A Matter of Perspective

 

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” (Luke 1:39-45 ESV).

 

As we continue looking at the family of Jesus we are departing from the direct genealogy to look at the mother of John the Baptist. The Scripture indicates that Elizabeth was of the "daughters of Aaron" (cf. Luke 1:5), that is, descended through Moses' brother, Aaron, from the Jewish tribe of Levi (cf. Exodus 6:20), who was one of the twelve sons of Jacob, or Israel. While Mary was from the tribe of Judah (one of Jacob's other sons, as well as Levi's full brother, since they had the same mother (cf. Genesis 35:23), and had descended from Judah through David (cf. 2 Samuel 7:16; Luke 4:23-31), Mary and Elizabeth would have at least been on some level cousins, based on that long-ago relationship between Levi and Judah. They were certainly “family.”

 

However, the key principle to highlight today is how Elizabeth maintained such an incredibly positive perspective. One of the popular Christmas songs have the lyrics of “it’s the most wonderful time of the year.” For some of us who are reading these words, today may be far from wonderful. Maybe your life has been devastated by disease, or you have recently lost a loved one, or some other painful event is causing you to cry out, “Why is this happening to me?”

 

Elizabeth knew such pain. She was old and childless, and in that culture she was therefore disgraced (cf. Luke 1:25). Long ago she had probably given up all hope of becoming a mother. Imagine the talk in her village: “What do you think she did to make God punish her this way?” God actually didn’t operate that way, but people often made that wrong assumption. Soon after God’s promise that she and her husband would have a son (cf. Luke 1:11-17), Elizabeth became pregnant. Then, six months later, her cousin Mary came with even greater news: an angel had said Mary would become the mother of God’s Son (cf. Luke 1:31-32)! Elizabeth was not disappointed or jealous. Full of excitement, she exclaimed, “Why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (v. 43). We have such favor too. To think that God would love us so much that He would send His only begotten Son to purchase our eternal freedom and inclusion in the family of God is too wonderful to imagine. We are indeed highly favored! Think on that this week!