Are you ready for Christmas yet? Two weeks from tomorrow. Maybe the reason that it’s so hard for us to get ready for Christmas is because we have to do it every year. If you only had one Christmas to get ready for in your whole life, would you be ready? Well, it would certainly give you more time, wouldn’t it?
During Advent, we’re looking at how various people in the Scriptures got ready for the first Christmas. Last week, we took a look at Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. Today we’ll take a look at how his mother, Elizabeth got prepared for Christmas.
Elizabeth had spent her whole lifetime preparing to be John the Baptist’s Mom. Or more accurately, Elizabeth spent her whole lifetime being prepared by God to be John the Baptist’s mother – and she didn’t even know it.
She had been brought up in a priestly family
She was a righteous and pious woman
In spite of that, she couldn’t have kids
Barrenness was the worst tragedy that could happen to a woman – and to her family
The assurances that Zechariah and Elizabeth were “righteous” people were made in part because – well, they were barren.
And no matter how nice somebody might seem, their friends and family thought, “you have to wonder about them. If they were so good, why God had allowed such a terrible thing to happen to them?”
For years, she and Zechariah had prayed that the Lord would give them a child.
For just as many years, their prayer went unanswered
And perhaps, like many of us, once they could no longer see any natural way that their prayers could be answered, -- i.e., when they got too old to have kids -- they probably gave up praying for that blessing.
After all, if God had not seen fit to give them children when their bodies were young and strong, they wouldn’t expect Him to answer their prayers now -- in their old age.
Elizabeth experienced a lifetime of struggling over her barrenness
In a culture where the only real purpose in a woman’s life was bearing and rearing children, what good was a woman like Elizabeth?
She must have wondered, “What’s wrong with me? Why is God punishing me?”
She was just a drain on the system; a parasite
And then, long after her body was able to conceive naturally, she miraculously became pregnant – not quite like Mary, but a miracle all the same
What was impossible in the natural realm was possible only through God
That is both a thrilling and a humbling truth
It’s thrilling for us to see God work supernaturally in somebody else:
Isn’t that something – Elizabeth and Zechariah having a baby at their age!
But it’s humbling for those who experience it, because it means coming to the end of their own resources
Before we can experience God’s power, we often need to acknowledge that we are powerless
Paul talks about his “thorn in the flesh” – a weakness he just wanted to get rid of until he saw that God’s power was demonstrated through it
Like water flowing through the cracks in a clay pot, God’s grace often flows through our weaknesses and failures
All those years, Elizabeth may have felt God was punishing her; but He was preparing her.
He used her weakness to demonstrate His power!
If she had given birth to John when she was 23, people would have said, “Oh, Zechariah and Elizabeth had a baby. Isn’t that nice?”
But because everyone knew Elizabeth couldn’t have kids, her pregnancy was like a big sign to tell everybody that this was no every day birth – God was doing something and they’d better pay attention to it.
God had done an amazing thing in Elizabeth’s life.
The very word “barren” brings up images of deserts and wastelands, of fruit trees without fruit, of ghost towns with tumbleweeds blowing down empty streets.
Unproductive, empty, desolate – all synonyms for her condition
That was the picture Elizabeth had of her life
And then, miraculously, all that was behind her
When her friends were cuddling their grandchildren, she was buying maternity clothes.
After a lifetime of shame, a lifetime of dashed hopes, she was going to be a mother
She knew what younger mothers didn’t – that this baby had very little to do with her and her husband, and everything to do with the power of God.
God was doing something way bigger than what one little old couple in the Judean hills could do.
No angel had to tell Elizabeth what he had just told Mary, that “With God all things are possible.”
Having seen the miraculous power of God in her own life, Elizabeth began to see everything through the eyes of a renewed faith.
When Mary came to call, Elizabeth knew what had happened to her without a word of explanation
Yes, she had a little help from her unborn son
And she had even more help from the Holy Spirit.
But I believe that Elizabeth was able to see what God was doing in Mary because she also had seen God’s working in her own life.
Her experience of God’s power gave her the eyes of faith
Eyes that see possibilities where others see problems
Eyes that see opportunities where others see obstacles
Eyes that see miracles, where others see only the mundane
Elizabeth was going to need that faith to raise John.
She needed a faith born of God’s strength through her weakness; a faith that endured years of shame and rejection.
For John would experience rejection, too, and he had to remain faithful if he was to prepare the way for Christ.
John was not an ordinary guy – out in the desert wearing animal skins and eating bugs.
He stood up to the powers that be
When hypocritical religious teachers came to him pretending to repent, he called them a “brood of vipers”
He publicly condemned King Herod for marrying his brother’s wife – and it cost John his life
Elizabeth had to raise a son who could stand firm in his faith despite rejection
And she raised a son whose faith would remain strong even to the point of death.
Because she had seen God’s work in her own life, Elizabeth was able to give affirmation of God’s work in Mary
One commentator I read said that when Gabriel appeared to Mary, he had given her an “implicit command” to visit Elizabeth.
I don’t think it was so much of a command as it was “a bug in her ear.”
Mary responded to Gabriel’s announcement with faith – yet God knew that there would probably come a million questions and doubts once she didn’t have an angel standing in front of her.
Who, in all the world, could this young teenage girl go to?
Who could understand?
Who would believe her when she told them?
What would she do?
That’s when she thought, “Elizabeth! Of course!”
Who in all the world could possibly accept Mary’s crazy story better than Elizabeth – who had a crazy story of her own.
It’s hard, even among believers, to find somebody who really believes God is doing great things.
Mary needed somebody who knew about miracles.
How many times during her journey do you think Mary practiced how she would tell Elizabeth what had happened?
You were a teenager once – how hard would this have been?
Imagine what it meant to Mary when Elizabeth immediately knew that she was carrying the Lord in her womb! Mary didn’t have to say a word. Elizabeth affirmed that what Mary had experienced was true! Elizabeth saw with the eyes of faith – and affirmed the work of God in Mary
It’s interesting to me, that while John prepared the way for Jesus, in a real sense, Elizabeth prepared the way for Mary. Elizabeth had her own crazy and miraculous pregnancy, and so wasn’t at all skeptical of Mary’s
In her years of barrenness, she had already experienced the disgrace and rejection of the community that Mary was likely to face when word got out. But Elizabeth had paved the way.
All her life, God had prepared her, not only to be John’s mother, but to be the example of maturity and faithfulness that Mary needed for the enormous task ahead of her.
Elizabeth extended love, acceptance, hospitality, hope and faith to a young girl in need of every bit she could offer.
There are two different words in this passage that are often translated “blessed”
In verse 42, Elizabeth tells Mary: “You are the most blessed of all women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” the word here is “eulogeo” – and you may be able to hear an English word in there: eulogy
For us, a eulogy is a term usually reserved for funerals, but it is the time when we talk about the person’s life, from as positive a perspective as possible. This isn’t the time to say, “And he never did pay me that 50 bucks he owed me, the cheapskate!” It may be true, but that’s just not what you say in a eulogy!
The word isn’t as specific in the Greek – it’s not just something you say at a funeral -- but it can mean to praise, or to speak well of, to honor. So Elizabeth is saying, “You and that baby are just going to be the most honored people on the planet.”
That may not have been what this unwed pregnant teenager was feeling that moment. Especially after a 3 or 4 day trek through the hills of Judea
Eventually Elizabeth’s words would come true, but they probably didn’t feel true for Mary at that moment.
The other word for blessed is used in verse 45, where Elizabeth says, “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” [NIV]
This time Luke doesn’t use “eulogeo”
He uses a word that has less to do with the words and opinions of others and more to do with being favored by God, and having the heart and attitude of one who knows that favor.
The Good News Bible translates it: “How happy you are to believe that the Lord’s message to you will come true!”
I think it indicates a pervasive joy regardless of circumstances
Elizabeth is saying, “Mary, when you grab hold of God’s promises and believe them, there is a joy that is going to sustain you through this!”
Elizabeth was not speaking abstractly, but on the basis of her own experience.She’s saying, “Oh honey! I know how you may feel. I know there’s gonna’ be hard times. But when you trust Him, when you take God at His word, when you cast all your cares on Him, you’re gonna have JOY!
May we learn from Elizabeth what I believe Mary learned from her: To look at life with the eyes of faith – expecting to see Him at work
To trust His Word more than even our own eyes
And to experience the joy that true faith will truly bring.
