Study Desk

At the festival Pilate used to release for the people a prisoner whom they requested.

The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do for them as was his custom.

Pilate answered them, “Do you want me to release the King of the Jews for you?”

For he knew it was because of envy that the chief priests had handed him over.

Then they crucified him and divided his clothes, casting lots for them to decide what each would get.

When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “See, he’s calling for Elijah.”

Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin who was himself looking forward to the kingdom of God, came and boldly went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’s body.

They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?”

“Don’t be alarmed,” he told them. “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they put him.

There will be joy and delight for you, and many will rejoice at his birth.

For he will be great in the sight of the Lord and will never drink wine or beer. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb.

And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to make ready for the Lord a prepared people.”

“How can I know this?” Zechariah asked the angel. “For I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.”

Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah, amazed that he stayed so long in the sanctuary.

After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived and kept herself in seclusion for five months. She said,

“The Lord has done this for me. He has looked with favor in these days to take away my disgrace among the people.”

Then the angel told her: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And consider your relative Elizabeth—even she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called childless.

For nothing will be impossible with God.”

For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me.