Luke 1:57-80

Yeah, I knew Zechariah and Elizabeth. Everyone did. They were good people, honest, upright, fair, caring, just good folks. Let’s see. Zechariah was my cousin, second or third, something like that. Elizabeth, now that one’s a little trickier. She was the daughter of my brother’s wife’s aunt’s husband’s brother. Yeah, we’re all some kind of related here. Once in a while somebody marries outside the community and brings in fresh blood.

Anyway, like I said, Zechariah and Elizabeth were good people. Zechariah was our local priest. On a regular basis, he went to Jerusalem to serve there in the temple. Otherwise, he wrote a lot. He studied our scriptures and interpreted them.

Elizabeth, now there’s a special woman. She did everything in the community—helped care for younger women’s children, sewed for the widows, cooked for special occasions—you name it, if it was a woman’s job, she did it! Only she didn’t have any children of her own. It really didn’t matter, because she helped raise all the children in the community. If some visitor would point a finger at her and say, “Barren!”, we usually took care of them in a hurry. They never did that twice.

They were too old to have children when she realized she was pregnant. It was really weird. Zechariah came back from his term in Jerusalem, and he was mute, speechless! He couldn’t talk! That made it really tough for him to tell us what happened, but we got good at signs for short stuff, and he would write down long stuff. It seems he had seen an angel in the temple, in the Holy of Holies where he was supposed to be alone! And the angel told him he and Elizabeth were going to have a baby!

We didn’t get the good part of the story until he recovered his voice when the baby was born. Zechariah asked what he thought was a reasonable questions. “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

Apparently, the angel didn’t think it was reasonable. Zechariah said he got this really stern voice, stood up even taller than he was, and shouted, “I AM GABRIEL! I STAND IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD, AND I HAVE BEEN SENT TO SPEAK TO YOU AND TO BRING YOU THIS GOOD NEWS.” And the way Zechariah would tell it, we would all break up laughing! But Zechariah didn’t think it wasn’t funny at the time. Especially when he found out he couldn’t talk!

Well, a while after that that, Elizabeth started sending a servant out for water. Now that was a clue that something had happened, because Elizabeth was always one of the first to the well! She quit helping with everything! Now you know we had to know what was going on!

Of course, it was a woman who found out, the wife of Benjamin, the store keeper. And can you believe it? Elizabeth was pregnant! After all these years! In less time than it takes to tell you this, the whole town knew. You just know we were all delighted. It gave us a chance to take care of her for a change. So everyone sent over her favorite dishes, and Zechariah gained five pounds.

A few months later, Mary came to visit. Let’s see, Mary is the daughter of Anna, and Anna is the cousin of Elizabeth’s nephew’s wife, I think. Yeah, Benjamin’s brother’s son, yeah, that’s right. Anyway, she stayed and helped take care of Elizabeth for a couple or three months, and then she went back home, back to Nazareth, to live with Joseph, her husband.

This baby, Elizabeth’s baby, he belonged to the community from the very beginning, as soon as we found out she was pregnant. Because of who Zechariah and Elizabeth were. So you know he was going to be special. Elizabeth pretty much stayed inside, not doing a lot, because she didn’t want to lose this baby. She was careful. But she kept us advised—even to every time the baby kicked!

We were all so excited. And the closer the time came, the more nervous we all got. I don’t know who was more relieved when the baby was finally born, Zechariah and Elizabeth or the rest of us! Now we’ve had babies in this community before, but … well, when he’d go to sleep, we all just kind of tiptoed around doing whatever we did. ‘Cause Elizabeth’s baby was sleeping! Even the animals seemed to know and be quiet.

When he was eight days old, it was time to name him and to circumcise him. A bunch of us went in. Another priest, not Zechariah, did the circumcision while we watched. (Made him really nervous, he told us later!) And then it was time for the naming.

I said, “We should name him Zechariah, after his father.” I guess I thought, since he was our baby, we had a say in his name.

Elizabeth objected. “No,” she said firmly, “he is to be called John.”

“John?” I protested. “None of your relatives has this name!”

So we turned to Zechariah. “What do you say?”

And would you believe it, he took a tablet and wrote down, “His name is John!”

Well, that was more than something of a surprise! Like I say, none of his uncles or grandfathers or great grandfathers is named John. Where did they get that name?

And then Zechariah opened up his mouth, and words came out! He spoke! For the first time in nine months! And he began to praise God for this child. He talked about a mighty savior and we would be saved from our enemies. Then he looked at his son and said, and I remember these words exactly, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.” There was more after that, but that’s what caught my attention.

Now let me tell you, that was spooky! And we knew that this really would be a very special child, that God was really going to be working in this child named John.

As John grew up, he was always different. The other boys would be out playing, but John would go out into the fields or the woods, and he’d be gone all day. Even as a young child. We’d try to get him to play with the other boys, but he was different.

Now in training, in the synagogue school, when the boys learned the Torah, he was a good student, attentive, bright, quick to understand the lesson, but he often put a different slant to it. He couldn’t just see things the way others did. Like I said, he was different.

His bar mitzphah? Now that was an occasion! The whole community attended. We had a big party! And he was proud of himself! Zechariah and Elizabeth? You just can’t imagine how they felt! Zechariah kept telling the angel story, over and over. Now we’ve heard that story a couple million times. And Elizabeth? You could see how much she wanted to fuss over him, but that wasn’t his way. So she just sat there in the corner and beamed.

So here’s this child, this very special child. We did everything we could for him. I mean, every child in the community is raised by everybody, because that’s the way little communities like ours do things. Every child belongs to all of us. But John? I don’t think it would be fair to say that we spoiled him because I don’t think we did. For one thing, that just wasn’t his way! But–I know I keep saying this–but he was different.

He studied to be a priest, like his father. And he did try. After all, he was the first-born son, and he was supposed to carry on the tradition. But that wasn’t who he was. He just couldn’t do it. And one day he just walked out of the community and didn’t come back.

How could he do that? How could he do that to his parents? to us? to his whole family? We were his family! All of us! How could he do that? Why couldn’t he be what he was supposed to be? Why couldn’t he fit in? Why did he have to be different?

I tell you, I just don’t understand. That child had every opportunity possible! He had good parents, a good community, a good upbringing. But you know what he did? He went off into the wilderness. And he wore animal skins instead of clothing. He ate locusts! Bugs! Where did we go wrong? What did we do?

After a while he started preaching, and people started going out into the wilderness to listen to him. Preaching? If he wanted to do that, why didn’t he keep studying to be a priest? Why couldn’t he do it right?

He started baptizing people. “For the forgiveness of sins,” he said. Forgiveness of sins? That’s what the day of atonement is about! That’s what the sacrifice is for. We know about sins and about forgiveness. You don’t get that by baptism! You get that by using the scapegoat, atonement, sacrifice!

Folks even started asking him if he was the Messiah. The Messiah? Our John? I don’t think so! Apparently he didn’t either. He told them what Isaiah wrote, “A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation.”

And he told them that there was another one coming, someone greater. I don’t understand. I didn’t then, and I don’t now.

He got into trouble with Herod, because Herod had taken his brother’s wife, and because Herod was a wicked man, and John said so. John didn’t mince any words. I’ll give him credit for that. He was right. Herod was evil. So Herod locked him up, and then he killed him.

Our John. Our little baby. Our very special, very different child. Why couldn’t he be like everyone else?

For consideration:

General questions

1) How does this story follow its Scripture?

2) How does this story expand its Scripture for you?

3) What is the message of this story?

4) How does the message apply to us today?

Specific questions

5) What other biblical stories are about older women who became pregnant?

6) What would it be like for a priest to be unable to speak?

7) Would people be upset that John did not become a priest like his father?

8) Why couldn’t John be like everyone else?