Hidden Heroes in the Christmas Story: Elizabeth, Mary’s Cousin

by David Chadwick

Zechariah was yesterday’s hidden hero in the Christmas story. It only seems right to include his wife, Elizabeth. Her story is found alongside her husband’s story in Luke 1:5-25.

Elizabeth, like Zechariah, was very old and beyond child bearing years. She desperately desired a baby.

After the angel appeared to Zechariah, he expressed doubt about this child and was silenced by the Lord. Somehow, he must have been able to tell her about the angel’s message to him through writings and sign language.

Being a righteous and Godly woman, Elizabeth was a daughter of a priest in the lineage of Aaron. Aware of the significance of the child she carried, she spent the remaining five months of her pregnancy quiet and hidden. While Zechariah was silenced by the Lord, Elizabeth chose hiddenness alongside her husband as they ushered this very special child named John the Baptist into the world.

During these five months of hiddenness, what do you think Elizabeth did? I believe she prayed, praised, and thanked God. She whispered faith and life over him. Perhaps she even spoke words of hope over what he’d become.

It is apparent God wanted a time of reflective silence surrounding the birth of this child named John the Baptist. He would not let even one word of unbelief come out of Zechariah’s mouth. Only words of faith, hope, life, blessing, and belief must have flowed from the lips of his mom.

John was born in Luke 1:57. When Mary went to visit Elizabeth, her cousin, to tell her of her own angelic visitation, the baby Jesus in Mary’s womb caused John, at 6 months gestation, to leap inside of Elizabeth’s womb. What a moment that must have been! The forerunner of Jesus’s life and ministry and the Messiah himself met in their mom’s wombs.

By the way, did you know that the Greek term for “child” in these verses is blepos? The same word Jesus used to invite the little children/blepos to come to him. Life must begin at the moment of conception.

The relationship John the Baptist and Jesus had began in the womb. The way that John was carried in Elizabeth’s womb is what makes her one of my hidden heroes in the Christmas story.