Elizabeth's Echo
Each Christmas, one of our favorite Christmas songs to listen to is "Elizabeth", by Keith & Kristyn Getty, accompanied by Ellie Holcomb. This song captures the deeply felt "echo" of Elizabeth, which is the reverberating sound of empty sorrow in the midst of longing for a child.
The Lord has filled His redemptive story with those who all felt this pain. Sarah waited decades to give birth to Isaac. Her daughter Rebekah and granddaughter Rachel experienced the same sorrowful wait before having children. Hannah also waited tearful years before having Samuel.
Elizabeth shared this same experience. She and her husband Zechariah lived in the hill country of Judea, and they were childless for most of their adult life (Luke 1:7). Though exemplary in her faithfulness (Luke 1:6), Elizabeth was familiar with the agony of watching and waiting for pregnancy. This was her story for years.
But unbeknownst to her, she was about to be written into a larger story of God showing His people that He fulfills all of His promises.
God's Generational Story
The Lord promised a child to Zechariah (Luke 1:24), and faithful to His promise, the Lord allowed the older couple to conceive. Elizabeth waited almost a whole generation to have a child.
But the Lord promised another child to His people (Isaiah 7:14), and faithful to His promise, the Lord conceived that child through Elizabeth's cousin Mary. And Mary bears the child God's people have been waiting generations for.
The two women share in their stunned experience of the Lord writing His story through them in Luke 1. Mary visits Elizabeth in the quiet hill country of Judea, and her arrival brings a double joy to her cousin. Elizabeth feels the rush of her baby inside of her, and the rush of knowing that the "mother of my Lord should come to me" (Luke 1:43).
The Lord is faithful to keep all of His promises. He fulfilled His promise to Zechariah for him and Elizabeth to bear a child, and He fulfills the generational promise of Him bringing His Messiah to restore all things.
This promise-keeping, faithful God is the anchor for any sorrow in any season. As the song Elizabeth sings:
There's an echo in your voice I've heard before, ooh
Such emptiness
All the years of crying out for something more, ooh
But you have lived to see
That joy comes in the morning
Come and lay your head
On His promises
Oh, find your rest
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
Feel the baby dance for joy within your womb, whoa
Magnificent
Mary's Son is sent to overcome the tomb, whoa-oh-oh-oh
But you have lived to see
That joy comes in the morning
Come and lay your head
On His promises
Oh, find your rest
Elizabeth
Woman after woman who will follow
Will carry beauty and a longing of their own
But when I hear the rhythm of your name
Oh, I remember once again
That none of us will ache without a living hope
Elizabeth
Oh, blessed is the one who has believed
In the Rising Sun
Who will guide our feet into the path of peace
For we will live to see
That joy comes in the morning
Come and lay your head
On His promises
Oh, find your rest
Come and lay your head
On His promises
Oh, find your rest
Elizabeth
Elizabeth