God so intricately weaved into scripture the lives and stories of six people (Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna), who are the only six humans mentioned by name in the events surrounding the Savior’s birth. Two of the three women, Elizabeth and Mary, had lives and circumstances that couldn’t have been more distinct one from the other, yet their interconnected lives and circumstances had part in shaping the first Christmas.

Enter Elizabeth. Of priestly stock, in the lineage of Aaron. Wife to a priest, Zechariah, in the order of Abijah. From the Hill Country of Judea. Older cousin of Mary. Dutiful wife. Faithful to the LORD. Along with her husband, righteous, walking blamelessly and keeping the commandments and statutes of the LORD. Ah, but alas, the one command they could not keep, ‘be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth’. Elizabeth: barren, a reproach among the people. Years upon years of prayers, poured out in sorrow, desperation, and heartache- until it was too late, until she was too far advanced in years. So, given her aged body and the circumstances, perhaps she had accepted a lot in life that no woman wanted, especially in Judea in 6 BCE. Perhaps she and Zechariah had found a peace and contentment in their older age and service to the LORD. Perhaps the prayers they’d once humbly prayed for God to give them a child were now shifted to petitioning the LORD to break His near deafening silence of 400 years, to send a messenger and a message to the oppressed nation. But, never in their wildest imaginations did they imagine that such a message would come as it did, when it did, and to whom it did: from the angel Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, to Zechariah, at the pinnacle of his services in the Holy Place of The Temple. The message: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” First blabbering and then dumbstruck, when the time of his Temple service ended, Zechariah returned home where his wife conceived his son.

Elizabeth: with child of Zechariah, reproach removed.

Enter Mary. Descendant of David. Young woman of around 14 years. Betrothed to Joseph, a carpenter. From the small and poor village of Nazareth, nestled in the rolling soft limestone hills of Southern Galilee. Much younger cousin of Elizabeth. Virgin. Abstinently, and perhaps anxiously, awaiting her marriage night. Faithful and obedient to the LORD. Favored of the LORD. Humbly serving, hard-working, and dutifully fulfilling her daily obligations to help her family pay the heavy burden of oppressive taxes demanded by powerful Rome and evil King Herod; always aware that these subjugating forces would wickedly extract payment in other forms, including and not limited to slavery of young women, if the families could not pay. Quick to hear and slow to speak as she pondered things in her heart. Discerning. Most unsuspecting of a Heavenly visitor and message. From the Angel Gabriel, sent from God, to the Virgin Mary, in Nazareth; the message: “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end; The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Mary: fully yielding and obedient; with child of the Holy Spirit. Mother of her Messiah.

Whether by personal choice or perplexing circumstance, Mary hastefully goes to Judea for an extended visit with Elizabeth, who is in her sixth month of pregnancy. Elizabeth, and even baby John in utero, instantaneously and miraculously recognize and react because they are in the presence of the Savior and His mother, their four hearts binding one to another in that recognition. The two women formed an unbreakable bond, destined to last for all eternity. It was a bond between one who had waited her whole life to be a mother, old and once barren, yet who now carried the one who would be the prophetic fulfillment and forerunner of the One carried by the other, who was young and unprepared, pure and having never known a man sexually, but whose womb held the long awaited and prophesied Messiah, the Savior of the world.

I can’t help but wonder, as Mary observed and helped in the final days of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, if she wondered where she might be and who she might be with in the final days of her own. I wonder, if she was still there at the time of John’s birth, if the screaming newborn quieted in her arms because he knew the Christ-child grew in her womb. I wonder if she instinctively rubbed her growing midsection and silently prayed to ward off and evade the doubts and fears that the enemy surely tried to plant in her heart and mind. I wonder if any part of her young heart could begin to fathom that the instant praise and recognition of her Savior Son, such as Elizabeth and John extended, would be so rare in His life, that He’d be rejected even among His own people and family in Nazareth, that the Christ-child she would deliver into the world would later be delivered into the hands of sinful men and give His life a ransom for many, while she watched in agony. I wonder, as she kept those things and pondered them in her heart, did she realize that if God would do such things for the prophet of the Most High, the one who would go before the LORD to prepare His way, that there was no limit to that which he would do for the Most High Himself. I wonder, though so difficult to comprehend, did she somehow grasp that her life and Elizabeth’s had become living examples of that which the angel Gabriel had spoken to her, “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

Mary and Elizabeth: Women of Christmas.

Written by Ashley Fountain