There was a priest named Zechariah… and he had a wife… Elizabeth. 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.
Luke 1:5-7
I know this story is from the other end of Jesus life – his birth – and not the Easter end. But it isn’t the beginning of the road for Zechariah and Elizabeth. At this point they already have history with God. They had been trusting Him, following his Old Testament ways, ‘walking blamelessly’. (We know this doesn’t mean they were perfect, because in the story that follows Zechariah is chastised for his slowness to believe the angel. But generally they were faithful.) This journey of trust had not got them where they hoped and prayed it would. In a factual but ugly phrase, the verse tells us that Elizabeth was barren.
I have two children so I can’t claim to know the depths of their grief. Although I do remember, in the relatively short time before my first son was conceived, the disappointment and sense of failure each month.
I also know what barrenness feels like in other parts of my life. I think anyone who has lived a few adult years experiences this. There are projects and people that I’ve committed to God, poured time into and prayed persistently over – yet they’ve bore no fruit. Or the fruit looks stunted or misshapen. And of course there are plenty of couples who don’t ever have the miracle baby, like Zechariah and Elizabeth did.
I think an important thing to make of these verses is that we are not to blame. God isn’t frowning down on me saying if you were a harder worker or a better marketer or had better social skills, you’d get better results. (Substitute in whatever thing you think you should do better at.) No, He is used to, and pleased to work with, limited and fallible people. If God withholds good fruit from his faithful children, it’s not because they failed to find the right approach. It’s because he has some bigger and better plan. Wonderfully, Zechariah and Elizabeth got to see and hold their child. I may not see all the offspring He is pleased to create through me. Yet. But I bet I will one day – that day at the very end of the road.
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