In our day, this inability to have children may seem no more than an unfortunate, perhaps even tragic, medical condition. But in ancient times, an inability to have children was always the woman's fault, it basically robbed her of her only valid purpose in life, and it was thought to be a punishment of some sort. Some god was involved in closing a woman's womb and rendering her barren. This happened for some reason.
I can only assume that people talked about Elizabeth and Zechariah, speculating about what one of them had done to tick off God. Zechariah was a priest, so maybe it was Elizabeth's fault. Yet Luke tells us quite clearly, "Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord."
Modern folk are less likely to blame God's personal activity for every event and misfortune, especially if we understand the scientific process behind the event. But that doesn't mean we don't make assumptions about who deserves what. We may even hope for some people to get what's coming to them, wishing for karma, the universe, or perhaps even God to intervene and set things right.
But Luke opens his gospel by knocking over basic assumptions about karma, justice, and people getting what they deserve. A righteous and blameless couple seems to have incurred God's wrath. By all appearances, God is against them, and yet the story of Jesus begins by telling of their critical place in God's plan to save and renew.
You needed by a conservative fundamentalist to think you know who God prefers and who God would and wouldn't use as part of God's plan. I was once at a church conference populated mostly by Presbyterians, many of them of a more moderate or liberal ilk. The speaker was Brian McLaren, and at some point he made a comment about there being things we Mainline Christians could learn from our more evangelical brothers and sisters. The visceral reaction from a great many was astounding to me. It all but said out loud, "God cannot possibly work through such folks. They have offensive views and bad theology. Surely that disqualifies them."
Some of the recent furor over an interview given by Duck Dynasty star, Phil Robertson, is perhaps instructive. I think what he said is completely wrong, but that doesn't mean that he is the anti-Christ as some Facebook posts or Tweets would seem to suggest. And it doesn't meant that this person is now so tainted that he cannot be a disciple of Jesus. He may be a flawed and misinformed one, but then again that probably describes all of us in some way.
Some years ago, Tom Long preached a sermon at a Covenant Network of Presbyterians conference where he told of meeting a hairdresser who was a member of Creflo Dollar's mega church in Atlanta. He laughted to himself about how he was going to get some bad theology to go with his bad haircut, but then he discovered through their conversation that God at work in this woman, and in Creflo Dollar's church. (You may be able to find the sermon via Google or on the Covenant Network website. It's truly wonderful.)
I think one thing we can say with absolute certainty is that God rarely acts in quite the manner we would have done it. The cross alone is sufficient confirmation of that. And so as we draw toward the end of Advent and near to the celebration of a Savior's birth, perhaps we should be especially attentive to surprises that are contrary to our assumptions. Perhaps we should be a tad suspicious of our well constructed doctrines and theologies, designed by the most learned and scholarly sorts. After all, the first person in Luke's gospel who begins to expound on the character and intentions of God is a teenage girl (Luke 1:46-55). And she didn't even have a seminary degree.
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