It is likely that most of us are so familiar with the Christmas story from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke that we fail to observe properly some of the aspects. Luke’s account of two conceptions—John’s and Jesus’—entails two female relatives whose pregnancies incite joy for both mothers but two culturally different experiences, for one release from disgrace but for the other a shroud of stigma. Ponder Luke’s account again, as if for the first time.
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:26-45).
It is not happenstance that two women who are relatives, one a young virgin and one an elderly barren wife, become pregnant approximately six months apart. When Evangelist Luke tells of these two women and their extraordinary conceptions in his account of two highly significant births, he expects all who hear the reading of his Gospel to take note. We who have heard these two stories of uncommon conceptions numerous times may need to devote closer attention to discern aspects of Luke’s objective. We ought to acknowledge God’s providential linkage of these two kinfolk women and their uncommon pregnancies. But we also need to recognize that this divine juxtaposition is the climactic fulfillment of a theme embedded throughout Israel’s history from the nation’s inception with Abraham, a theme that entails several women who, like Elizabeth, could have no children apart from a divine visitation. Meditate on this theme for a few moments.
In Israel’s culture that regarded childbearing as the crowning honor for a woman, Elizabeth finds herself disgraced and lonely. Like her ancient matriarch Sarah, she is childless and now past her childbearing years. No matter how bleak, how dark, how dreadful the situation may seem, God is never late to fulfill his purposes. God delights to display his glorious compassion at the darkest hour when hope hangs on the thread of his promise when what is most needed is deemed impossible among humans. This is what punctuates all human history recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures. It is so from the beginning. God’s mighty acts of creation, his speaking the heavens and the earth into existence and then his filling these created spaces with inhabitants, whether living or inanimate, humans judge to be impossible. If we trace our Heavenly Father’s deeds throughout the Bible’s storyline, repeatedly we see him bringing dignity out of despair, hope out of hopelessness, and life out of death. In fact, if we hear God’s Word correctly, we will acknowledge that herein is the wisdom and glory of God’s design for sinners to stand acquitted before him, justified in the presence of him who judges all mankind. Everyone who believes God who does the impossible—giving life to the dead and calling into being things that were not—God justifies (Romans 4:16-25).
Consider how Genesis introduces the pivotal narrative concerning Abraham. God authorizes Moses to report this as the setup for the entire Abraham-Sarah narrative concerning God’s promise of a son through whom the Lord would bring forth a great nation.
This is the account of Terah’s family line.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot. While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth. Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.
Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.
The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you” (Genesis 11:27-12:3).
Do you see it? Stop. Look again. Read carefully. Linger over these words: “Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive” (Genesis 11:30). Then proceed to ponder this: “I will make you into a great nation.” For this divine promise to come to pass, a descendent who is a son must be born to Abram whose wife, Sarai, is infertile. Thus, from the outset of the account of Abraham, the Lord God swears a covenant promise that sounds like an insult. If I, like Jesus, when seeing a man whose lame legs will not bear his weight, were to say, “Rise up! Pick up your mat and walk!” (John 5:8), I would be uncharitably insulting the man because I would be ordering the poor man to do the very thing he cannot do, and I most assuredly have no power to enable the lame to walk. What distinguishes Jesus when he utters his command? He does not insult the lame man but miraculously accomplishes for the man what he commands. Likewise, it is no insult at all when the Lord God promises to Abram to do what is impossible for humans to accomplish. Never receive God’s promises as insults. To do so is to sin with unbelief, with skepticism. In place of distrust, God’s promises require belief. God delights to accomplish what humans view as laughably impossible. The Lord God is no less active in Sarai’s infertility (so that his covenant promise looks hopeless and unfulfillable) than he is fully active in the uttering of his covenant promise that a great nation will emerge from Abram.
On one occasion of God’s reaffirmation to Abraham concerning his covenant promise, from her tent Sarah overhears one of the heavenly messengers announce, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son” (Genesis 18:10). Because both she and Abraham are very old and she is well past the age of childbearing, understandably, though inexcusably, she laughs to herself while thinking, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” The timespan from God’s announcement of the promise of a son until Sarah gives birth to Isaac is about twenty-five years. The situation entails a touch of humor, for Sarah, who is 90 years old with Abraham at 100, is nursing, changing diapers, and enduring sleepless nights for her son, whose name means laughter. Untimely to human preferences but on-time for his purposes, true to his covenant word, God brings about the birth of the promised son.
Sarah is the first among many barren women in Israel who experiences an uncommon conception, a theme in Scripture’s storyline with two foci: (1) belief is required because the continuity of God’s covenant passes through the wombs of infertile women; and (2) this divinely purposed fragility foreshadows the promised Seed’s improbable and unique conception by a virgin. Thus, to engender belief in his covenant faithfulness, the Lord God sees to it that Rebekah, the young woman Isaac receives as his wife, is barren like her mother-in-law. Will God’s covenant promise of a great nation through a Seed to come through Isaac fail? Belief in God who makes promises that run contrary to human expectations prompts Isaac to petition the Lord on Rebekah’s behalf because she is not able to bear him any children. The Lord answers his prayer by placing twin sons into her otherwise barren womb. The two jostle another in their mother’s womb which prompts Rebekah to call upon the Lord for understanding. To her appeal the Lord assures her that living within her are two nations, two peoples with one being stronger than the other and the one born first will serve the second (Genesis 25:21-24).
Jacob, the crafty and scheming second-born son, receives God’s covenant blessing while his twin brother Esau receives a divine curse. Yet, like his father and his grandfather, Jacob finds that his favorite wife, Rachel, is also barren, incapable of bearing him any children. At last, after Rachel prays for her disgrace to be removed, the Lord enables her to conceive and to bear a son whom she names Joseph (Genesis 30:22-24). True, Joseph is not a patriarch in Messiah’s lineage (see Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). Nevertheless, he plays a major role in the preservation of his brothers, including Judah from whom the promised Seed would arise. God purposed that the survival of God’s covenant people should hang upon Joseph, conceived by barren Rachel (Genesis 37-50).
We could trace this theme of barrenness with other women during the times of the Old Testament such as Hannah whose womb “the Lord closed” (1 Samuel 1:5). However, for our purposes, we return to where we began, to consider Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah who is a priest. Like Abraham and Sarah, the two of them are very old, and she is disgraced with childlessness, only because she cannot conceive (Luke 1:7).
As I suggested earlier, this biblical storyline theme does not terminate upon Elizabeth and the infant she carries in her womb, significant as John is as the prophet who foretells of one who comes after him who is greater than himself. This account concerning Zechariah and Elizabeth late-in-time functions as a reminder of God’s steadfast faithfulness to the covenant he made long ago. Inattentiveness, tone-deafness, or unbelief may prevent us from recognizing the concealed-in-plain-sight correlation between the two women, Elizabeth and Sarah. Elizabeth bears the plight of childlessness in old age with clear allusions to the matriarchal account of Sarah whose same plight marks the beginning of God’s covenant promise of a Seed that would flourish into a great nation. Observe that with both aged married couples the angelic visitations to announce the impending conceptions and births of Isaac and John, respectively, the angels do not visit the women—Sarah and Elizabeth—but their husbands, Abraham and Zechariah (cf. Luke 1:11-13 & Genesis 18:1-15). Reflect on these announcements, first to Abraham and then to Zechariah.
One of the three heavenly messengers who visited Abraham announced, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son” (Genesis 18:10).
Then an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “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 1:11-13).
It is different for Mary, who is not an aged, barren woman but a young betrothed virgin. As already indicated, as much as the Lord favored Elizabeth in her old age with conception and the birth of a son, John, this is not the ultimate climax of the “barren woman thread” throughout the Bible’s storyline. It is only penultimate to the apex of this biblical-theological theme. The definitive climax is the account concerning a young virgin, not concerning a married woman who suffers under the disgrace and plight of childlessness. Indeed, barrenness is no plight for Mary. If we are attentive to Israel’s culture and how Nazareth’s inhabitants who knew Mary’s betrothal to Joseph looked with suspicion upon her, Mary’s disgrace and plight arrive after the heavenly messenger Gabriel privately comes to her and says, “Greetings! You who are highly favored! . . . You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.”
Until that moment, the Virgin Mary eagerly anticipated marital consummation with her betrothed, Joseph. Suddenly, betrothal bliss dissipates. While Elizabeth’s shame of barrenness dissolved six months earlier when she received the angel’s announcement, Mary, her young relative, who though betrothed to Joseph has never had sexual relations with him or with any other man, now suffers her own plight of being with child but not impregnated by any human male, including Joseph for whose marital affections she is faithfully waiting.
Ponder Mary’s dilemma. Upon hearing Gabriel’s announcement, understandably “Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be” (Luke 1:29). Yes, she believes the angel’s announcement and humbly acknowledges, “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled” (Luke 1:38). Yet, who will believe her when she explains her unique pregnancy? Who has ever heard of conceiving a child apart from the union of a man and a woman? Has it not been this way from the beginning? Is it any wonder, then, that Mary left her home to spend three months with her relative, Elizabeth, who is joyous with her first child in her elderly state?
Consider the cloud of suspicion that hangs over Mary for the remainder of her years but also hangs over her son, Jesus. Both must endure whispers, even insulting inuendoes spoken out loud. This becomes apparent when Jesus confronts fellow Jews saying, “If you were Abraham’s children, then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father” (John 8:39-40). They hurl a backhanded insult: “We are not illegitimate children.” To this, they add a defiant assertion, “The only Father we have is God himself” (8:41), an assertion that enraged them when Jesus made essentially the same claim for himself.
Is it not significant that from the beginning, at crucial moments in Israel’s history when the covenant promise seems in jeopardy that a barren woman embodies Israel’s desolation and hope in that the Lord favors the woman with the birth of a son who becomes Israel’s deliverer? Sarah foreshadows Israel’s desolation from which hope of the Messiah arises, coming from a virgin who conceives. Indeed, when we celebrate the advent of our Lord, we need to contemplate God’s purposed appointment of two female relatives who would become pregnant and give birth to two highly significant men just six months apart, yet the second far greater than the first. We need to recognize how these two conceptions form the apex of a biblical theme that may be easily overlooked. Elizabeth’s barrenness and conception in old age link her with Israel’s prominent matriarchs—Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel—as the last whose uncommon conceptions and giving birth foreshadow Mary’s unique virginal conception of our Lord.
Again, as we now observe our Lord’s advent, we also need to contemplate the cloud of suspicion that hovers over his conception and birth. And upon proper reflection, we ought to put to flight a sad and sorrowful notion that has plagued many Christians. Teaching undergraduate students prompted me early in my career to recognize and to address a grievous error that has received widespread acceptance among Christians and has caused much anxiety and grief especially for young women. This accepted but regretful idea is especially noticeable at Christian colleges where young men and women often begin romances. On occasions, female students became suddenly unenrolled from my courses and never seen again on campus. Upon inquiry, I would learn that a female student was compelled to withdraw from all her classes and to depart from the college. Why? It was because she was beginning to show that she was pregnant. The unmistakable and invariable message that students receive when this takes place is that it is sinful for a young woman to be pregnant while not in a consummated marital relationship with a husband. We would be fools to presume that such a notion never prompted some, perhaps many, to exacerbate their sin of sexual immorality by aborting the lives of the infants in their wombs rather than endure the wrongful stigma that carrying an infant in one’s womb without a husband is sinful. Christians everywhere ought to grieve and repent for afflicting young, unmarried pregnant women with the choice between suffering massive secret guilt for terminating the lives within them or enduring the scorn of alleged sinfulness for being with child but unmarried.
This situation is often aggravated with confusion when the female student is expelled but her male sexual companion escapes public shaming and remains an enrolled student. On such occasions, contrary to the policy enforced by administrators, I often seized the opportunity to address the intolerable situation with biblical council both privately with female students who sought my advice, some because they faced expulsion for pregnancy, and publicly but tactfully with all students in my classes. I would pose a question: “Is it sinful for a woman to be pregnant outside a consummated marital relationship with a husband?” Regularly, students would respond, “Yes!” Occasionally, some timidly muttered, “No,” but rarely with proper understanding. Then I would ask, “Was Mary in sin because she was pregnant with Jesus? Keep in mind that she had not yet consummated her marital relationship with Joseph?” The truth began to dawn on the students. I would underscore the point. Pregnancy itself is never sinful. What is sinful is the immoral engagement in the sexual act which belongs in marriage alone. Then, students would understand that pregnancy outside of marriage is not the sin. Rather, the sin is to choose the immoral act that results in pregnancy outside of marriage. My heart still breaks for young female students who, when they most needed the compassionate administering of the good news of forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ there were instead subjected to maltreatment, shame, stigmatization, disgraceful opprobrium, and to immediate expulsion.
Celebrate the advent of our Lord anew. Ponder how our Lord’s unique conception and birth fulfills the string of messianic foreshadowing by way of uncommon conceptions by barren women whose wombs the Lord mercifully opened to give birth to children who fulfilled significant roles in God’s covenant purposes until the advent of our Lord Jesus by way of unique conception. Take to heart the consolation of Christ’s unique conception and administer the gospel of forgiveness of sins to the repentant, including women who yet labor under a misallocated guilt imposed by fellow Christians who fail to distinguish sin from the effects of sin.
