I was reading some of the throw-away verses in the Bible last night - you know, those verses we read with our eyes while our brains are going “Blah, blah, blah” - when (with a nudge from a dead guy) I was struck by something I had not before considered.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The passage I was reading was Lk 1.41-45:

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said,

‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord.’”

Typically, whenever I decide that it’s time to do a few laps around the gospel block with Luke, I either skip, skim, or glaze over the first two chapters of the book and hurry ahead to get to the Really Important and Truly Inspired part of his two-volume work. But with Norval Geldenhuys (NICNT, 1951) whispering in my inner ear, I was struck by something that I had always missed in earlier non-readings.

To set the stage, let me remind you about who Elizabeth was. She and her husband, Zechariah, were both from priestly lines: he of Abijah, she of Aaron; they were also “advanced” in years and, sadly, childless. To be childless was no small matter in those days, as Craig Keener explains:

To be childless was economically and socially disastrous: economically, because parents had no one to support them in old age . . . socially, because in the law barrenness was sometimes a judgment for sin, and many people assumed the worst possible cause of a problem. Most people assumed that barrenness was a defect of the wife, and Jewish teachers generally insisted that a man divorce a childless wife so he could procreate . . .

“Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, Zechariah and Elizabeth are clearly righteous . . . and the Jewish reader would immediately think of righteous Abraham and Sarah, who was also barren.” - IVP Background Commentary: New Testament, p 188.

The angel Gabriel appears to Zechariah while he is in the temple burning incense, telling him that his wife will be with child and that their son will be the prophet sent before the coming Messiah. Zechariah, who would have been better off remaining speechless, expresses some doubt about the message and is thus rendered speechless and deaf until the baby is born and circumcised.

So Elizabeth, who is likely in her sixties at this point, becomes pregnant - and not just pregnant, but pregnant with a prophet, the first in four centuries! It is hard to imagine her incredulity and thankfulness at this highly unexpected turn of events.

As she is marking the days to her delivery, having reached the sixth month of pregnancy, she is visited by one of her relatives: the youthful Mary, who has been sent to her by the same angel with news of her own. Elizabeth may be pregnant with the prophet, but Mary is pregnant with the Messiah.

Meaning no disrespect to any women that might read this (because men are little different), I was struck by Elizabeth’s response to Mary’s arrival and news: she praises her and expresses her sense of honor at being visited by the mother of the Messiah. Some - maybe a lot - of women might have felt slighted, upstaged, or resentful that Mary showed up and “ruined” her pregnancy. Elizabeth had waited at least forty years longer than Mary - who was just a teenager in all likelihood - to have a child and now she is thrust into the shadows once again by (of all the luck!) a relative.

But Elizabeth’s response is totally selfless: she is honored that Mary has come to visit her and thrilled that her relative carries the Messiah within her womb. She praises Mary for her faith and happily takes a lesser role in the drama which is only beginning to be played out in their countryside. It is no wonder that her son, John, could say of himself that he must decrease while Christ must increase. Humility was a family trait and handed down from parents to child in the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth.

Lest I be guilty of slighting Zechariah, it should be noted that when he finally regains his hearing and speech that he exults twice as much about Jesus than about John. After stating that his own child’s name is indeed John, he says:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant

“— as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old—

“salvation FROM OUR ENEMIES, and FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US; to show mercy toward our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on BEFORE THE LORD TO PREPARE HIS WAYS; to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us, TO SHINE UPON THOSE WHO SIT IN DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” - Lk 1.68-79

Zechariah speaks eight verses (although he probably didn’t know he was speaking in verses at the time) about the Messiah and just four about his own son, John. He rejoices first in the coming of the Savior and only then about his own son.

Clearly, both Elizabeth and Zecharish looked at and lived their lives from an eternal perspective. So were they able to rejoice greatly in the birth of their own son, but far more in the birth of the Son of God. An example for us all to follow.


2 Cor 1.13