About 9 months earlier...Luke 1:5-25...The Other Baby

 


We are on a path through the events of the 1st coming of Christ.  Many times when I am doing this with a congregation it is blazing a new trail for some people who have not dived deep into each element and individual associated with the coming of Jesus.  This continues to open my eyes each time I have the opportunity to walk down this path given to us in God's word.  The connection of the Old Testament to the New Testament melts together at Christmas time.

Along with the Messiah being in the line of David to be the King of a forever kingdom is the fact that the Messiah would have a messenger before Him who would point to Him as the anointed and sent One from God.  We know this to be John the Baptist who said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world."(John 1:29)  Jesus also points out that John the Baptist is the Elijah type forerunner spoken of by God through the prophet Malachi.  This part of the telling of the events of Jesus 1st coming is very important to verifying that He is the long awaited Messiah.

I think what I wanted to stress the most through the teaching of Zechariah and Elizabeth are their different responses to what God presented through the angel Gabriel.  Zechariah and Elizabeth both had a wealth of background with God, Zechariah being a priest for at least 30 years and Elizabeth being the wife of a priest who grew up in a priest's home.  Zechariah hears the very words of God, knows this has happened before, knows the prophecies, and hears the language of one devoted to God through the Nazarite vow and asks "How?"  Elizabeth gets the message through her mute husband second hand and responds "The Lord has..."  Two very different responses.  This is when we want to be an Elizabeth.

Instead of looking at our limitations with what God has said and superimposing them on what God could do, we need to keep our eyes on who said it.  God is not like us in so many ways.  A couple are that He is ever faithful and also limitless in what He can do with us who are many times unfaithful and very limited.  This should make us humble ourselves and be in awe that He would use us.  All the more, the glory goes to God because we know our limitations and track record and what is happening is Him supplying all that is needed.  

I am so thankful to see the turn around in Zechariah at the birth of John.  It gives us hope that we who have stumbled at times with keeping our eyes on what God can do through us, flawed by sin individuals, who can point to Him because we have learned this lesson once again.  When Zechariah gets back his voice, I wonder what his conversations were like with others as a once doubting priest who now had this encounter with the angel Gabriel.  

May we not look so much at ourselves but at the One who created us.

Adam






A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

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