A Christmas story. Of sorts.

A long, long time ago, a priest was going about his business, when all of a sudden, an angel (!)  appeared to him and announced that his wife would become pregnant.

Problem: the priest and his wife, up until this point had been unable to have kids.

Problem: the priest and his wife were beyond childbearing years.

Note: this took place long before it was decided that priests shouldn't get married.

Clearly, this priest didn't believe that he and his wife could have a child at their stage in life, and he said so.  Even though it was an angel (!) who told him it would happen. 

So the angel struck him dumb until after the baby was born. No talkie-talkie for 9 months.

That's right.  The priest's wife got pregnant and gave birth to a son, and this despite the facts that, up until this point, she'd been unable to conceive, and that she was too old to give birth.  This is nothing short of miraculous.

Zechariah - he was the priest - came out of this experience able to praise God in an amazing way for what He'd done.  In fact, Scripture records Zechariah's words:

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
    because he has come to his people and redeemed them.

 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
    in the house of his servant David 

 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

salvation from our enemies
    and from the hand of all who hate us—

to show mercy to our ancestors
    and to remember his holy covenant,

the oath he swore to our father Abraham: 

 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
    and to enable us to serve him without fear

  in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
    for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
    through the forgiveness of their sins,
 because of the tender mercy of our God,
    by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
 to shine on those living in darkness
    and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

(Luke 1:67-79)

Read closely, and you'll see that Zechariah is speaking in faith about who his son (we know him as John the Baptist) will become ("a prophet of the Most High") and about Jesus ("a horn of salvation ... in the house of his servant David ... to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days ..."). At this point, Jesus had yet to be born. Which means that these words were uttered more than 33 years before Jesus died on the cross and fulfilled the words that Zechariah spoke.

Which means that, when Zechariah spoke these words, he was exercising tremendous faith in what God could - and would - do. 

It really can be hard to believe events that run counter to the natural laws of this world, and a barren, older woman giving birth to a child definitely counts as going against the natural laws of this world. Here's what struck me a little while ago, though.  Zechariah was a Levitical priest.  This means he was well-versed - or should have been - in what God had done for the Israelites a number of years ago.  Ten plagues against the Egyptians. The parting of the Red Sea.

And, most importantly for the purposes of this blog post, the circumstances surrounding the conception of a certain boy named Isaac.

Let me refresh your memory.*  Abraham was told he'd be the father of many nations. Both he and his elderly wife Sarah had been unable to conceive. Visitors from another world (though we are not told specifically that they were angels, it definitely is implied) announce that, next year, Sarah would have a child.

And Sarah laughs.  Nine months later, she names her child Isaac, which means "He laughs." This would probably serve to her as a daily reminder that God's power transcends natural laws.

....and an example for people like Zechariah, who should have known that God does what He says, and the He could definitely give Zechariah and his wife a child, even in their old age.

And yet God worked.  God worked in spite of Zechariah's doubt.  His son, John the Baptist was born, grew up and worked mightily as someone who pointed people to Jesus.

Amazing.

If I could time travel, I would love to be able to go back and talk to Zechariah about those 9 months of silence that he went through that brought him from the "We're way too old to have children" mentality to the "If you think John the Baptist's birth was miraculous, just wait till you see what else my God can - and will - do!" attitude.  I would assume that Zechariah spent some time kicking himself for what he'd said/believed, but in the end he was clearly humbled and awed by God's power and grace in those nine months. To me, this is a clear indication of Romans 8:28, a verse that gets me through tough times, the mistakes that I make and the things that God did that I forget:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

*If you want to read the story for yourself, check out Genesis 19 and 21.