God of the Improbable
Luke 1:13-17 “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. And you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before them in the Spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (ESV)
Zechariah & Elizabeth…a normal couple by all accounts except that Elizabeth was barren. Childless in a society that equated having children with being blessed by God. Their desperate longing for a child, covered in holy prayer, had given way over the years to questions. Tears. Anguish.
Were they aware that their barrenness was the blessing?
The angel Gabriel announced they would finally have a son…set apart, special, and anointed. He would be born already full of the Holy Spirit so he could prepare people’s hearts for hope. Jesus, the hope of the world. The prophecy Isaiah had declared 700 years before, would come to pass under their roof.
Did Zechariah and Elizabeth understood that they needed to get too old, that they needed to give up hope, that they needed to fervently serve God without having all the answers?
Did they understand that the impossible needed to be…so that God could unleash the miraculous?
Did they understand that the more improbable their circumstance, the farther the good news would spread? They probably didn’t know all that right away. But as the years passed and the prophecy unfolded in front of their eyes how thankful they must have been for the years of waiting.
John, their son was the forerunner for Jesus Christ. The message of Christ? Good news…hope in the darkest of circumstances, light for the heaviest of hearts. The assurance that everything in life is part of a grand picture, woven into HIS eternal masterpiece.
Romans 15:13 “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope as you trust in him.” Amen.