It was a part of the angelic message to S. Mary that her cousin Elizabeth had “conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.”  Overwhelmed as S. Mary was by the vocation which had come to her, perplexed as to what should be her next step, she may well have seized upon the words of the angel as a hint as to her present course.  She must confide in some one, and that some one, we instantly feel, must be a woman.  In her own great joy she would need some one with whom to share it.  In her unprecedented case she would need a counselor, and who better could afford aid than her cousin whose case was in so many respects like her own, who was already cherishing a child whose conception was due to the intervention of God?  We understand therefore, why it is that without waiting for the further development of events, Mary arises, and goes “with haste” to the home of her cousin.

It is just now a house full of joy.  For many years there had been happiness there, but a happiness over which a cloud rested.  The affliction of barrenness was their sorrow.  To the Hebrew there was no true family until the love of the father and the mother was incarnated in the child; and through many weary days Zacharias and Elizabeth had waited until hope quite failed as they found themselves beyond the possibility of bearing a child to cheer them and to hand on their name.  We may be sure that they were reconciled to the will of God, for it is written of them that they were righteous, and the central feature of righteousness is the acceptance of the divine will.  But though one cheerfully accepts the divine will there may still remain a consciousness of a vacancy in life; and therefore we can understand the joy that came to Zacharias when the angel appeared to him in the temple when he was exercising the priest’s office and offering the incense of the daily sacrifice with the message that he should have a son.  It was a joy that would be unclouded by the God-sent dumbness which was at once a punishment for his lack of immediate faith and a sign of the faithfulness of God.  It was a joy that would hasten his steps homeward with the glad tidings, a joy that would fill the heart of Elizabeth when she heard the message of God.  Soon the consciousness of the babe in her womb would be a growing wonder and a growing happiness.  There would be a new brightness in the house where the aged mother waits through the months and the dumb father with his writing tablet at his side meditates upon the meaning of the providence of God and upon the prophecies of the angel as to his child’s future.  But what that future would be he could hardly expect to witness; he was too old to live to the day of his child’s showing unto Israel.