Advent is for Ragamuffins: Zechariah and Elizabeth

By Rev. Kevin Labby

By Rev. Kevin Labby, First Free Evangelical Church, McKeesport, Pennsylvania

Luke, chapter one, beginning with verse five. This is the Word of the Lord.

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah. He had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was 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.

Now while he was serving as a priest before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.

But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great before the Lord. He must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just—to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”

And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”

And the people were waiting for Zechariah, wondering at his delay in the temple. When he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized he had seen a vision in the temple. He kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

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 the people.”

When you look at the birth of Christ, something stands out—if you’re careful in looking. The people attending Christ in His birth, and in the months leading up to it, are rather inauspicious. They’re not the kinds of people you would expect to find around a king.

Think of Zechariah, the priest who is rendered unable to speak in the months leading up to the birth of John the Baptist—Christ’s cousin according to the flesh and the forerunner of the Messiah. The angel Gabriel speaks to him, and he doesn’t believe. The one person who might have had some claim to loftiness before the world—at least before Israel—has been brought low.

Consider his wife, Elizabeth. She has been barren her entire life. If you look back into the Old Testament, you find that those without children were often reckoned as those not blessed of the Lord, because of a verse which, when taken out of context, seems to suggest that children are a reward for good behavior. Many probably wondered why Elizabeth was without the blessing of children. After all, she was from a priestly family, had a good pedigree, and was married to a priest. What might be going on behind the scenes, people may have wondered.

You will remember that Jesus was born to an unwed mother, Mary—a woman pregnant without the benefit of a husband. You might remember Joseph, forced to explain why he remained betrothed to a woman who, in the eyes of the world, appeared to have been unfaithful to him.

You might remember that when Jesus was born, He was born in a humble estate—among the filth of animals, not in a warm and cozy place, but surrounded by shepherds. Shepherds, as you probably know, were viewed as so unreliable and untrustworthy that their testimony wasn’t even admissible in a court of law.

These are the witnesses—the direct participants—to the birth of Christ. Why would God choose so many weak and foolish things? It seems beyond belief. It seems ludicrous and absurd.

Unless that’s the point.

Unless God is going out of His way to make a point for people all throughout redemptive history—and for us, even this morning as we enter the Advent season. Maybe God is making the very point the apostle Paul made when he wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1:

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards. Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

God chose the weak things. The foolish things. He had done it all throughout the Old Testament when He chose Israel to be the nation through which the Messianic hope would enter the world. He said, “I didn’t choose you because you were the greatest among the nations. In fact, you were the least.” That was the point—so that people would know salvation comes not by human might or wisdom, but by God’s, so that no one could boast.

And when that long cultivated Messianic expectation finally came to fruition in Jesus’ first advent, Jesus underscored that truth in His birth—by being surrounded by the weak and the foolish in the eyes of the world.

This morning, and in this series, we’re going to put a name to those weak and foolish people. We’re going to call them ragamuffins.

And some of you know what the word ragamuffin means. Some of you are too young—you don’t know. Let me share with you how we would define that word. If you opened your dictionary, you would find ragamuffin defined as a ragged, often disreputable person.

That definition brings to mind, for instance, the shepherds whose testimony wasn’t allowed in a court of law. Or Joseph, as he tried to explain to those around him why he would remain faithful to a woman who, by all outward appearances, seemed not to have been faithful to him—or whose own testimony about her chastity seemed deeply compromised. Or Mary herself, whom you would have questioned if you had lived in her day. And now Elizabeth and Zechariah, who had perhaps lost their reputation because of their condition—childless even into old age.

This term became dear to me when I was given a book several years ago by a man named Brennan Manning, a priest now with the Lord, who struggled with alcoholism. In his struggle to live before God, he came to a deeper understanding of the only way any of us can stand before God: by grace.

He said this about the gospel:

The gospel of grace, the good news of grace, defies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.

While there is much we may have earned—our degree and our salary, our home and our garden, a Miller Lite and a good night’s sleep—all this is possible only because we have been given so much: life itself, eyes to see, hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love. We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, and to love where others hurt.

This, and so much more, is sheer gift. It is not reward for our faithfulness, our generous disposition, our heroic life of prayer. Even our fidelity is a gift. If we but turn to God, said St. Augustine, that itself is a gift of God.

By sharing those realizations, Brennan Manning came to this ultimate conclusion:

“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ, and I have done nothing—nothing—to earn it or deserve it.”

Zechariah and Elizabeth were ragamuffins. They were very old. It was probably only once in Zechariah’s life that he had the great privilege of entering the temple to offer incense. The priestly divisions were rotated, and only a very few in any given year were selected to go in and offer incense. Zechariah goes in to offer it—and he fails, as we’ll see in a moment.

But not only were they very old—they were childless.

Listen to these words from Psalm 127:3–5, describing how the Israelites viewed children:

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

And so the thinking undoubtedly went: Children are a blessing, a reward from the Lord. If you don’t have children, therefore you’re not rewarded. If you don’t have children, you must have done something to not deserve them.

That meritocracy—that works righteousness, that way of coming before the Lord and offering our obedience as a transaction—was probably woven into the thinking of the people around Zechariah and Elizabeth, just as it is woven into the thinking of the people around us, and even into our own thinking. We want a quid pro quo. We want to come to the Lord doing something for Him, and then God, seeing our offering, is pleased and does something for us.

Clearly this was not lost on Elizabeth. Remember what she said when she found out she was with child. She waited five months and noted that God had removed her disgrace—her reproach—from among the people.

Elizabeth was no hero in the eyes of the world.

Zechariah, though a priest, would be revealed as no hero in the eyes of God’s people.

They were ragamuffins.

And ragamuffins find their hope in things outside themselves. Ragamuffins are those who come to the end of themselves and realize they have nothing to offer, and that life—and all its attendant blessings, just as Brennan Manning said—is sheer gift. All of life, all good, is a gift of grace.

In fact, the only way we can entertain anything opposite—the only way we can imagine that we live not according to grace but by earning our way before God—is to cheapen God’s law.

Think about it. As people reflected on Elizabeth and undoubtedly counted her an object of disgrace, what were they really testifying to? They were testifying not only to their belief that God had judged her, but that her performance was the basis of her standing. There must be something deficient in Elizabeth for God to treat her that way—for God to judge her and withhold blessing. After all, in their minds, it was Elizabeth’s performance that mattered most.

Certainly she wasn’t perfect. But how did God view her? Luke tells us—and keep in mind, it wasn’t just Luke speaking, but Luke inspired by the Holy Spirit—that both Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous and blameless before God. Not because they were morally perfect—we have all fallen short of the glory of God—but because God reckoned them righteous and holy in His sight by grace.

They were not living according to that transactional economy. They were living in view of the gospel—that their standing before God was not conditioned on their performance, but rested on His performance on their behalf. They were trusting by grace through faith. Faith is not a work; faith simply receives the work done with open hands. By that trust, they were reckoned righteous. They were forgiven. They trusted God’s grace and His mercy.

But the people around them were not viewing our relationship with God that way. They were viewing it according to law.

As I look back on my youth, I remember going to summer camp every year. And every summer, I had what I considered a conversion experience—this time I would finally get it right. My previous struggles with sin seemed to invalidate the idea that I was one of God’s children. Now, through resolve and moral muscle, I would exert myself even harder to show, to prove, that I really was what I claimed to be: Christ’s—God’s—child.

Invariably, I would go home “on fire for the Lord.” I would read my Bible, go to church, do all the right things. And then, sooner or later, I would trip up. I would come to the Lord with confession, seek His forgiveness, and try to make myself His again.

I was fixated the entire time on my performance. But it was worse than that. It was worse than simply obsessing over my performance. What I was actually doing was cheapening the law of God. I was imagining that during those times of relative obedience, my obedience was pleasing to the Lord—that it was an acceptable offering.

But what does Scripture say about our obedience?

James tells us that if we stumble at any point in the law, we are guilty of breaking all of it. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, makes it clear that obedience is not merely a matter of external behavior—what we avoid outwardly or partake in outwardly. It is an intrinsic matter of the heart. And even when I behaved outwardly, inwardly there was always sin at work, compromising the holiness of my offering.

Have I ever offered the Lord anything pristine?

The Bible gives a very dim view of our obedience.

But the people living around Elizabeth believed that what they were doing—what they were living—was, by comparison, somewhat more acceptable. Thankfully, Elizabeth would see patterned in her own life that God’s love and affection are not rewards for obedience. They are expressions of His grace. It is His performance that matters most, not ours.

Zechariah fleshes this out for us as well. He too is reckoned righteous by God’s grace through faith. God looks upon him with affection, love, and acceptance. But notice: when Zechariah is confronted by the angel Gabriel, he doubts. Like Abraham and Sarah centuries before—Zechariah and Elizabeth being so reminiscent of them—he doubts. “How will I know this is true?” he asks.

Gabriel responds, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God… because you have not believed my words, you will be silent.”

I find that so interesting. One thing God is doing in Zechariah’s silence is this: the one person with a claim to worldly authority and prestige—you’re part of this story, but you’re going to be silent. You’re not going to function in your office the way everyone expects. God is flipping the script. He is making it abundantly clear that salvation is by grace, that standing and position are by grace, and that all His gifts are by grace.

And notice something else: Zechariah doesn’t doubt the Lord when things go badly. He doubts when things go well.

Many of us know what it is to doubt God when things go poorly—when we lose a job and wonder where the next paycheck will come from, when relationships with children or spouses or extended family fracture and we ask where God is in the midst of the conflict. Maybe it’s a private struggle—like Brennan Manning’s alcoholism, or our own battles with lust, anger, unforgiveness, pride, arrogance. We wonder if God is with us in those dark times.

But Zechariah receives extraordinary grace—good news—and he doubts. An angel appears and tells him that his lifelong longing will be granted, and not just granted, but granted in a way woven into the redemptive plan of God. The news is so good that it seems too good to be true.

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I get that. Because in my former life, I believed I was accepted by God because of what I did. And I’m telling you—I still believe it. I know better, or at least I should. But I’m still tempted to believe that the gospel isn’t true. I’m still tempted to believe there’s something I can do or fail to do, something I can say or fail to say, something I can think or fail to think that will interrupt the great grace and mercy shown to me. As much as I say I believe the gospel, I still believe it’s up to me—that my performance matters more than Christ’s.

I was talking with Tullian about this, and he said something so poignant, so true: “If your understanding of the Christian faith does not have room for the possibility that your greatest failure—your greatest struggle, your greatest sin—might not only be behind you but might in fact be ahead of you, then you need a deeper understanding of the faith.”

And Zechariah shows us that. He is at the pinnacle of his priestly career, and his greatest failure is right at the door. He doesn’t believe when he is called to believe the good news of the gospel.

But finally, notice how God responds to our failures. He responds by saying, in so many words and in so many acts, It is not your performance by which you stand, and it was never your performance by which you stood. It has always been My performance on your behalf—and the performance of My Son, Jesus, for you—by which you stand.

And Christ’s performance never fails.

Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He is seated at the right hand of God this morning …interceding for you—a beloved child of God—struggling to appropriate the grace God has so freely given, struggling to believe the very things you claim to believe but find hard to trust in your heart. He is interceding for you. He is not looking at you in judgment, weighing you on the scales. He is looking at you with compassion, as a shepherd looks upon his sheep.

The Holy Spirit—whom He has sent to comfort you and counsel you, to be with you—is not harshly judging or condemning you. Even though He may be grieved, His grief is not a condemning grief. His grief is for you: that you would believe, and in believing, enjoy what is yours—not because you earned it, but because it has been so freely and irrevocably given.

Yes, God tells Zechariah he needs to be quiet for a while. But that is not a repudiation of grace. It is a magnification of grace. God is showing what we said at the very beginning: that it is in the weak and foolish things of the world that He reveals His salvation.

And you—who know you are weak and foolish, you who know you are a ragamuffin before the throne of God—be of great cheer this Advent season. Nothing you do, and nothing you fail to do, will compromise the fellowship you now enjoy in Christ.

This article is based upon a verbatim transcript of a sermon by Rev. Kevin Labby. It has been edited for style and clarity by Copilot AI, as well as the theological staff at Third Millennium Ministries.