Amy C Walters

John’s Birth – Luke 1:57-66

Zechariah and Elizabeth have been on a rollercoaster of emotions for decades–discouragement, shame, heartbreak, weariness, isolation, hope, gratitude and awe. As we follow their story, we see that God’s promises are worth waiting for.

In this week’s story, we see a lot of emotion from all of the characters that are included in it. Let’s take a look at that today and see what it can teach us.

But before we dive into the emotions of this story, let’s take a step back and remember where Zechariah and Elizabeth were when we first encountered them several stories ago. They were an elderly couple who had no children, and they had been praying for so long to have children. They’ve been waiting.

How do you think they felt during that wait? It must have been discouraging at times, as decade after decade went by with no child.

We know that there was some shame with that, some disgrace. When Elizabeth finds out that she is pregnant, she says, “The Lord has taken away my disgrace among the people.” People looked down on her, assumed bad things about them because they didn’t have a child. And shame and disgrace are very isolating. It separates you from the community.

We know too that they were isolated during this time because Elizabeth spent five months of her pregnancy in seclusion. We don’t know if it was at the beginning or the end, where in that whole process it fell. But we know that there was five months of seclusion.

And during that time, Zechariah is unable to speak. So it’s very quiet, very isolated, very lonely, no doubt during this time.

If they’ve been waiting for decades for a child, there were probably times that they maybe got pregnant and miscarried. There were probably moments of a little bit of hope peeking through, and then the hopes were dashed. So there’s broken heartedness in that. There’s disappointment in that.

This couple has been going through some difficult things.

And yet, it seems like they have not given up hope, because the angel, when he meets with Zechariah, he says, “Your prayers have been heard.” So they continued to pray. They had not given up entirely. And that’s a beautiful thing, that there’s continued hope even in that disappointment.

And then we get to that moment where Zechariah meets with the angel, and he’s terrified. We see that emotion anytime someone encounters an angel in Scripture.

We know that there’s a little bit of doubt in his mind as he says, “How is this possible? I’m old, my wife is old. How can we have a child?” So there’s some doubt.

I wonder too, if there’s a little bit of restraint, trying not to get their hopes up too much.

We do see when Elizabeth became pregnant, she was grateful to God. “The Lord has done this for me. 

He has taken away my disgrace among the people.”

And yet, there must be a little bit of fear in that too. Will this pregnancy come to fruition? Will this result in a healthy baby?

So they’ve been going through quite the range of challenging emotions.

And then we come to this story.

“And the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she had a son.” This was it, what they had been waiting for all that time. Here he was, the child that the angel, the messenger of God had promised to Zechariah and Elizabeth.

Were they disappointed? Did they say, “Oh, I wish we didn’t have to wait this long”?

No, we see rejoicing from them. And we see that their isolation comes to an end.

We hear about neighbors and relatives who heard that the Lord had shown Elizabeth great mercy and they rejoiced with her. They come around Zechariah and Elizabeth, they celebrate with them. There is great rejoicing at the birth of this child.

And there’s all kinds of other emotions that come with all this, too.

They go to name the child and Elizabeth says, “His name will be John.” There’s confusion from the neighbors. “Why would you name him that? You have no other relatives called by that name.”

They check with Zechariah. Zechariah confirms “His name will be John.” 

And they are just in awe and wonder.

They’re confused about what’s happening, but they don’t have a lot of time to sit in that confusion because we see that Zechariah, his mouth is open, his tongue is loose, and he spoke, blessing God.

So there’s this moment of awe as Zechariah, who was silent for nine months up to this point, now speaks and he is worshiping God.

We are told that the neighbors and relatives had great fear come upon them. This fear of God is something that we hear about often in Scripture. It’s all over the book of Proverbs. In fact, we’re told that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” They are in awe of what God is doing in this situation, in and around this couple, and specifically with this baby.

The word that spreads from there is about “what will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with John.” So the attention is drawn to God and what he is doing.

All those years ago, and all those decades that Zechariah and Elizabeth were praying for a child, were trying to have a child, do you think they could have imagined everything that happened? Could they have fathomed all that God would do through them and through this child? If they did, they had amazing imaginations! 

But God takes things way beyond what they expected and uses their request for a child and turns it into something even bigger, part of the fulfillment of prophecy to usher in the Messiah.

And word spreads throughout all the hill country of Judea. So many people are impacted as a result of God’s faithfulness to this promise to provide them with a child, a promise that they had to wait a long time to see the fulfillment of.

But we see through this story, our key truth for today, that God’s promises are worth the wait.

Zechariah and Elizabeth could not have predicted the broad impact that would happen when their desires were fulfilled. God goes way beyond what they could have anticipated as the fulfillment.

We are used to being disappointed. We get sold marketing messages all day long about this miracle thing that will change your life. “This is the best thing ever!” But then we get that thing, we experience it, and it’s not what it is marketed to be.

God’s promises are not like that.

His promises are worth waiting for.

We get tempted to give up hope. We get tempted to take shortcuts and make things happen ourselves. But the reality is we could never fulfill those promises, those desires of our own in the amazing way that God has intended for us.

It’s worth the wait.

And we need to remind ourselves of that in those difficult times when we’re tempted to give up hope. We have to be intentional in reminding ourselves that God’s promises are worth the wait.