Thoughts for the Day

Luke 1:18-22 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this?  I am an old man and my wife is well on in years.”  The angel answer, “I am Gabriel.  I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.  And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time.”  Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple.  When he came out, he could not speak to them.  They realised he had seen a vision in the temple for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

I find it easy to sympathise with Zechariah when he asks Gabriel “How can I be sure of this?”  The message has come as a bolt out of the blue, it overturns his view of the world and maybe even, who knows, a comfortable familiarity with his sadness … and he is indeed an old man and his wife is beyond childbearing age.  Is he being reasonable?  Isn’t it a bit draconian to strike him dumb for the next 9 months?  However uncomfortable I may find it, the answer has to be an emphatic “No!” Because God is just.  So I must look for the answer in my misunderstanding.  Gabriel pronounces that Zechariah did not believe the news, which appears harsh, but God knows the heart so we may take it this is true.  As to the consequence, the people outside realised he had seen a vision not from what he told them but because he could not speak.  Perhaps God in his mercy left him with this sign not just because of his question but in answer to it.  As he pondered what he had seen and heard, it might have been tempting (and easier?) to give in to unbelief and imagine he had made it all up.  But, until he could see the miracle of his son’s birth, every morning his dumbness would remind him that something astonishing had indeed happened.