Word to the Wise
Thursday, December 19, 2013 -
[Judges 13:2-7, 24-25a and Luke 1:5-25]I am Gabriel, who stand before God. I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. But now you will be speechless and unable to talk until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time.
DECEMBER 19
There is a lot of wonderful drama in this scene early in the Gospel of Luke. The everyday life of a couple without any children is completely disrupted by the news that the wife will be pregnant! Zechariah and Elizabeth are both "advanced in age" and have accepted what would have been a social "cross to bear." Childlessness was considered a curse! Now Elizabeth can say that God "has seen fit to take away my disgrace before others!" Zechariah is struck speechless because he couldn't believe what he heard from Gabriel! One can only imagine what kind of gestures he might have used to communicate that he had just seen an angel! Elizabeth's "sign" would have been the usual changes in a woman brought on by pregnancy! Yes, it is both comical and exciting at the same time!
The drama goes beyond the characters, however! Luke is trying to tell the story of Jesus! It begins with two unexpected pregnancies that send us back to the births of Isaac, Samson and Samuel! And now we get John the Baptist whose very birth serves as a way of announcing that Jesus is on the way! The lives of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary are all disrupted by these turns of events. It seems that their sons would continue to disturb other peoples' lives forever, including our own! AMEN