One On One: 100 Days With Jesus--ADVENTSample

Elizabeth: The First to Worship Jesus 

There was a time when she pleaded with God for a child every waking moment of the day, and always through the night. But the heavens were silent. And the neighbors were not. 

Still, Elizabeth and her husband walked with God. Loyal and loving, they served Him their whole lives—which is why they couldn’t explain His confusing, ‘No’ when they asked for a child. Around the time their hair got grey, they likely stopped asking. Prayers wear out just like we do. 

And now the stage was set. When Zecharias came home speechless (literally) from temple the day that Gabriel visited him in the Holy Place, he scratched out the cryptic message— “we’re going to have a baby.” 

How he knew before she did was the first mystery. The second was that he was right. Apparently, God hears old prayers. 

Yes, she was pregnant. Her cycles long past, she had no physical sign. She had to wait on God again just like she had in those decades of infertility. Only now, she clung to Gabriel’s promise. 

For the first 20 weeks of this mystery, she didn’t leave the house. With Zecharias likely deaf as well as mute, the only one to hear her heart was the Lord. And unlike her doubting husband, Elizabeth believed Him. 

Then after five months—she felt the first flutter of a child. Alive. Absolute assurance. Her public disgrace finally over, she spoke boldly and gladly at how God had upended the natural order. This is the Lord’s doing. 

The next month when her young niece from Galilee unexpectedly showed up at her door and called out hello, Elizabeth’s baby danced a jig in her womb. In that moment, Elizabeth knew, knew Gabriel was right. He had told Zecharias their son would prepare the way for Messiah. Now the Messiah, in that young virgin’s womb, waited on her doorstep. Hugging her niece, she embraced the Child in Mary’s womb—the miracle Messiah come to save us. The young and the old laughed until they cried with God’s miracle in their bellies. If the neighbors were watching then, they knew for sure something was up. 

And all those years Elizabeth prayed for a child? When finally, she nuzzled her newborn, John, in her arms, her prayers answered in such a mysterious way, she remembered all that Gabriel said John would be and what he would do. And she couldn’t remember the sorrow at all. If she had known then what she knew now, the waiting would have passed in a flash. 

Tomorrow: One on one with the teenager who knew God’s Word.