We are cruising into another Christmas feeling a bit frazzled. My 12-year-old continues to say that it doesn’t “feel like Christmas.” We’re in a new-to-us house this year, and I started a new job at the beginning of December that has changed our routines and been jarring for all of us. So everything feels a little unfamiliar this season. But I also think my youngest is just beginning to sense the ache most all of us experience as we grow old enough to realize there is a disconnect between the way things are and the way things should be. Middle school does that to a person.
No matter our age, I think we sometimes need permission to acknowledge our doubt or disappointment in the midst of a season that’s measured by our merriment. We are all still living in this hard in-between of the already and the not-yet. This tension of acknowledging the light that has come and the light that is yet to fully shine and eradicate all of the darkness around us and in us is the very nature of the season. To feel both the heartache and the hope of this season is to be fully human.
I relate best to the characters in the Bible who are doubters. If we take only the Christmas story, I’m most in awe of Mary and her faith. But I most understand Zechariah and his doubt. When Gabriel appears to him in the temple and tells him that he and Elizabeth will bear a son in their old age, I think his initial disbelief is completely understandable. This is a preposterous announcement. He is an old man. Elizabeth is a woman of very advanced maternal age. The parenting ship has sailed. Gabriel, though, tells Zechariah that God himself sent him to share this news and because of his unbelief (which he simply expressed in the form of a question), he will be silent and unable to speak until the baby (John) is born.
The punishment seems extreme, but instead of bitterness taking hold something incredible happens to Zechariah in the many months and the long silence between Gabriel’s announcement and John’s birth. Zechariah’s doubt turns into Zechariah’s profound faith. By the time the baby arrives and everyone is all worked up about why Elizabeth wants to name their son John instead of Zechariah Jr. or something more in line with family tradition, Zechariah is “filled with the Holy Spirit.”
As he scribbles on a tablet that the baby is, in fact, to be named John, his silence is broken and he prophesies in what we now call Zechariah’s Song or the Benedictus:
“Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people. He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago…” (Luke 1:68-70)
Zechariah is like so many of us—a doubter who wasn’t really feeling the angel’s excitement about an unbelievable proclamation of good news. But he stayed the course, allowing God to work in the silence to override his feelings of disbelief with a newfound faith.
I want to be more like Zechariah. Doubtful but obedient. Silently attentive to the Spirit’s work. Not necessarily feeling faithful, but remaining faithful because God is faithful to his promises.
“Because of our God’s merciful compassion, the dawn from on high will visit us to shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79)
Even while we still are still living in this often discouraging in-between time, may we lift our heads and our hearts this weekend and join Zechariah in praising God for the dawn.
Merry, merry Christmas from me (and all of us!) to you.
Leave a Reply