We’re about to begin a journey through the life of Jesus by taking a look at the eight seasons and 229 events of his life laid out across four gospels and into the book of Acts.
If you put all that together, it’s about 80 pages and some of it was duplicated by the gospel writers who copied from each other. If you consider the duplicated pages, you’ll be left with only 20 pages and 13 of those tell the story of the last week of his life.
A third of those 13 tell about what happened on Tuesday, meaning we know more about that one day than any other day in his life. But before we talk about the end of his life, let’s go back to the beginning, to the Christmas story, and that begins, not with Jesus, but with John the Baptist.
It actually begins with an elderly couple named Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were descendants of Aaron. So you won’t be surprised to learn that Zechariah was a priest and Elizabeth was a godly wife.
They’d obeyed and served God all their lives and all they’d asked in return was a child. But Elizabeth was infertile and now they were far too old to have a child, so they’d lost hope in their long unanswered prayer.
Then one day, while Zechariah was serving in the temple, the angel Gabriel appeared beside the altar of incense (representing prayer) and told him in Luke:
“Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.”
— Luke 1: 13 Zechariah did not laugh, as so often happens, but neither did he believe the angel. The promise from the angel described a child who would do great things for God and be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother’s womb. He would change the world by changing people, restoring families, making the disobedient obedient, and laying a path for the coming Messiah.
But Zechariah — meaning “God has remembered” — couldn’t get past the idea an old man and his infertile old wife would bear a child. It didn’t make sense to a man who had common sense. It was a crazy idea to a man who wasn’t crazy. It was an impossible promise to a man who’d dreamed of having a child all his life, but it was simply too late.
Luke recorded Zechariah’s words:
“How can I be sure of this? I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.”
— Luke 1: 18
Maybe one of your unanswered prayers has run out of time and you’ve given up hope. Most Advent devotionals include this story of Zechariah and Elizabeth to illustrate hope — a mixture of expectation, resilience, and perseverance.
Charles “Buddy” Whatley is a retired United Methodist pastor serving Dawson Street Methodist Church in Thomasville, Ga. With wife, Mary Ella, they are missionaries to the Navajo Reservation.
