Day 5 of the Christmas Story, Elizabeth

Hello to everyone. I hope you are enjoying your Saturday!

23 When Zechariah’s week of service in the Temple was over, he returned home.

That is where we left off yesterday. Zechariah returning home from his week of service in the Temple, struck deaf and mute by Gabriel, to a confused wife (well beyond her years). Elizabeth and Zechariah were devout and righteous people, and they had been married to each other for a long time. Elizabeth surely knew when Zechariah began to try to explain, that he was not making this up. It was obvious that her husband had experienced something life altering. As he wrote down as best he could what had happened, I would suppose he had to have someone come to the house to read it for her. Remember, in those days, women were not taught to read and write. If that is the case, this was going to be a long period of silence in their house and very little privacy if they wanted to communicate! He couldn’t hear what she was asking him, she couldn’t read or write, and he couldn’t speak to answer any of her questions. I’m sure of you men out there are wondering why the wife wasn’t struck mute for 9 months instead of the man! I wonder if she even comprehended the prophecy the angel had given that day to Zechariah. And to add to that, if she had to have someone read what he wrote, you know that talk soon went around the village of Judea, where they lived. In true small town fashion, everybody knew Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s business!

24 Soon afterward his wife, Elizabeth, became pregnant and went into seclusion for five months. 25 “How kind the Lord is!” she exclaimed. “He has taken away my disgrace of having no children.”

Do you think Elizabeth during that 5 months was reminded of the prophet Isaiah’s words in chapter 40, verse 27-31?
27 O Jacob, how can you say the LORD does not see your troubles?
O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
28 Have you never heard?
Have you never understood?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of all the earth.
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
29 He gives power to the weak
and strength to the powerless.
30 Even youths will become weak and tired,
and young men will fall in exhaustion.
31 But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.

Elizabeth had waited a lifetime, had waited upon the Lord, and at times grew tired and weary and hopeless, but now she didn’t have to wait much longer, for it says that soon afterward she became pregnant. She had waited on the Lord and it was her time to soar with the eagles now! And, oddly enough, it says she “soared” in seclusion for five months. Maybe when she did become pregnant, she went into seclusion because she needed the time alone, the time out of the spotlight. She must have taken the time to reflect deep within her heart every little detail she was able to piece together from Zechariah, time to think what all the words meant that Gabriel said, time to realize that she would be the mother of a man who had been prophesied to prepare the way for the Savior of her people. If she were able to grasp what was taking place and how it all tied into prophecy, that would be a huge thing to wrap your head around. And no doubt, as we see above, her heart was filled with worship and Thanksgiving to her Lord. It is daunting enough to think about raising a child when you are expecting a baby for the first time, especially given her older age. But to think of raising a child like John might have been a tad overwhelming. (Now, hopefully, during this time it hadn’t yet dawned on her that somebody who never cuts their hair and beard, probably rarely bathes, lives out in the wilderness alone, eats locusts, and behaves like a prophet – well, that is going to be a strange man! Prophets usually were on the strange side!)

After all the years of feeling disgraced and shamed over being barren, walking around the market seeing all the young women expecting babies, women her age already having grandchildren, her heart must have broken every time she encountered the situation, every time she went to another woman’s home to help with a birth or with a new baby. I have heard that barrenness is a very painful and lonely thing to endure, as you are faced with it everywhere you turn, every celebration, every holiday, every time you are with friends, or around nieces and nephews. But now, none of that would ever taunt her again. She had been chosen, favored, so much so that God sent Gabriel to her husband after God had arranged for him to be alone burning incense that day! He had taken note of her and the waiting was over. It was not just any child, it was the forerunner of the Savior, the Messiah, a little boy given the name “John” (meaning “the Lord is gracious”) by God himself.

Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news of peace and salvation. Her son, John, would be one of those spoken of in Isaiah, whose beautiful feet would come out of his life in the wilderness to bring the good news that their people had been waiting to hear, to prepare them for the salvation that was in the flesh, living among them. Indeed, his name was appropriate. God truly had been gracious.

Elizabeth, like most of us, was another unlikely candidate in this story of stories. She was old, she was barren, and she was female. There wasn’t much going for her, especially in her Jewish culture, except that she was righteous in God’s eyes. But isn’t that really all that matters when God decides to use someone? She was the perfect choice in God’s eyes – another person at the end of themselves, knowing that if something happens, it would totally have to be a God thing. Knowing there is no way they could ever claim to have humanly had anything to do with being chosen by God to carry John.

We are all unlikely candidates today, in this month of December, in the year of 2009. But remember, that is the way our Father likes it. I know that for me I say, I’m 47, I’m not highly educated, and I’m a female (which can all be limiting). But nevertheless, I have a passion inside of me for the Word of God and for sharing it with others. Can He use me? I’m pretty unlikely, but yes, He can. What are the things in you that you think make you the unlikely candidate? Can He use you? You can be absolutely sure that he can and he will, if only you are available.

Ponder how unlikely we really are today. And that will just point even more toward God’s handiwork in each of our lives.

In Him,
the unlikeliest of candidates,
Teresa