Imagine…
†
Imagine you’re
Mary.
You’re probably
fourteen, fifteen years old. Certainly in your teens. Promised to Joseph – a
good (young) man, by all accounts. House of David, like you – a good match. You
realize that you’re lucky to have him, although you’ve done everything you’re
supposed to do as a young Hebrew maiden to merit such a match. Dutiful, humble, quiet, submissive to your
parents.
And a virgin. Of course. The shame of the
alternative would be too much to bear!
But, one night,
something overwhelming happens to you. An angel of the Lord
appears by your bed! A real angel!
Nobody’s seen one of them in centuries!
And he says, “Greetings, O Favored One! The Lord is with
you!”
(To your credit,
you resist the temptation to hide behind your bedcloth!)
Needless to say,
you’re kinda freaked out by this! The room’s aglow, the world’s gone
tail-over-teakettle! This angel, named Gabriel, understands this (well, of course he does! He’s an ANGEL!), and
seeks to reassure you.
“Do not be
afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God! And behold, you will conceive
in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call him Jesus.”
Whoa,
whoa, WHOA! Conceive a SON!?!? When did THIS happen? You’ve never even, y’know, “gotten to second
base” yet, you know? You’ve been a good
girl your entire life, and now, out of NOWHERE, an angel of the Lord bursts in and says, Hey there, you’re about to have a baby boy!
“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most
High…”
(Yeah…everyone
will think I’m the “most high” when I try to tell them this story…)
“…And the
Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David,…”
(David?
The father’s name will be David? I don’t know any Da- wait! You mean, like, KING David?” … )
(Whoooooooooooooooooooa…)
“…and
He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be
no end.”
(Forever? Forever? I’m going to give birth to an
immortal child? WHAT…is GOING…ON here?)
(Okay, put it together, girl. First things first. Then I can
freak out later.) “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
The angel Gabriel answers you: “The Holy Spirit
will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called
holy—the Son of God. And behold,
your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is
the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible
with God.”
(So,
let me get this straight. I’m going to be impregnated by The Holy Spirit. Weird…but at least it won’t be
another man. So, it’s not like I’m cheating on Joseph. Okay…the child will be
The Son of God. The Son…of GOD. Wowwwwww…. This is so cool….)
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me
according to your word.”
(Who
am I to disagree with an ANGEL OF THE LORD?)
†
Imagine you’re Elizabeth.
All of your married life, you and your husband
Zechariah have tried without success to have a child. At your relatively
advanced age, the chances of it happening at this point are slim and none, as they say.
And then, one late winter day, your husband comes
home from serving as priest at the house of the Lord. But something’s wrong. He starts gesticulating, but never says anything. Finally, you realize that
he can’t say anything. Your husband Zechariah has gone mute!
(You silently wonder how many spouses would be
envious of you right now…)
Through a series of sign language and written
phrases (but paper is very
expensive and hard to come by, so you conserve it. Lots of writing in the dirt…),
you learn that he was chosen to burn incense inside the Lord’s temple,
and while inside he was actually
visited by an angel of the LORD! Amazing!
Even more astounding, though, was his news that
they were finally going to have a baby – and not just any baby, either! You two are to name him John, and he will be a
great prophet in the manner of the Scriptural legend Elijah.
It’s almost beyond belief! How could anyone
be so fortunate as we two are? All these years, I’ve been embarrassed to
be without a child…and now, when all hope seemed lost, a miracle
occurs, as in the days of old! The
Scriptures have been closed for four centuries now – nobody has seen
angels in forever! We will be like those legends of Scripture for future
generations! How lucky we are, to be the ONLY ONES who have a story like this
to tell!
So her first sentence to her husband, Zechariah,
after she’s had a chance to comprehend what he’s told her? “Honey? Let’s…let’s lay together in bed. Right
now…”
†
Five months pass, and you have indeed conceived a
child, and the pregnancy is progressing relatively normally. You have kept
yourself hidden for these five months, saying “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked
on me, to take away my reproach among people.” But now it’s late summer, and your help is needed
as crops start to come in from the field. The land here is hilly, and
harvesting is particularly difficult and time consuming. Suddenly, one day,
your niece Mary comes to visit you – Mary, who as a young betrothed bride is
already pregnant as well.
And it’s the
strangest thing, but when young Mary greets you, the baby leaps in the
womb, as if the greatest thing in its – in his extremely young life so
far is hearing your niece’s voice!
And the Holy
Spirit fills your soul, and to your simultaneous joy and dread you realize that
Mary is with a special child as well. More accurately, Mary is with
Child.
So much for
your unique child.
“Mary!”
she exclaimed with a loud cry.
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” For Elizabeth realizes that while in her body
resides a great prophet in the manner of Elijah, as great as the world has ever
seen… the child inside her young niece is even greater than Elijah, greater
than all the prophets the world has ever seen. I cannot imagine… but this will actually mean that together,
our children are going to be something beyond anything, anyone
who has come before.
“And why
is this granted to me that the mother of – My Lord should come to me?” The word ‘Lord’ just comes to you, from the Holy Spirit’s
heart to your lips. “My Lord”… her child will become the long-prophecied
Messiah! Andthus minewill specifically be the
long-prophesied Elijah who comes beforehand! What joy!
“For
behold!” she continues to Mary, “when the sound
of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy!”
Whatever
resentment might have existed in the loss of Elizabeth’s unique status is
completely gone, absorbed by the Holy Spirit within her and her realization of
the even more amazing position which her child will occupy in Jewish
history – not just another prophet, even one as famous and powerful as Elijah,
but the prophet, the one predicted by the final verses of Scripture, in
Malachi 4. The time of redemption is here.
And
blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was
spoken to her from the Lord.
†
Imagine you’re
her husband, Zechariah.
You screwed up.
Sure, you were happy to get the honor of lighting
the incense at the altar in the temple of the Lord. As a priest of Aaron,
though, the duty was bound to fall upon you sooner or later, as it was chosen
by lot, and God’s Will was shown to randomize those duties so that all eligible
priests would get the privilege sooner or later. Of course, it was much
later, as he was advanced in years now.
So, he entered the temple of the Lord to burn the
incense, while a multitude of people prayed outside. If they can pray outside the Temple and the
Lord Jehovah answers their prayers, he
realizes, how much more powerful will my
prayers be inside the Temple, inside the very heart of God’s
Home, built by the hand of Solomon himself?! The prayer that leapt to
mind was the prayer that always leapt to mind – he and his wife
Elizabeth were without child, an embarrassment in the community because their
barrenness was undoubtedly thought to be a punishment for some unknown sin they
had committed somewhere along the line. O My Lord,
Merciful God, grant us a child. Take away my wife’s barren nature and grant us
a child, that we may glorify Your Name through our child. I know it’s not a
reasonable request, Zechariah thought, because she had already completed
her years of fertility, but You Are God, and Your power is unlimited. In
truth, Zechariah’s faith was strong. He knew his Scripture as an Aaronic priest, and he knew of the miracle of Abraham and Sarah
in the book of Genesis, so he understood the omnipotence of the Lord Jehovah. But events would lead him to forget this
detail in a few moments, to his regret.
As he stood in the Most High Place, near the very
Ark of the Covenant where the Tablets themselves resided, a heavenly glow began
to fill the small room. And there appeared to him an Angel of the Lord standing
on the right side of the altar of incense.
Ho-ly…
What is going on? And fear fell upon Zechariah.
The angel started by saying what virtually every angel
says when meeting mortals: “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 wil have joy
and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great
before the Lord.”
At this point, Zechariah is completely overwhelmed.
“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 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.”
Zechariah’s reaction might have been forgivable by most
people. Being visited by an angel is an overwhelming experience, and even being
a priest does not prepare you for this situation. Even a few angels might have
forgiven his next question.
But not this angel. So Zechariah’s foolish question
does not go unpunished.
“How
shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced
in years.” You know
how, Zechariah. Remember? This is The Lord you’re talking about!
“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.” Gabriel, the right-hand angel of
God – the most high of the angels, the angel sent to deliver the future of
humanity itself to Daniel – Gabriel was not likely to be
forgiving of Zechariah’s doubts.
“And behold, you will be silent
and unable to speak until the day these things take place, because you
did not believe my words, which will
be fulfilled in their time.” And sure enough, when
Zechariah tried to answer the archangel Gabriel, he found nothing – not a
sound, not a croak, not a peep emerged from his lips. Before he could come up
with a way of pleading with the archangel, he was gone, and Zechariah was left
alone to ponder what had just occurred.
When he finally came out of the Temple, long after his shift
had ended, he was unable to speak to any of the people outside, either. But his
gesticulations and signs made it clear that he had seen something remarkable –
even miraculous. His muteness remained throughout the day, and when he reached
his home and his wife Elizabeth, he had prepared his ‘presentation’. Yes, she
was somewhat shocked, but when they had reached the point in the
admittedly-one-sided conversation where his beautiful wife bade him come to bed
with him, he knew that she understood.
His niece Mary came and stayed for three months, her
assistance being critical for Elizabeth and beneficial for him, taking stress
off his shoulders when he left home to perform his priestly duties, knowing his
‘less-pregnant’ niece Mary was there to help his seven- and then eight-month
along wife. (Mary herself held a child of great promise, and she and Elizabeth
held a special bond beyond even what pregnant women usually share, even more
than those related to each other. She even had a song she sang, in praise of
the Lord and the blessings which had befallen the two women. If only I could tell them just how
blessed we truly are!)
The time finally came for Elizabeth to give birth to a son,
and it isn’t until the eighth day, at the child’s circumcision and naming, when
he is asked about the child’s name. Elizabeth, to her credit, remembered his
instructions to name the child John, despite the objections of the rest of the
child. Zechariah takes a writing tablet and tries to speak the words he
simultaneously writes, “(His) (name) (is) John!”
And lo, the curse was lifted, and
he was able to speak for the first time in almost a year – and he has
learned his lesson.
“Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people… And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins!” And as the child was circumcised, and Zechariah and Elizabeth
could celebrate the end of their time of trial, and the beginning of their time
together as a true family. And the child grew and became strong in spirit.
†
(To be continued tomorrow...)
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