Good morning. My name is Elizabeth, and I am the wife of Zechariah ben Abijah, who is a priest at the temple in Jerusalem. That’s not his full-time job, of course, he goes up for a week twice a year to take his turn in the rotation. It’s ordinarily pretty routine - although a great honor, of course, don’t get me wrong - but when he came back after the last time my husband couldn’t speak a word. That’s why I’m doing something as improper as to come speak to strangers in public in my condition - and Gentiles at that! - And besides, there are some things I was the only witness to.
It happened like this. As you can see, I’m a little old to be pregnant - and for the first time, too! And so of course Zechariah and I had long ago given up any expectation of having any children. I had nieces and nephews and cousins, of course, thanks be to the Holy One, but it’s not the same. But life is what it is, I thought, and so I made the best of things. After all, there are always mothers and children who can use the advice and help of an older woman.
But I kept remembering Sarah, and Hannah, and how they had prayed to God and he had given them a son. And Rebekah and Rachel, too, they didn’t conceive until they were almost past the age of child-bearing. And I did pray, and I tried to believe, and I waited. And then I told myself that we were past the age of miracles, after all, it had been almost 400 years since the Holy One, blessed be his name, had sent a prophet to Israel. And so I waited, each year with less and less hope, until I stopped waiting. My husband Zechariah was a good man, but he was no Abraham. God had never spoken to him, or made him a promise, or called him out of his place of birth to a larger role in history than he had been born to. So why should I ask for a miracle?
And so our days went by, and we did our best to serve faithfully where God had placed us, in the temple, in the village, in the synagogue, in the family. Until six months ago, when Zechariah came home from Jerusalem. And he couldn’t talk.
He’s never been a demonstrative man, and so when he came bursting through the gate into the courtyard where I was preparing the evening meal I was alarmed. He was gesturing wildly and pointing at his mouth and finally disappeared into the inner room and came back with a writing tablet. He
scribbled something on it and shoved it under my nose. It said, “We’re going
to have a baby!”
I stared at him. What had he been up to in Jerusalem? Was it his, or some orphan he had come across? My face felt numb. Could I take another woman’s child into my home? What about the mother? What was he trying to tell me? I looked up at him and saw him shaking his head violently. He grabbed the tablet back, wrote on it again. And held it so I could see. “NO!” It said. “Ours!” And he pointed at my belly. He wrote again. “God said.” And then “Angel.”
I started to laugh, and then to cry and threw my arms around him. Maybe he was crazy, but at least he was still the husband I had known and trusted for so long.
As it turned out, my husband wasn’t crazy after all. I finally got it through my head that when he was serving in the temple, offering up the incense while the people prayed outside, the angel Gabriel appeared to him. His first thought was that he had made some terrible mistake in the offering, and he fell flat on his face in fear. But Gabriel spoke soothingly to him, saying "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.” “What do you mean, John?” I asked, “We’ve never used that name in this family.” “God said to,” wrote Zechariah. “Remember it means ‘God has been gracious,’ and that’s what Gabriel explained to me.
“You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. . . He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
“But - but - “ I stammered. “That’s what the prophet Malachi said about the return of Elijah! How can this be?”
Zechariah said, “I do not know why we were chosen, Elizabeth, but it is true. We must believe. I asked for a sign that this would happen, and the angel struck me dumb. I will not doubt again.” I was filled with wonder, and knew it must be so. “We will give him to the Lord’s service, as Hannah did with her son Samuel,” I said. And Zechariah nodded soberly. “The angel told me our son must swear as the Nazirites do,” he said, “and never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. [Lk 1:13-16]
“My disgrace has been taken away,” I thought, and didn’t realize I had spoken aloud until Zechariah embraced me again, and wrote that in his eyes I had always been the best wife he could have hoped for.
Within a few weeks my body knew what my heart and mind already believed. I had been blessed as Sarah had been, and my child would serve the Most High. And so I repented of having lost hope, in the days before the miracle. After all, Zechariah and I had only been waiting forty years for a child. Israel had been waiting over 400! And yet we knew that God’s Messiah would come, didn’t we? Why had I doubted God’s goodness? Not that God had promised me a child, no, I didn’t mean that. But I knew that God never abandons his people, even if our prayers aren’t answered in the usual way. Didn’t he give Naomi a child for her old age, even though she did not bear it herself? Didn’t he say, "Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in travail!”? [Is 54:1]
And I thought about how easy it is to lose hope. It’s not that I had been angry at God, or think that he had been unfair not to grant me my heart’s desire. It’s just that I stopped looking forward, as if without a child there was no future. I had been going about my days as if they had no meaning, because I could not imagine a future. Or, to be more accurate, I had imagined an empty future. But there is always a future, just as there is always a present. The future is only empty of hope if we leave the grace of God out of the picture. It was while Zechariah had been going about the ordinary - privileged, as I said before, but ordinary - business of serving the Lord that the angel appeared. He didn’t expect it, I didn’t expect it. But nothing is impossible with God, even hope for a barren old woman. And I think hope always looks like a baby, even when it isn’t your own.
That’s why, when my young cousin Mary came to visit, it was possible for me to believe what had happened to her. I was in my sixth month when she arrived at my door. And little John gave a mighty kick that nearly knocked the breath out of me and I knew, I just knew that Mary was pregnant, too. Not only pregnant, but carrying the child my John had been sent to prepare the way for. I didn’t know whether to fall to my knees or throw my arms around her. And so I just cried out, “What brings the mother of the Messiah to my door?” Mary stood there in the doorway, surrounded by the early morning sunlight, and said, “The angel told me that you, too, had been blessed by God. I wanted to rejoice with you.”
“God has blessed you indeed,” I said, “not only that you are carrying the hope of Israel but that you believed at once. I must confess that both Zechariah and I found it very hard to believe that we would finally be blessed with a child and yet your child is an even greater wonder.”
A thought struck me. “Does Joseph know?” “Not yet,” said Mary, a faint frown dimming the brightness in her eyes. “What are you going to do if he sets you aside?” I asked, as we walked into the shade of the inner room and sat down on the rolled-up sleeping mats. Joseph was a good man, I knew, but this would be a lot to swallow. The whole countryside would know Mary was pregnant within a few months at the very least. “Perhaps you should put the wedding date forward,” I suggested. “No, “ I said hastily, as Mary began to shake her head. “I’m not suggesting that you deceive him. Just that if Joseph is willing to take you for his wife, that is, if he is able to believe what you and I know to be true, perhaps he would want to protect you from the gossip - which will be inevitable no matter what you do - but if you’re married it’ll be just the usual cats howling. You won’t be the first bride with a five-month baby!”
“No!” she said again more sharply. “I’m not going to hide the Lord’s miracle with a lie. If God chose me, God will protect me. The Holy One of Israel doesn’t lie, and neither will I.”
For once, I kept my mouth shut and thought about what Mary had said. And I was ashamed of myself. Here I was, in the presence of two earth-shaking miracles, and I was trying to stage-manage God’s actions! Did I think the Almighty hadn’t already planned everything? I was humbled by Mary’s assurance.
“Are you scared?” I asked. And then I corrected myself. “Were you scared?”
Mary laughed a little. “You were right both times. Of course I was scared. And I’m scared now, even though I know God is with me. It’s all so strange. I thought I would live just as all the other young women in Galilee live. I’d get married, have babies, take care of my children and my garden, and if God willed it rejoice in my grand-children before I joined our ancestors. And that would have been enough. But when the angel came I understood that God had set me on another road, one I don’t know, one I can’t see the end of. And I had a choice. I could say yes, or I could say no. But I would have to do it more than just that once. I will have to begin each day from now on by raising my hands and saying, “Yes. Let it be to me as you choose. Because I don’t know how to do this.”
She paused. “I don’t know what Joseph will do. I may have to leave Nazareth and live with strangers. I may die in childbirth. But it doesn’t matter. When the Spirit of God entered me, I knew that I would never be alone. I won’t always understand, but did any of God’s servants ever see the en d of their road? The God of Sarah, Rachel and Rebecca has chosen me - me! to be the mother of the savior of Israel. What is a long and peaceful life beside that joy?”
“Oh, Mary.” I was speechless.
I had been wondering what will happen to my little John, destined to waken the world for the coming of God’s Messiah? Can I watch him court danger and ridicule with the same serenity and acceptance that Mary shows? I know that many prophets’ lives have ended abruptly and painfully. And some complained about it, just look at Jeremiah. How can any mother not be filled with fear?
Let me learn from Mary. Let me too, learn to begin each day by saying, “Yes, Lord.”
