Elizabeth

Scripture: Luke 1:5–25, 39–80

Introduction and righteousness (Luke 1:5–7), "In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years" (1:5–7). The double declaration, righteous before God, walking blamelessly, is the text's strongest possible commendation of a pair of human beings. They were not barren because of sin; the narrative makes that explicit by stating their righteousness first. The barrenness is the condition, not the verdict.

The annunciation to Zacharias (Luke 1:8–25), During Zacharias's priestly service, the lot fell to him to burn incense in the Temple. He entered alone; the congregation prayed outside. The angel Gabriel appeared at the right of the incense altar. "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John" (1:13). Gabriel described the child who would come: great before the Lord, drinking no wine or strong drink, filled with the Holy Spirit even from the womb, going before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Zacharias asked for a sign: "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years" (1:18). Gabriel identified himself, "I am Gabriel, who stands before God", and told Zacharias he would be silent and unable to speak until the day of the child's birth, because he had not believed the words that would be fulfilled in their time. Zacharias came out of the Temple unable to speak. Elizabeth conceived. "She hid herself for five months, saying, 'Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people'" (1:25). The word for reproach (ὄνειδος, oneidos) is the same in the LXX tradition for the disgrace of barrenness, the social and theological weight that had followed her as an unanswered question about the household of God.

The visitation (Luke 1:39–45), Mary, having received her own annunciation, traveled "in haste" to a town in the hill country of Judah and entered Zacharias's house and greeted Elizabeth. "When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit" (1:41). The sequence is precise: greeting → leap in the womb → filling. Elizabeth "exclaimed with a loud cry", the Greek is ἀνεφώνησεν κραυγῇ μεγάλῃ (anephōnēsen kraugē megalē), a vocal outburst: "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, for there will be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (1:42–45). Elizabeth's confession, "my Lord", is the christological identification of the unborn Jesus as Lord before his birth, before any public ministry, spoken by a woman filled with the Holy Spirit. John leaped in her womb. Mary's Magnificat followed.

The birth and circumcision of John (Luke 1:57–66), When the time came, Elizabeth bore a son. Neighbors and relatives came to rejoice with her. On the eighth day, when the child was to be circumcised, they were going to name him Zacharias after his father. His mother answered: "No; he shall be called John" (1:60). They said, "None of your relatives is called by this name", and made signs to Zacharias. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote: "His name is John" (1:63). Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. Elizabeth's insistence on the name, before Zacharias confirmed it, shows she knew the angelic instruction without having been present at the Temple vision. Zacharias had communicated it to her in the silence.

Silence in the text and significance, After the birth of John and Zacharias's Benedictus, Elizabeth disappears from the narrative. She is not named again. The child she bore grew and became strong in spirit and was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel (1:80). She completed what was assigned to her.

Elizabeth is a woman the text declares righteous, blameless, and priestly by lineage, who waited barren until old age in the household of a priest, and who, when the moment came, was the first human being in the New Testament narrative to verbally confess Jesus as Lord. She did it before his birth. She did it while filled with the Holy Spirit, in response to a leap in her womb. The Sanctum holds her in the company of the barren women whose waiting produced world-turning fruit: Sarah, Hannah, the mother of Samson. Elizabeth's fruit was the voice crying in the wilderness.