"For
my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways, declares the Lord, For as the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts." (Is. 55:8-9)
This
being true, you and I are capable, even at best, only of
understatement. Never can we give too much weight to the
Gospel of God or overemphasize the mercy and love of Christ.
It is impossible to exaggerate "what is the breadth and
length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ
that surpasses knowledge...." (Ephesians 3:18b-19a)
Imagine
how often Elizabeth expressed her joy to finally be pregnant.
Repeatedly, she must have said, "Thus the Lord has done ...
to take away my reproach." She could have repeated it a
thousand times, and perhaps she did, but the kindness of the
Lord can never be "topped" by our praises.
Elizabeth
was going to have a baby. After all these years, it finally
was going to happen, and she was happy. Undoubtedly a great
part of that was simply her maternal instinct. For a husband
and wife to have a child is an enormous blessing when such a
gift is bestowed. But for Elizabeth it was more than that.
Not to
have had a child was a circumstance commonly regarded at her
time as a divine verdict. Elizabeth's neighbors presumed, as
folks did regarding the parents of the man born blind in John
9, that somebody sinned and here was the penalty. People
construct motives for God which just aren't there. Here they
believed was a form of quid pro quo. Elizabeth's
barrenness suggested to them wrongly that she must not have
been as "upright in the sight of God" (1:6) as the
Bible says.
To some
degree Elizabeth must have come to think that too. She lived
with a smoldering social incrimination. I doubt she was
openly harassed, but it was just known, just accepted, and
just understood that Elizabeth was inadequate.
That is
an understatment, of course. We are all inadequate. We are
all unworthy. Who of us deserves the the inordinate goodness
of God and especially the premium of Christ?
Here is
the sad irony. Whereas no one can ever amplify too much the
completeness of Christ's work for our salvation without one
iota from us, the world is forever making a mountain out of
the molehill of man's opinions.
Elizabeth couldn't help being impacted by the estimations and
conclusions of her neighbors. She felt their reproach. She
half believed it.
But sweet Lord, that pain was now past. She was relieved.
She was going to be a mommy at last. Nothing is said here of
any understanding yet by Elizabeth of God's higher plans. Her
husband, Zechariah, was unable for a time to express the wider
meaning of this child's birth. Elizabeth was content to keep
herself in seclusion until this pregnancy was absolutely
confirmed. Then she knew she could face her neighbors.
Only later we are told, at the visit from her cousin, Mary,
and the revelation of the Christ child (Luke 1:39f) is
Elizabeth "filled with the Holy Spirit" and lifted to new
heights of rejoicing at what the Lord was accomplishing.
How natural it is for all of us, like Elizabeth, to submit to
the findings and attitudes of other people. We inflate what
others say and think uncritically. We have the sinful
inclination to regard also our own thoughts and feelings too
highly. Blessedly, the Lord does not play that game.
God chooses to bless when and where He will. He favors us,
not according to our capacity to acknowledge His goodness or
contribute an appropriate dosage of praise but because of the
righteousness of His Son. Our thanks, responses, and tributes
can never keep pace with His abundant blessings.
He blesses us according to His compassion in Christ Jesus, our
Lord. He blesses us with the coming of Christ. He blesses us
with a divine goodwill which is never quid pro quo.
It is unadulterated grace from the Lord who became incarnate
for us, lived and died for our sins and rose again so that we,
by faith alone in Him and not by works, receive the victory
over all reproach, sin, and death. The person and work of
Christ is the Gospel which can never be exalted too greatly or
believed too much.
And even that is an understatement.
Pastor Reed
© 2008
