The Whole Story

December 8th

The Whole Story

Listen to the reflection here… (also available on Spotify HERE )

We can live in the world our eyes can see, but it will only ever be half the picture.

Zechariah’s eyes were old. He and Elizabeth had seen an absence of things hoped for, empty arms cradling despair.  And for Elizabeth, this childlessness meant shame (Luke 1:25). Their eyes had grown old and tired. Hope worn threadbare thin.  They didn’t expect a miracle.

“In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.’ Luke 1:5-7

Faith can slink away so quietly, we barely see it leave. Slipping out the back door as doubt strolls in the front. When doubt and disappointment form our field of vision, the reality of God can feel so far away. Far fetched. Distant. Like some un-sensible notion we used to believe in childhood. We can become blind to the presence of God all around us, deaf to the gentle unfolding of His story in our lives. And we can begin to live as practical atheists in the story of our uncertainty and the corroding emptiness of our doubt.

So when God shows up, banging on the front door of our senses, it can be a shock.

“Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshippers were praying outside.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear.” Luke 1:8-12

Zechariah was serving in the temple, the place on earth where God once dwelt with human beings, but He wasn’t expecting to see God there.

Why not?

God can take a long time to act suddenly. And the long time can feel like an eternity. It can feel so long that we forget to keep on hoping. Our hearts can grow tired and fall into a lulling religious sleep.

Our disappointments. Our doubts. They dress themselves in Sunday best, rational and respectable, sensible and safe. But doubt is simply fear dressed up. The fear that hope might dash on rocks. Again. The fear that our fears might prove true. Again.

So we find a comfortable middle ground. A risk-free comfortable version of faith.

We can tell ourselves we live by faith, while living as though God is far away. Not ‘God with us’, but God somewhere else. Distant. Comfortably contained as a distant religious idea.

When God does show up, waking us from our sleep, it can be a big shock. Terrifying even.

‘But the angel said to him: ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,’
Luke 1:13-14

Your prayer has been heard.

Do not be afraid. When ever God or His messengers show up in scripture, this is usually their opening line. This statement appears in various forms 138 times in Scripture, spoken by God, Jesus, angels and men, but most often an exhortation from the heart of God Himself (97 times).

Do not be afraid… all the years of praying and waiting and hoping and losing hope. They have been seen. You have been held. You have been heard.

Zechariah’s visit from Gabriel is bookended by Zechariah’s startled fear at one end, and his disbelief at the other. From beginning to end Zechariah’s heart had grown not to expect the tangible presence of God with Him.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were old. They had waited for their prayers to be answered for a very very very long time. It must have felt as though their prayers were going nowhere. Unheard voices, Unseen tears, unrealised hopes.

Though he was a priest, He and his wife had suffered years of disappointing childlessness. Childlessness is always sad for a couple who long for a family, but in ancient times and in Jewish culture it was also generally thought of as an indication of God’s disfavour and often led to silent looks of social suspicion, shaking heads and whispering tongues gossiping disgrace.

Zechariah struggled to leave the lulling reality of all his disappointments, and step into the larger reality of God’s story all around him.

Had his eyes been wide enough to see and comprehend all that Gabriel was communicating, perhaps he could have made the connection between his story and God’s long old story. The story-line of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, and Hannah and Elkanah. The story whispering the truth that when God is doing something new, miracles abound. And sometimes the price of a miracle is the need for one… a deep struggle or a very long wait.

Just as Abraham and Sarah’s offspring will form a people who will ‘keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just’ (Genesis 18:19) Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son ’will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God’ and ‘make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’ (Luke 1:17).

Just as Hannah and Elkanah’s son Samuel will anoint King David, Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son will anoint (through baptism) the promised eternal heir of King David, King Jesus, the Lord of Heaven and earth.

All the disappointment and sadness of those waiting years that Zechariah and Elizabeth had struggled though were no less a part of God’s long story of grace than this moment now. Here. When Zechariah is confronted with the startling reality of God’s messenger showing up to make this known.

Never think that long seasons of the need for aching patience, waiting through disappointing circumstances or even heartbreak, are somehow outside God’s loving, attentive authorship of our story.

Years of corroding disappointment are real. Hope dashed on rocks is real. But it is only part of the story of our human reality. The whole story is that God with us is real. Our whole story is that His larger story is always unfolding all around us, whether we see it show up in startling light or whether it unfolds slowly over the slow plod of years.

Do not be afraid.  All the years of praying and waiting and hoping and losing hope- they have been seen. You have been held. Your prayers have been heard.

Your whole story is still unfolding.