In Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, he includes the story of John the Baptizer’s birth in some detail. In particular, he shares that John’s parents had been childless and were too old to hope for any change in their condition …That they [Zechariah and Elizabeth] had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years... (Luke 1.7)
Consider the reality of Elizabeth’s life. When we meet her, she was beyond the natural age to bear children. She had grown up and grown old watching other women bear children and grandchildren; she never had her own. She didn’t have her own sons or daughters or grandsons or granddaughters to hold and feed and teach and train. She was “very old” and had lost the chance to have kids. She was “left out” of that precious experience, and probably felt like she was on the fringes of her culture.
But God did not see it that way. God was doing something “behind the scenes” of Elizabeth and Zechariah’s life. When it was too late and life had passed them by, God showed up with his plan unfolding in his perfect timing.
You know the story, right? Zechariah was doing his regular priestly duties, in the Temple, as he would regularly have done throughout his regular life’s routine. But…And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John…” (Luke 1.11-13)
“…your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son…” Um, what? When it seemed impossible – well, when it was impossible – God was announcing a new work. A new life. This was totally impossible and totally had to be something of God’s doing.
Nothing else really mattered and no one else could take credit – God had a plan for this old couple, and now, in the midst of their senior years, this plan was breaking out. God had not told Zechariah or Elizabeth during all their youthful years of wanting and waiting for a child; he had not offered any explanation during the years after their bodies grew too old to make a baby.
They lived and grew old in the resounding silence of God’s plan.
It seems that Zechariah had grown hard or even bitter towards God. When Zechariah questioned how this could happen, the messenger angel pronounced “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news…” And Zechariah was mute from that moment until John’s day of presentation some 9 months later.
We don’t have any record of Elizabeth’s response to this news. And this makes me wonder… Over all those years, did she ever wonder how God would be glorified in that particularly painful weakness? Could she consider her inability to conceive a child to be a gift from God somehow?
In reality, God was withholding children from Zechariah and Elizabeth so that they could share in the miraculous birth of a prophet-son.
“…he [John] will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1.16-17)
Can you see that God had this completely under control, but that he hadn’t given the parents a clue?
He had a timetable and a plan that was being fulfilled in God’s time; it didn’t happen in “normal” time, or according to flesh and blood’s ability.
As I reflect on Elizabeth’s experience, I wonder if our disadvantages or disabilities could be the exact weakness or loss that God will use to bring about his plan of redemption in the lives of others?
Can you list some of the more painful weaknesses or losses in your life, or in the lives of your loved ones? Can you entrust them to God, for his purpose and his glory?
Consider what Jesus told the Apostle Paul a generation after John’s birth: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12.9)
Trusting that God’s power can work through our weaknesses is a real and present way we can celebrate the coming of Jesus, born in weakness, coming to bring a new Kingdom into our lives.
Can you ask Jesus to bring about his power and his kingdom through your failures and faults, to be a blessing to others, and to bring glory to God?
Can you trust God in the resounding silence of his plan?
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