“Elizabeth and Zechariah” Luke 1: 5-7, 20-25

Barren. A word that sounds cold and final as it echoes through the mind of Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah. Elizabeth is barren. She and Zechariah have tried for years - years to have a child. Years met only with the ache of barrenness. Elizabeth found herself wondering from time to time unspeakable questions - what her husband thought of her. This isn’t what he signed up for. People get married for security of lineage. To carry on the family name. Women are deemed worthy by the hardiness of the children they bore. And her womb couldn’t even carry one child. He never said so - but did Zechariah regret marrying her? Did he wish that he would have taken someone else as his bride?

And what does God think of her? Elizabeth remembers the stories from on old - how God chose to curse women by sealing up their womb. But she has repented time and time again and knows that she has not stumbled into sin. What could God be punishing her for? Did she even believe that God uses barrenness as a punishment? Surly God did not evaluate her like this culture she lives in - based on her offspring.

Have you ever found yourself like Elizabeth wondering in your heart those questions that you cannot bring yourself to voice? Have you ever had unmet longings? Or faced a stronghold that seemed to be unbreakable? 

We all experience times of barrenness in our lives. Enuma Okoro writes, “The ultimate form of barrenness is being devoid of God because no life exists without God”. Even the most devout follower will wonder from time to time if God is absent or ignoring them. If they are being punished. There are seasons in our lives when God seems to be silent. Or distant. Yet, God is capable of redeeming even these bleak and weary moments. 

Elizabeth surely knew times of bleakness. Time after time when her hopes were dashed until she perhaps stopped hoping. But we are told that she is considered righteous - she didn’t forsake her faith, even when she heard the murmuring of the community doubting her relationship with God. Elizabeth can be an example of faith to us in our times of deep loneliness - reminding us to depend on God even when we feel forsaken or forgotten. For sometimes God meets us in our time of need - and other times we find that our barrenness is not transformed in this life - but that God is still dependable. The truth is we need stories like Elizabeth’s to help us remember that God is able, present, and yet coming. 

Zechariah entered the temple expecting to just do his job that day - to atone for the sins of the people. But in the midst of his work, the task of the day, the expected turned into the unimaginable, as the angel Gabrielle turned up to announce that Zechariah and Elizabeth would have a child - and not just any child, but a child who would bring a word of hope to the nation. And he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He didn’t laugh like his ancestor Sarah, but he surely doubted. How could this be? He was old. Elizabeth was past the age of being able to bare children. That ship has sailed. The angel met his doubt with the statement that he would be mute until the birth of the child - nine months later. 

What I love about Zechariah is that he voiced the doubts that Elizabeth surely carried in her heart. He voiced the doubts he had - even as a devout man of faith. And his doubts are met with a time of silence. Notice what doubt doesn’t mean - it didn’t result in the miracle not taking place. Elizabeth still came to bear a son - John the Baptist. 

I also love the fact that Zechariah’s punishment is not so much a punishment as a time of silence. In a day and time when we seemed to need to be entertained at every minute - always having something confront our senses - Zechariah’s punishment could actually be seen as a gift. A much needed time of silent retreat to ponder the unbelievable. To focus himself on what was coming. 

Zechariah was doing what we all do all the time - seeking confirmation by asking the question ‘how can this be’? Are there any among us who haven’t asked why God? Haven’t asked when God? Haven’t had doubts similar to Zechariah’s when God tells us to face the unimaginable. Why do we do this? According to Enuma, “Its almost as if we have conditioned ourselves to expect little or no divine generosity towards us”. We doubt God’s grace and goodness. God’s timing. God’s ability. 

Zechariah’s doubt was really worry about the uncertainty of all the angel is telling him - he would have a son - the very thing he had been trying for years to have with his wife, the very deep unmet need in his heart. But with one statement the angel reversed everything that he knew about his wife, how other people identified her, perhaps how he himself had even come to see her - barren. And now he had questions. Would she be able to carry the child to term? Would they get to see their child grow up? For years, he had been living faithfully in the midst of unmet desires, but now that he is being told that the longing of his heart would be met, he didn’t know what to do. 

Outside of the temple, the crowd is waiting - wondering what is delaying Zechariah. The ritual shouldn’t have taken this long. Then when he came out he couldn’t speak. From his gestures they understood that he had an encounter with the Divine, but they don’t know what to make of it - don’t understand. Things like this don’t happen every day. 

I have to wonder what the crowd thought that day. These are some of the same people that probably talked behind Zechariah and Elizabeth’s backs - wondering about them, their barrenness. I wonder if they were the community that Elizabeth and Zechariah needed during their time of struggle - the time of community we all need in the midst of our struggles - a community of faithful believers to remind us how God has acted in the past; God’s promises for the future.

After the crowd dispersed, Zechariah walked home. How would he explain this to Elizabeth. How could he explain this to Elizabeth. He returned home unable to speak, but somehow Elizabeth still got the message. She would finally come to bear a son. And she went into seclusion for five months. Five months of uninterrupted silent solitude with her mute husband. They both had time to dwell of what God is doing in their lives. 

Here’s the thing - we see very few examples in scripture of God’s timing being the same as our human timing. Or examples of God rushing through things. So during this very slow nine months of gestation, God was not only growing John in the safety of Elizabeth’s womb, but growing something in the hearts of this couple in solitude - for they are both pregnant with a seed of trust, belief, and faith. Seeds nurtured in months of silence and reflection.

Silence can often feel like barrenness. We don’t particularly like it when things are quiet for too long. Even those of us who need silence to function, still need human interaction as well. Yet it is often in the silence that God is trying to speak into our lives. For silence helps us define our meaning. It was in the silence that Elizabeth found that God had looked favorably on her and removed her disgrace. It was in the silence that Elizabeth and Zechariah could grow in faith, and trust, and hope. It was in the silence, that Elizabeth and Zechariah realized they were so much more than the barrenness they had let define them for so long.

According to Enuma, “The more we inhabit silence, the better our hearing becomes”. Maybe that is what we need a little more of this Advent season - intentional, holy silence. A time when we can trust that God is still working in the silence. A time that reminds us who God is and who we are as a child of God. For the next two weeks on Sunday evenings we are going to be offering a time of worship at 6pm at Mainesburg that is just that - a lot of silence. Maybe that isn’t what you need - a time of communal silence. If not, I would challenge you to find another way to reflect on God during this Advent season. Another way to let the seed of faith, hope, and trust grow in you. May God meet you, meet all of us, in the silence. Amen.