“When I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb jumped for joy.” Luke 1:44
While my wife has been pregnant, we learned that some studies done have shown that babies can recognize the voices of their parents in the womb and from the moment they are born.
One such study explains, “Working with researchers at Zhejiang University, Kisilevsky tested 60 women in the final stage of pregnancy. All the mothers were tape-recorded as they read a poem out loud. Then the mothers were divided into two groups. Half the fetuses heard the recording of their own mother. The other half heard another mother, but not their own. In both cases, the poem caused a change in the baby's heart rate. The heart rate accelerated among those who heard their own mother's voice and decelerated among those who heard a voice other than their mother's. Deceleration of the heart rate is "an attention mechanism," Kisilevsky says. The heart-beat among fetuses who heard an unfamiliar voice slowed down, she says, because they were paying close attention to a voice they did not recognize. In other words, they were trying to figure out who was talking.” (Babies Recognize Mom’s Voice from the Womb, Lee Dye, ABC News) Babies can recognize voices while they are still in the womb!
Miraculously, John the Baptist took it a step further. He recognized the Messiah from the time that he was in the womb. He had been given a mission from God to be the forerunner to the Messiah, preparing the way. If you asked John his life motto, he might have said, “He must increase and I must decrease.” (John 3:30). His life mission was not to elevate himself, but to point others to the Messiah, Jesus, the one who would take away the sin of the world and save any who put their trust in Him.
One day as Mary, pregnant with Jesus, approached Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, John miraculously recognized the Messiah before either he or Jesus was born. Think about that. Little John leaped for joy before he was even born because he recognized that Jesus was in close proximity.
I pray that this Christmas, you would recognize Jesus is near and that like little baby John, you would leap for joy. You would leap for joy because of the confident hope that we have in Him. You would leap for joy because He takes away all our sin. You would leap for joy because God so loved the world He willingly gave us Jesus to pay for our sin.
I also pray that if you do not know the salvation that comes from trusting in Jesus that you would. There are many things in life that promise to save us. They promise to give joy, hope, healing, freedom- yet they fail to deliver on that promise. Trusting in Jesus is cause for true joy because He truly is the Messiah. He is the true Savior of humanity. May you recognize that and leap for joy like little baby John as you place your trust in Him.