Seeing Christmas Through Women's Eyes

Well, can you believe it? It's already Christmas time. And for some, it's a blessed season. For others, it's a busy season.

And if you haven't yet gotten into the true spirit of Christmas, you will, after hearing today's Focus on the Family with our president, Jim Daley. And I'm John Fuller. John, I'm about footballed out. I love football. That's my weakness at this time of year. Are you not turkey'd out? I can eat turkey all day long.

Turkey and football, yay. Gene has a little to-do list for me, though, like time to put the lights up and all that kind of thing. Oh, yeah.

So this time of year is usually pretty busy. But you know what? We want to talk about today kind of the true meaning of Christmas.

What's it all about? And I think we're going to talk about a very unique topic today that puts a smile on God's face. And we have a special guest to do that. Liz Curtis-Higgs is joining us. She's right here in Kentucky.

We happen to be in Kentucky today. Yeah, it's great to be on the campus of Asbury University. What an awesome facility, but even better than all the structures and the great equipment they have, Jim, are the people. What wonderful hosts they've been for us here. Well, for years I've heard so much about this university. And I can tell you, they are special people.

It's a great place. Liz has written many books, usually about girls. She's written The Bad Girls of the Bible and Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible and then really Bad Girls of the Bible. But now we're going to talk about the girls of Christmas, really the women of Christmas. And Liz, it is great to have you with us.

Oh, it's a blessing to be here. Yeah, these women actually, of course, qualify as good girls of the Bible. Yeah, the good girls. The question was, could I handle it?

Could I do it? Yeah. That's great. Now let me ask you, with Christmas right around the corner, I mean, we're at the end of November here and Christmas is staring us down. We're thinking already about all the to-dos. But what's a special part of Christmas for you?

What do you think of that puts a smile on your face? Oh, well, I'm all about the music, I have to be honest, and all the music that leads up to Christmas. And personally, I don't think you actually get to play it till today.

Oh, is that right? I like to give Thanksgiving its due and have November be about Thanksgiving. But now officially we can play Christmas music right up until the day. Oh, that's... And yeah, it's just always the words are so precious, the older Christmas carols are so rooted in the word. And there's so much joy in the music, the joy of anticipation. I think the Lord, I mean, he loves worship. And when you worship with your heart, I think it really does.

He smiles with that. Let's talk about the book, Women of Christmas. It's Elizabeth, it's Anna and Mary. How did you come to the realization that these are women of Christmas? Right. Well, you know, obviously, Mary seems to be the woman of Christmas. That would be rightly so. But when you look into Luke, you realize, wait a minute, there's another woman before we really meet Mary, we meet Elizabeth. Of course, that's my name.

So I've always been kind of partial to that. But her story is so amazing. And then you put it next to Mary's and you see the things that are the same and the things are very different. How God would use two entirely different women in his plan.

Then you come along and here's Anna. These three women are three different generations. Mary would have been twelve to twelve and a half.

It is hard to get your head around that. But young women were betrothed as soon as they were able to have children. So she was twelve to twelve and a half years old. So young. No Bible movie has ever had her young enough, you know, because we just almost couldn't bear the thought of a child. That's almost, yeah, that still is shocking, though. I haven't thought of Mary. I thought of her more like fourteen or fifteen.

No, not likely. More like twelve to twelve and a half. And then Elizabeth's age is not given, but she is old in years. You know, that's a lovely phrase to me, old in years. I'm feeling like that. Me too.

Me too. Past childbearing, past her fertile years. And so somewhere she could be forty or fifty or sixty, we're really not told. Then with Anna, you get a very specific age, eighty-four. I love that.

The Bible is so clear. I don't know how I feel about that with Luke. I'd like to talk to him. Was there a reason you had to mention her exact age? Well, he's a doctor. He's a doctor.

He's filling out the chart. I think he was impressed that she was doing so well at eighty-four. But so you have three different generations, three very different kinds of women, and yet they're all sewn into the story of the coming of Jesus. And it's just like God to do that, to say he has come for everyone. You know, Liz, the other aspect of the book that was really intriguing and right is the story behind the story. So often we read scripture kind of in a sterile environment, expecting these people to do everything correctly.

They heard God when God spoke. They didn't mess up in that relationship. But what you're bringing out in the book is Mary is a twelve, twelve and a half year old unmarried girl, and what that environment probably was really like for her and Joseph. Very different. Talk about that, because I'd like to talk to my boys.

I'd like to talk to them about that setting and not make it so sterile. Does that make sense? No, it's exactly right. We have to understand in these small towns that they lived in, a young girl, and of course she hears from the angel Gabriel, shows up and says, tada. That's the L.R.V., the Lizzie revised version.

What exactly did the angel say? The L.R.V., I love that. L.R.V., Lizzie revised version. But, you know, he says, you know, this wonderful news which she receives with such a purity of faith. So pure. Be it done unto me, your maidservant.

Incredible. And then she takes off for Elizabeth. That's exactly what I would do if I found out I was going to be pregnant, was get out of town. So she goes to see her cousin Elizabeth, and she's there about three months. When she comes back home, she's very pregnant. She's now three months pregnant. She would be showing, as it were.

She's been apart from Joseph. So the question would have been, of course, whose baby is this? And we often just think that she was welcomed back to town and everybody was thrilled because she was going to have the baby Jesus. That is not what their perception would have been. Their perception would have been, oh, you had a visit from the Holy Spirit. Well, it happens every day. It hadn't happened.

He hadn't appeared in 400 years. Well, and I think it would be in that category of unbelievable. Here's a scared girl trying to make up a story to protect herself. Exactly. And for poor Joseph, what is he going to do with this? He was betrothed to this girl as good as married.

And here she comes. She's pregnant. He doesn't know if it's his. Well, he knows it isn't his child. He's very sure.

That's a good way to put that. He knows it isn't his. And he has to figure out what to do now. So many points to Joseph, because he could have been harsh on her.

Instead, he is loving toward her and wants to quietly divorce her. What we have to understand is the other option was that he could have joined the community in stoning her. Right.

Think of that. It would have been she would have been seen as an adulteress. And so she would have been stoned.

That was the normal option. But because Joseph was such a good man. And by the way, he he never speaks in this part of the story. Isn't that something we never hear his voice? Mary talks a lot. Elizabeth talks a lot. Zechariah used to talk that it had his voice taken away. It's interesting.

The men are very quiet, still in deep. The Lord knew that we would put our foot in our mouths or something. Oh, I do think it's kind of wonderful that the women are highlighted throughout the story of the birth of Jesus. They are definitely front and center to the story. Let's come back to Mary in just a while. But let's go to Elizabeth.

You talk about the generational aspects of it. So we got the picture of Mary, this twelve, twelve and a half year old girl who's pregnant but not married and poor and uneducated and poor and uneducated. Then you have Elizabeth.

Talk about Elizabeth. Well, she was neither poor nor uneducated. She was the wife of a priest and grew up in a priestly home. So she would have been of a higher socioeconomic level.

And it says in the Bible, both she and Zechariah were righteous in the sight of God, deserving of all the Lord's observing rather all the Lord's commands. In other words, this was that couple at church that just does everything right that everybody looks up to. They sparkle.

They sparkle. Well said. But this is one of those big biblical butts. They were childless and they were older. And any time I teach on this, you can see in the audience the women whose hearts sink because they've been down this road. You can see it in their face.

Absolutely. That just that they understand better than any of the rest of us what that disappointment month by month by month, that disappointment is like. And here are these two good people doing, as it were, everything right before the Lord. And how often do we get in a situation where it's like, Lord, I'm doing everything right.

Why can you not answer this prayer? And of course, God knows the rest of the story. He knows what's coming for Elizabeth.

But it's a timing thing. If her baby, who will of course be John the Baptist, she doesn't know that. You always thought she doesn't give birth to say, Oh, look, John the Baptist.

We know. And God knew. And the timing had to be perfect for John to lead the way for the baby Jesus.

Elizabeth couldn't have had that son when she was 20. It had to come now and it had to come miraculously. I love that part of it, that this baby was not any work of, as it were, Elizabeth and Zechariah. It was God's kindness to them and God's blessing. Well, it reminds us, too, that God's timing is perfect.

Perfect. It doesn't always feel that way, of course. Oh, it sure doesn't. Liz Curtis-Higgs is on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I'm John Fuller and Liz, right there, this is a season that is full of disappointment. You just expressed a little bit of that when you speak. You see it on the women's faces and hearts about being childless. This is a tough season for a lot of folks because they're doing everything right.

What encouragement can they find? Well, this is why I love to study the Word of God and the people in the Word of God. Not one of them is perfect.

The only perfect person in the Bible is Jesus. So all of them have flaws and challenges and I think they give us hope. And this story is a great one to look to for hope because God is ever at work and who knows what He has for us next.

What we do know for a fact is that it's good. But it didn't feel good for Elizabeth and her husband as month after month turned into year after year. At what point do you just say, I guess it's not going to happen? Well, I think in some ways, and this is just a Lizzie opinion, it's good to come to a place of acceptance that it might never happen. I'm thinking only in my own life when I didn't marry for many, many years and I got past 30 and there was still no man in my life and I finally said, I will be happiest if I come to the acceptance of this is what God has for me is singleness. And so I jumped into singleness with both feet, loved it, found every good thing about it and then I met Bill. But that was, I know that the Lord wanted me to come to that place of peace, that he had this and if what he had for me was singleness, there was a good reason for it. So I would say, and this is a hard word, that if right now the desire of your heart is to have a child, that you've got to trust God's timing in this and his big plan for you.

We just don't know what's next, but we know that he's got it and it's good. That can be tough often because, you know, again, you're wanting that anticipation. Of course. And you sense that God will answer your prayers. But like Elizabeth, as you tie it to the story, she went years sitting in her synagogue thinking, Lord, why aren't you blessing me?

I'm sure in the quietness of her heart. Of course. And there are women that are experiencing that right now at Christmas and hoping for that little package. But I like what you said in terms of peace, that you need to seek God's peace in that. That's what this season is all about, isn't it, Liz, in our eternal heart, in our expectation heart, what we want in this life, resting in Jesus and in your relationship with Christ is the only true thing that we can trust in.

For sure. This season is the best of times and the worst of times for people who have a happy family that they're with and the anticipation of Christmas Day and lots of gifts and lots of food. Well, it's just grand. But many, many, many of your listeners are not going to be in that place right now. They are not going to have the money to do Christmas the way they'd like to.

They are estranged from family or physically apart from family where there is no family. And so this is why we remember what Christmas is all about. It's about Jesus.

It is. And let's take it forward now and talking again about Mary, because I want to go a bit further, that connection to today's teen girl. I mean, you draw that conclusion in the book. You talk about how Mary is that type of teen girl that must have been struggling. Of course, she had the word of the Lord in her heart. She heard the angel and that made all the difference. But talk to that teen girl who is maybe pregnant, is not married today. Right.

OK, first, this really important word. Every baby is a gift from God. None of them are unexpected.

None of them are a surprise to him. Yeah. Maybe the conception and the way all of that came down is not how society or even we would wish it to happen. But now here's coming this baby. Here's coming new life. And it's a chance for us to be changed, just as that child is going to change the world they're born into.

And so it is hard. And Mary was the worst case scenario in the sense that she was very young. She was poor.

And while she heard from the angel, nobody else in town did. And so she knew in her heart that she was right. But everybody else would have seen her as wrong.

So where would she have turned? Only to the Lord. Only the Lord would have understood completely what was going on. What a child, really child of faith she was to throw herself at his feet and say, well, Lord, nobody understands, but you understand. That is so good and so true.

And what a great opportunity for the church to be present in that girl's life, to talk about the special gift and not to resent that baby inside of her. If you're in that spot today and you happen to be listening to Focus on the Family, call us because we'd like to talk to you about next steps and good steps and steps that you won't regret for the rest of your life, steps that bring life into this world. Our counselors are here and we hope if you're in that position, you will call us and let us help you. And there's also, I think of this time of the year, maybe because I spent so many years there in my 20s and then into my early 30s, as a single not married woman, this can really be a hard time of the year. Not just for teenagers.

No, not just teenagers and not just widows. If you have never married, Christmas is so hard. You've got to go to somebody else's house where they've got a husband and they've got kids.

And then you leave with your packages in your arms and you go home to an empty apartment. I remember doing radio on Christmas many years ago. And I'll tell you how long ago it was, we had records.

You know, vinyl hole in the middle. You were spinning the records as a DJ, if I remember. I was, exactly, in Louisville, Kentucky, where I still live. But I was alone in the studio practically alone in the building.

The only people that come in on Christmas morning is the on-air personality and going home to an empty house and all of that. But I'm spinning the records and I'm crying. And I said, Lord, I'm so alone. And he said, Beloved, you are never alone. I am with you always. That was so comforting to me. And so, of course, the next song I cued up was Joy to the World.

The Lord is Come. And I just remember having my own little worship experience on that Christmas morning as a single, not married woman, knowing that you're never alone. Isaiah 54 5 says, For your husband is your maker, whose name is the Lord of hosts. Liz, let me ask you about this connection between Mary and Elizabeth and when they meet. And it's recorded that John the Baptist in Elizabeth's belly leaps. I mean, she can feel this expression within the baby in her womb. Oh, that scene? When you think about that and you have doubts about, you know, maybe your pro-life position, here the scripture is very clear, talking about the worth of that baby in the womb with what John the Baptist is expressing. Talk about that moment and what's happening there.

Well, this is such an incredible scene. And here comes our Mary, who has been told that she will be pregnant. We don't know, by the way, exactly when that conception occurs, whether it was the moment that Gabriel was there on her trip to see her cousin. She traveled a long way, between 75 and 100 miles by foot, pregnant, probably. Yes.

We're thinking somewhere along the line. And by the time she gets there, 10, 11, 12 days into this, she's definitely pregnant because Elizabeth says, blessed are you among women. Why would you come see me? And this is her cousin. And cousin in the Bible means vaguely relatives.

You know, anybody that was close to you at all. You know, your cousin of your cousin of your cousin was still your cousin. But she the baby leaps in her womb. And Elizabeth and of course, John the Baptist are filled with the Holy Spirit. So this is happening with this child in utero. And that's how Elizabeth knows she's it. She's pregnant.

And this is this is what I love. This is when Mary would have found out she was pregnant. Think about it. That was a girl. How would she know? This was the confirmation. This was her.

This is it. It happened just as God said it happened. But Mary hasn't even had a chance to tell her yet.

That's what's so amazing. Elizabeth has this revelation from God. When the Holy Spirit fills her, he also tells her, here's the deal. And these words just pour out of Elizabeth's mouth, I'm sure without any awareness on her part or any pre thought. For that matter, we I would guess she didn't even know Mary was coming.

How would she know? Right. Mary just up and decided to go see her.

So. So it was a surprise to find her at her door and a bigger surprise to find out she was a pregnant and be with Jesus. Then Elizabeth does a beautiful thing. The mother of my Lord, she calls her the mother of my Lord. So this is Elizabeth's moment of making a profession of faith right there.

It's a beautiful way to think of Christmas. Yeah, the coming of Jesus. Let me ask you about those years.

We know nothing about just speculation. I understand that there's not much there in scripture. But shortly thereafter, both Jesus and John the Baptist would be born and diapers are being taken care of. And you know what? As a mom yourself, what's your heart about those growing up years? You have these experiences. Think of Mary. I mean, being told by the angel of God, this is who the child is inside of you. And yet, you know, all the normal stuff of motherhood is right around the corner.

I'm sure it was hectic. Mary wasn't experienced as a mom, nursing the baby, feeling tired, all the things that would be normal. How do you think she felt as a mom? Well, I think she had the extra burden of wondering what her neighbors thought of her. Always.

Always. That would always have been there. This uncertainty about who the father of this child was. And so that, I think she might have felt a bit more isolated than some young moms might. In a community like that, where usually everybody gathered around to raise a child.

We aren't told those years and I always say, if the Lord tells us, we need to know. And if he doesn't tell us, it's not important to the story. And so I tend not to speculate about what happened, except to say, she was a mother who stayed very involved in her young son's life because she's still there later. And she's still there later. This is the same Mary who, in a manger, had her son, saw him nailed to a cross. The same Mary. And still would have been quite a young woman when that happened, to say goodbye to her son.

So, about 45 years old. So she is quite something to me. Liz, let's talk about Anna. She's the 84-year-old woman, the woman full of wisdom in this story. A lot of people probably are thinking, who's Anna?

Because we don't catch her so clearly. Right. Who is Anna? Right. Once the baby Jesus is born, it's like, yay! And now New Year's, right? But the truth is, Anna was a woman who, and I just love this, she lived in the temple and she worshiped God day and night.

So right off the bat, I'm intimidated. What a woman. She was widowed at a very young age. That's another kind of pain this time of the year, by the way.

The first Christmas of loss is a very difficult time. So that's Anna. She had lost her husband as a younger woman, probably in her 20s. And now all these years, she has served the Lord. So it's just thrilling to me to see this older woman still on fire for the Lord, excited to tell people, Jesus is here. She is a real role model for any of us who are past the childbearing point and even past Elizabeth's age, but thinking, what do you have for me, God? Is there more for me to do for you? I'm coming into my 60s, my 70s, my 80s.

What can I do? Well, there's Anna, our incredible role model, who's still going for it for God at 84. I love her. That's a good point, though, that as we get older, we can lose that excitement about our faith. And you're right, Anna is a wonderful example for us to stay in tune with God's heart. Anticipating. She was anticipating the arrival of the Messiah all those years.

And I love to find the women that we know a little bit less about. Truly, we just think of Mary when you think of Christmas, but Elizabeth and Anna on either side of the story and Luke, give us the bigger picture that God speaks to each generation. He uses people of each generation for his good purpose. And it's so clear the way that you've drawn it into your book. When you, Liz, when we look at Christmas, we're coming in now and we think of the big picture here. I'd like to hear from you, writing Women of Christmas. What's the core message? What would you want to say to that woman who's struggling, maybe as a teenage girl who's pregnant, maybe as Elizabeth, who hasn't yet seen her womb come alive, or maybe just has?

Or Anna, the 84 year old who's saying, Lord, my husband's gone. What do I do with the rest of my life? What do you want me to do?

Communicate directly with them. What would you want them to remember about this special time of the year? Jesus came for you. He came for you wherever you are in your life. He came for you.

God all through history prepared for this day, knowing what Jesus coming would do for every one of us. And what he brings is hope. What he brings is a joy that's rooted not in circumstance, but in a relationship with him. And I love that he speaks to every heart.

The 12 year old girl, the 16, the 20, the 30, the 50, the 80. He has a message of love, acceptance, and salvation. Jesus came for you. That is so well said. And I would think the core message there, don't let the busyness of Christmas obscure your ability to see the true meaning of Christmas, which is far bigger than that package.

Far bigger. Yeah. Because, you know, the day after Christmas can sometimes be a bit of a letdown because of all the buildup tends to be around the gifts and the food and the fellowship of people. And so I think if you can put the Christ at the center of your Christmas now, beginning today, as we are moving into Advent and carry that as the heart of your Christmas, that means on December 26th, you're still full of joy.

Absolutely. And hopefully throughout the whole year. Liz Curtis Higgs, author of the book, The Women of Christmas. Thanks for lightening our Christmas ideas and thoughts as we start this Advent season.

It's a blessing. We've heard some great insights from Liz Curtis Higgs today about the Christmas story, and I hope that you found this time to be inspirational and that you'll get a copy of Liz's book, The Women of Christmas. The subtitle is Experience the Season Afresh with Elizabeth, Mary, and Anna. We've got the book here at Focus on the Family, and we'll send a copy to you when you make a generous donation to this ministry and partner with us to encourage and give hope to others. And let me add this, Jon, you don't want to miss a special opportunity right now to double your support for families. When you give today, your support will go twice as far to give hope to those families. Let's end with this thought, because we've talked about a lot of joyful things today, as well as a lot of heavy things.

And we don't know exactly where you're at. As Liz mentioned earlier, this can be a really heavy time of year for people, because all the wounds and emotions that can come up. If you need someone to talk to, call us and let us pray with you or share a resource with you. This is really what Christmas is about, being there for others as Jesus was there for us. So donate, get in touch with us to schedule a counseling appointment. Request Liz's book. Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, or the links are in the episode notes. Well, thanks for listening today to Focus on the Family. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, I'm John Fuller inviting you back tomorrow as we start our annual tradition of presenting some of the best programs from the year, as we once more help you and your family thrive in Christ.