By Colleen Tinker
The story is familiar—but how can we believe it?
It’s a story that begins in Luke 1. Israel had not had a word from God in over 400 years—not since Malachi wrote God’s last prophecy to the nation. Then, one ordinary day, Gabriel appeared in the temple to an obscure elderly priest whose life was playing out in a minor key: his wife Elizabeth was barren, and she was past the age of childbearing. Zacharias (that was the priest’s name) kept praying, but he and Elizabeth were out of time. In an instant, ordinary became unforgettable. Gabriel stood before him on the right side of the altar of incense—and Zacharias was terrified. The angel told him not to be afraid and proceeded to deliver shocking news: God had heard his prayers. Elizabeth would bear a son! More than that, the promised baby would be great in God’s eyes. He would be named John and would be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in Elizabeth’s womb. Even more amazingly, he would be the one to fulfill Malachi’s prophecy that a prophet would come as a forerunner, turning the hearts of fathers back to their children, the disobedient to righteousness, “so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Zacharias was incredulous. “I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years,” he reminded the angel. “How will I know this for certain?”
One can understand his incredulity. The angel’s promise seemed impossible! But Gabriel delivered a sign to Zacharias, a sign that was both a judgment for his unbelief and confirmation of the baby’s prophetic identity when he finally arrived: Zacharias would be unable to speak until his son was born.
Zacharias mutely finished his week of temple service and returned home to a no-doubt stunned Elizabeth. Even the timing of this baby’s birth was predetermined by God; he would be born at the “proper time”. Neither their ages nor Elizabeth’s barrenness was a barrier to God’s will, and exactly as Gabriel had promised, Elizabeth became pregnant shortly after her husband arrived home.
As the brief story of Elizabeth develops, we see one of God’s interventions that transforms an ordinary, unknown woman into a key witness in the greatest, most unbelievable event in history.
Filled with joy, worship, and gratitude, Elizabeth went into seclusion for five months. Zacharias, after all, was unable to talk with her about this miraculous intervention, and she poured out her heart to her God who had seen her shame and longing: “This is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when He looked with favor upon me, to take away my disgrace among men.”
John the Baptist was formed in the womb of a woman who knew he was a living soul from the moment he was conceived. She had spent most of her life under the shadow of disgrace; to be barren in Israel was to be perceived as being under God’s judgment. When she became pregnant—an impossible development without God’s provision—she never thought of her baby as mere “potential”. He was alive from the moment he was formed, and Elizabeth spent her confinement rejoicing and praising God for removing the disgrace of her barrenness. This child growing in her was God’s favor poured out on her!
A virgin will conceive
Six months after Elizabeth conceived her son, God sent Gabriel on another mission, this time with a message that would consummate God’s promises that began in Eden: the Seed of the woman would be born! “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”
Gabriel’s destination this time could not have been a greater contrast from his earlier appointment with Zacharias inside the golden temple in Jerusalem. This time God sent His angel to a young virgin named Mary who was living with her parents while she waited for her nuptials with her betrothed, a builder named Joseph, in the nearly-unknown village of Nazareth in the Galilee region of northern Israel.
As Gabriel entered the room where Mary was, he delivered a startling greeting that perplexed Mary, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”
What could this mean? Mary had no way to understand either why this glorious being was standing before her nor what he meant by this blessing from the Lord. Gabriel quickly reassured her, “Do not be afraid, Mary,” and he repeated the words that had so puzzled her, “You have found favor with God.”
Giving her no time to figure out what was happening, Gabriel continued with a message which was even more impossible than his message to Zacharias had been, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.” He continued with the words that promised this baby would be God’s own Son and would sit on David’s throne. All God’s treasured promises to Israel were coming to pass in this impossible pregnancy announced by God’s angel to an unknown girl in the tribe of Judah.
Stunned, Mary asked the obvious: “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, explaining this glorious impossibility, this miracle that had no precedent and would have no repetition: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.”
Then Gabriel told her of God’s provision for her. She was on the threshold of something so big, so unexpected, that her life and imminent marriage were about to be shaken to the core, but God had provided confirmation and support that she could not have imagined: “And behold even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Not even Mary’s mother and father would be able to provide the comfort and context she would need as Joseph nearly broke off his marriage to their daughter, as the public began to whisper about her supposed sin. Even if they trusted God and believed Mary—which they likely did—this calling that God ordained for their daughter would affect their reputations also. The virgin who would carry God’s Son would find no peer in Israel, but God provided an older woman who was experiencing her own miraculous pregnancy; Elizabeth would understand and believe Mary and encourage her.
“Behold, the bondslave of the Lord,” Mary replied to Gabriel; “may it be done to me according to your word.” And then Mary was alone.
Unlikely witnesses
Luke’s unfolding story of these two women at opposite ends of life, each pregnant with miraculous babies, each trusting God’s faithfulness as they accepted His will for them, reveals that God was doing more than bringing John and Jesus into the world through miraculous interventions. He was honoring His promise to Eve that her Seed would crush the serpent, and He was also beginning to reveal that in the kingdom of His Son which He was about to inaugurate, all people, from the least to the greatest, are equal in His sight.
Women in Israel were not considered equal with men. In fact, Jewish men typically thanked God that they had not been born gentile dogs or women. Moreover, the testimony of a woman was not accepted in a law court. Women received their social standing by bearing children and being wives of respected men.
In this story we see God honoring both Elizabeth and Mary with miraculous motherhood. Each would bear a child foretold by the prophets, and God specifically chose them for these roles. Not only do we see God honoring the unique role of motherhood with His intervention in these women’s lives, however, but we also see God giving these women His words to speak—but we’re getting ahead of the story.
Scripture does not tell us how Mary revealed the substance of Gabriel’s message to her parents, but it does tell us that “at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country to a city of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.”
That greeting began one of the most remarkable accounts of God’s revelation and confirmation recorded in Scripture. “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,” Luke 1:41 tells us, “the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Months before, Gabriel had told Zacharias that the baby Elizabeth would bear would be filled with the Holy Spirit before he was born. The moment Mary entered their house and called out her greeting, God confirmed that He had given Elizabeth’s unborn baby spiritual life; he leaped in his mother’s womb, and Elizabeth also was filled with the Holy Spirit.
“Blessed are you among women,” Elizabeth cried out, “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.”
Mary’s response to Elizabeth’s words was to utter a hymn praising God for His faithfulness. Known today as “The Magnificat” (the Latin word that means “exalts”), this hymn is constructed like a psalm and is remarkably similar to the praise that poured from Hannah’s heart when she delivered her son Samuel to the temple to dedicate his life to the service of God (1 Sam. 2:1-10). Separated by centuries, these two mothers bearing miraculous babies—one who would usher in the kings of Israel and the other who would fulfill all God’s promises as Israel’s King—spontaneously uttered praise to Him that eternally declares His faithfulness to His promises and to His people.
“My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave; for behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me; and holy is His name. And His mercy is upon generation after generation toward those who fear Him. He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, and has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things; and sent away the rich empty-handed. He has given help to Israel His servant, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.”
Only one sentence summarizes the rest of Mary’s visit with Elizabeth: “And Mary stayed with her about three months, and then returned to her home” (Lk. 1:56).
Confirmed by the least of these
Both Elizabeth’s response and Mary’s song have received much attention over the past two millennia. In fact, many have exalted Mary to near-deity, sentimentalizing her maternity and her God-inspired hymn. Instead of grappling with the weight of God’s assignments to her and also to Elizabeth, instead of acknowledging the reality that God chose these two ordinary women as His messengers and heralds of the new covenant that was about to dawn, centuries of tradition have placed them out of reach of common people.
Luke is the only gospel that tells the stories of Zacharias and Elizabeth, of Gabriel’s announcement to Mary, and of the details of Jesus’ birth in an animal shelter where Mary laid him in a feeding trough. Amazingly, this story of the birth of the One who would fulfill all that was written in the law, the prophets, and the Psalms, was written by the one gentile author in the New Testament: a physician named Luke. A man who, by first-century Jewish standards was considered a “dog”, was the writer God appointed to tell the story of His kindness to the unlikeliest witnesses the Lord chose to confirm the birth of His Son. Specifically, Luke 1 reveals the kindness of God to three of His unlikeliest witnesses: Elizabeth, Mary, and the unborn John.
When the fullness of time had come for Eve’s Seed to be born, the One who would crush the serpent’s head, He marked the time with two impossible pregnancies. First, He removed Elizabeth’s shame of barrenness and ushered her and Zacharias into the fulfillment of God’s promises. They not only became the parents of the prophet specifically foretold who would come in the spirit and the power of Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord, but God gave them a place in His eternal word.
Next God’s Spirit visited Mary. No analysis can explain what God did or how He did it, but He entrusted Mary with the assignment of being the mother who would give birth to her own Savior.
Not only did God entrust Mary and Elizabeth with bearing the Savior and His forerunner, but through them He began to reverse the historic devaluing of women. He entrusted them to witness to Jesus’ identity and to God’s faithfulness. When Elizabeth cried out as Mary entered her home, she confirmed what she could not have known on her own: Mary had been chosen out of all women for the blessing of bearing the Savior. Moreover, she identified Mary’s unborn child as her own Lord and wondered how she could have been chosen for Mary, carrying the Lord, to visit her. Finally, Elizabeth confirmed, as she was inspired by the Holy Spirit, that Mary was blessed because she believed that what God had promised her would come to pass.
Then Mary, hearing Elizabeth confirming her own experience and God’s message to her, spoke a psalm that exalted God and revealed her own need before Him. “My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,” she said. With those words Mary herself uttered words from God that tell the truth about herself: she was not sinless but needed to be saved, and she recognized God as her Savior.
She identified herself, as Paul would identify himself just a few years later, as God’s bondslave. She quoted the Psalms and affirmed that God had “given help to Israel His servant,” explaining that He was keeping His promises to Abraham and his descendants.
Both Mary and Elizabeth, unremarkable women, were given remarkable pregnancies. Moreover, God gave each of them His unerring, eternal word. These two women who believed God still bear witness that He keeps His promises and that He sent His Son.
There’s one more witness in this story that we often overlook—the unborn John. God had promised that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit in the womb, and He gave that six-month-old fetus the awareness that His Savior had entered the room—even though Jesus was only an embryo in his young mother. John leaped in Elizabeth’s womb when Elizabeth heard Mary’s voice—and he leaped for joy.
The record of this incident is a central confirmation in the story of Jesus’ incarnation. By this we know that God values the unborn and sees them as living children. In fact, He gave John new birth before he had been physically born, and by the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, John testified while still in utero that his Savior, also still in utero, was in his presence.
None are insignificant
Elizabeth, Mary, and John are only three of the unlikely witnesses God appointed to confirm His Son’s identity. Zacharias, the elderly priest who received the first message from God in over 400 years, would not have been perceived as a likely prophet. Joseph, the man of integrity from the backwater town of Nazareth, believed the angel when he told him Mary’s child was God’s Son. Canceling his plans to divorce Mary, Joseph accepted God’s assignment to protect and nurture Mary and Jesus, whisking them to Egypt to avoid Herod’s mad infanticide and moving them back to Galilee after Herod’s death.
The shepherds in Luke 2 were the lowest class of citizens in Israel, yet God chose them to hear and see the choir of angels announcing, “Glory to God in the highest! And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (Lk. 2:14).
Two more insignificant people appear in gentile Luke’s gospel, bearing witness that Jesus was the One for whom Israel had been waiting. First is Simeon, a man who lived in Jerusalem. Luke describes him as “righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him” (Lk. 2:25). Remarkably, the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die until he saw the Lord Christ.
When Joseph and Mary brought the eight-day-old Jesus to the temple to be circumcised, Simeon was there. The Holy Spirit revealed to him that this baby was the One for whom he had been waiting, and he took Jesus into his arms, blessed God, and said,
“Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel” (Lk. 2:29-32).
Amazed, Joseph and Mary listened to Simeon prophesy, and then an 84-year-old widow named Anna stepped up. Anna had been married for seven years before her husband died, but she had spent the rest of her life living and working in the temple. Anna also recognized Jesus’ identity, and she too praised God.
God the Son became incarnate to bring salvation to all people. He is the Savior of the outcast as well as of the privileged—and He came to break down the barrier that separated people from each other. As the incarnate Son of God died on the cross, He fulfilled all the requirements of the law and paid the price for human sin. Through His blood we are reconciled to God, and in Him “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for [we] are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).
God knew the doubts depraved men and women would have about the story of Mary’s pregnancy, and He provided witnesses to the truth of what He had done—witnesses who could not have invented what happened.
In Jesus God has given men and women equal value before Him; in Jesus we are all His witnesses. In Jesus we see that all life, including the life of the unborn, is honored by God. In Jesus our sin has been paid for, and our dead spirits have come to life. In Jesus our shame is redeemed, and in Jesus all God’s promises are “Yes!” †
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