Religious people have faith, but in what? Zechariah obeyed God's commandments in his private life, and fulfilled the requirements for priests when he was working in the temple.

John the Baptist did not choose his career.  God appointed him as the 'last of the Old Testament prophets' (even though his story is at the beginning of the New Testament).  Each prophet had the same task - to draw people back to God's covenant, and to look forward to the day when Jesus would institute a new covenant.  After 400 years of prophetic silence since Malachi who predicted John's ministry (Malachi 3:1), his task was to finish the prophetic relay race by personally identifying Jesus (John 1:29-34).

The old, childless couple were miraculously going to have a baby.  After years of grief and prayer, the angel Gabriel spoke to the old priest Zechariah in the temple (Luke 1:19), saying that his aging wife, Elizabeth, would have a son (Luke 1:11-13).   When the previously barren Elizabeth was three months away from delivering John, the same angel surprised her unmarried teenage relative, Mary, in Nazareth.  Gabriel told her that God was with her and wanted to give her something special from Himself.  It was an alarming encounter.  A strange man coming to a betrothed girl.  What did he want?

Mary, in the early stages of her pregnancy, travelled from Nazareth in Galilee to south of Jerusalem.  The move may have removed her from malicious tongues and even stoning as her maternity became more evident.  But it was also to reassure her that God’s purpose was being worked out in her body.  Mary went to stay with her formerly barren and aging relative, Elizabeth, who was then six months pregnant with John.  These women were separated by many years: Elizabeth was way past the menopause and Mary was a virgin teenager, yet God had done a miracle in each of them.  The old lady, Elizabeth,