist jumping and kicking his mother while in the womb in response to the joy of the Lord at the sound of Mary’s voice – with Elizabeth reacting, and Mary reacting emotionally in sequence. People can feel the joy of others!

                The evidence tells us that to get to the underlying truth of things we need to go deeper than the physical reality – to work back from the physical/material to the spiritual, from the natural to the supernatural! The physical (material) action of little baby John the Baptist and his great joy inside Elizabeth’s womb produced great emotion in Elizabeth and then in Mary, which led to an activation of her spirit and the profound spiritual statement of The Magnificat. This is the Magnificent Reality we face as creatures in God’s creation, and in the Christ child – “…the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Indeed, the physical can “touch” the spiritual!

Mark Cadwallader, Board Chairman of Creation Moments

Image: Visitatie, Rijksmuseum, CC0, Wikimedia Commons, Changes Made.

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