December 9, 2025

Because I love Christmas and the Christmas story, I decided to dig into Luke today. It seems the perfect time to get into the holiday spirit and reminisce over the beautiful story of Jesus’ birth. How many times have you read the same portion of scripture and learned something completely new? That’s what happened to me this morning. Here is the scripture:

There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. Luke 1:5

Elisabeth is Mary’s cousin, and scripture says that Elisabeth was a descendant of Aaron, from the priestly line of Levi. When we read of Jesus’ genealogy, the Bible traces his lineage back to King David, which was tradition, but now we see that, through Mary being Elisabeth’s cousin, he could also be from the priestly line. I knew Jesus was a priest of the order of Melchizedek, but I never realized he may also have been a Levite and in the lineage of King David through his mother. Maybe they converged through Mary’s mother. Were Elisabeth and Mary’s mothers cousins? If that’s the case, they wouldn’t keep track of their lineages because they traced their ancestry through the father. It’s all speculation and food for thought today. God knows and has perfected everything concerning our Savior, Jesus!