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The Parents of John the Baptist

Zechariah was one of approximately 18,000 Jewish priests in Palestine at the time of Jesus.

They were divided in 24 groups of 750 each. Twice a year, each group came to the Temple in Jerusalem to serve for a week. Their roles during this week of service were chosen by lot. Some of them, in a given week, weren’t chosen to do anything.

Each morning four lots were cast to decide who would carry out the four tasks at the altar. Then in the afternoon a fifth lot was cast to determine who would enter the Holy Place to offer the evening incense. This extraordinary privilege usually came only once in a lifetime.

In Luke’s account, when the afternoon lot was cast, Zechariah was chosen to enter the Holy Place and offer the evening incense. It was there that the angel appeared to him to announce the birth of John

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The name “Elizabeth” was not a common name in Jewish culture. The Hebrew word, “El”, means “God”. The name Elizabeth means “God is the fullness.”

Since she was a descendant of Aaron, Elizabeth was of priestly stock. This meant that any of her sons would be eligible to serve as a priest in the Temple.

Elizabeth, childless for many year, conceived and gave birth to the child about whom Jesus would one day say, “Amen, I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist."

Spend some quiet time with the Lord.

December 15, 2003, Monday, Third Week of Advent

’Gone with the Wind’

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1900, Margaret Mitchell was the daughter of an attorney father and a devoutly Irish Catholic mother.

Margaret was always interested in her city’s history. At one time she wrote feature articles on Atlanta’s historical roots for the Atlanta Journal’s Sunday magazine.

In 1926 she left this job to become a full-time housewife, doing some free-lance writing on the side. When one day, she broke her ankle and was confined to her small apartment, she voraciously read the countless library books her husband would bring home to her. Jokingly, he told her that if she was going to have anything left to read, she’d have to write a book herself.

So she did. It would take her 10 years to finish it, but Margaret Mitchell sat down and began to write “Gone with the Wind.”

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The movie “Gone with the Wind” starring Vivian Leigh as the Irish Catholic Scarlett O’Hara premiered on this date in 1939.

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“I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn’t.” (Margaret Mitchell)