Skip to main content

Celebrating Advent - December 9

By


Sing: O Come O Come Emmanuel

Reading: Luke 1:24-25
After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

Summary (for your preparation): By having a child we are told Elizabeth's reproach/shame is removed among the people. Why would there be shame in the first place? It seems there are at least two reasons: First, having children for a woman was a way to validate her usefulness in providing her husband with a family heritage. Second, and perhaps more applicable, Elizabeth's inability to have children would have been understood or assumed as sin on her part. In their cultural thinking, Elizabeth would have done something to receive such a severe punishment from God.Consider John 9:1-2. Obviously Elizabeth was hiding some type of sin for God to withhold the blessing of children. We also see something about the character of Elizabeth, that she stays hidden as long as she can. One would think she would be proclaiming her pregnancy throughout all Judea to vindicate her name. Rather, we see her humble and content in her God.

Teaching Tip: As we wrestle with these small portions of Scripture pray that your children and yourself will be able to enter into the story as best as you can. Try to feel what they felt and see what they saw. With Zechariah being muted for 9 months they would have had a LOT of time to really wonder at what was about to unfold. Luke allows us to witness the birth of Christ through the perspective of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who, besides Mary and Joseph, would have perhaps had the most unique view of it's significance. Let their wonder and expectation be our wonder and expectation!

Questions/Responses:

 Elizabeth found out that she is having a baby! Do you think she is excited? Yes

 Can you imagine praying for something for such a long time and then finally getting it? Elizabeth was giving thanks to God!

 Why did people around her treat her shamefully for not being able to have a baby? Because they would have thought that she had sinned/was sinning and that God was punishing her by not letting her have a baby!

 Does the Bible tell us that Elizabeth was being punished for her sin? No, the Bible tells us that Zechariah and Elizabeth trusted God. 

Do you think it is fair that people would assume that Elizabeth was sinning? No, sometimes God lets people who trust him suffer for reasons that we don't know or understand.

Does Elizabeth run out and tell everyone that she is pregnant? No, she stays hidden for 5 months!

 What does this tell us about Elizabeth? She is humble and trusts God. She loves God and finds her joy in him.

Prayer and Ending

Prayer: I would like to encourage you to use the prayer guide on pages 13-14 of "I Have Hidden Your Word." On any given day there are two prayer focuses:

 December 9: Pray that you would know the hope to which God has called you (Romans 15:13)

 Friday: Pray for those who are sick and hurting. Pray for physical and emotional healing for individuals and our culture. Pray that people will turn to Jesus to find healing and forgiveness for their sins.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord, by George Muller

By Anonymous
To Have My Soul Happy in the Lord By George Muller “It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, or how I might glorify the Lord, but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. “I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not prayer, but the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word of God so that it only passes through my mind just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, and applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billy Graham, Holiness, and Leadership

By
A few years ago, I was listening to a radio program on which Marshall Shelley was being interviewed about his new book, The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham (Zondervan, 2005). They were giving away a few copies of the book to those who called in, and something inside me felt compelled to call. But I didn’t have a good question to ask, so I prayed to the Lord and said, “If you want me to have a copy of this book, please give me a good question to ask and I’ll call.” I’m not sure if the Lord gave me this question or if it just popped into my head, but one way or the other, I thought to ask about the connection in Billy’s life between his private pursuit of holiness and integrity, and his public effectiveness and longevity. So, I made the call and was given the last copy of the book they had to give. A couple of years earlier, I had breakfast with some friends and the subject of Billy Graham’s life and ministry came up. We talked mostly about his commitment to integrity in the area...
Post a Comment
Read more

Catechisms: Building a Heritage of Sound Faith - By Pastor Kevin Feder

By
This is an article I (Pastor Kevin) wrote in 2005 and updated in 2017. It is featured in a new resource available through Children’s Desiring God called Discipleship through Doctrinal Teaching and Catechism by Sally Michael.  It is our desire to encourage parents to use a children’s catechism as a tool in building and strengthening faith in children. A simple definition of a catechism is “organized teaching.” Catechisms are not the only things that can or should be used to instruct the next generation, yet they have useful purposes. Listed here are ten specific benefits a catechism can uniquely offer. Hopefully these ten points will help parents understand how a catechism can be effectively used in their families. 1.  A catechism is a very clear and complete gospel message. A catechism is, among other things, a very clear and concise gospel message to children. Everything a child needs to know for salvation is embodied within a catechism. The gospel is truly ama...
Post a Comment
Read more