The Life of Jesus #1
Hi, my cute nephews and nieces! ๐
John the Baptist has to know first when talking about Jesus. In Luke comes about the parents of John the Baptist, Zechariah, and Elizabeth. Shall we talk about them first?
Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God but didnโt have a child.
Luke 1:5-7
5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.
6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lordโs commands and decrees blamelessly.
7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were the parents of John the Baptist. Zechariah was serving as a priest in Jerusalem. And he was living a holy life with his wife, Elizabeth. In the Bible, you can see from the verse, Luke 5:6. They were old, but there was no child between themselves.
At that time, it was quite a hard time for a woman who couldnโt have children. As you can see from the other bible stories of the Old Testament (ex. Sarah, wife of Abraham and Hanna, mother of Samuel), it was an era when she had to live under the pressure of the surrounding murmur and family, even if she was the lawful wife.
I don’t know exactly in the short passage, but I don’t think Zechariah would have made Elizabeth hard by not having a child. He would not have made the weak suffer as a man of your commandments and decrees. But I think Elizabeth would have lived under the burden of not having a baby. So, I imagined they would have had a quiet daily life and relied on each other, but felt a little empty rather than always bright. I think the picture below is a good expression of my imagination.
This is a painting by James Tissot. Unlike the paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, there is no halo, and there are no religious symbols that you can’t tell if you don’t know the title, but I think the painting itself shows the quiet daily lives of the elderly couple who respect and help each other. And I thought that the figure of the man wearing the yellow and turquoise dyed clothes was a representation of a person who had a distinct duty. At that time, it would not have been easy to get dyed clothes because people had to collect natural materials one by one to make dyes and then dye the cloth.
I think the atmosphere of their quietness, the emptiness felt by their facial expressions, and the color that felt murky overall showed the old couple enjoying the joy of their children.
What do you think of reading the Bible verse with related paintings together? Don’t you think you have a wider imagination than just reading? Please tell me what you thought while looking at the picture.
Bible Verses: Holy Bible, New International Versionยฎ, NIVยฎ Copyright ยฉ1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 byย Biblica, Inc.ยฎย All rights reserved worldwide.