Will You Choose to Believe?

How many times have you heard a Christmas sermon begin with the words, “Please turn to Luke chapter 2”? And rightly so! It’s a beautiful chapter that chronicles the events immediately surrounding the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Recently, however, I have taken time to ponder Luke chapter 1. There are precious lessons to be found in the account of what preceded Jesus’ birth. Both Zechariah and Mary teach us something about the heart of God.

Zechariah's Pain and Faithfulness

Zechariah was a faithful servant of the Lord. The Word of God makes special note of this. He and his wife Elizabeth walked with God with a heart to obey Him.

But this didn’t prevent them from experiencing pain. It never does. As long as we live on this fallen planet, we will experience trouble, whether we love the Lord or not. The difference is, for those who put their lives in His hands, He takes that trouble and turns it into a platform for His glory.

For Zechariah and Elizabeth, the chief source of deep pain was their barrenness. According to the Word of God, children are a blessing and a reward—and yet this righteous couple had been denied that blessing. Year after year, they walked faithfully through the daily duties to which God had called them. Yet year after year, they remained childless until their physical age made the hope of children impossible.

It was in the course of obediently carrying out his priestly calling that Zechariah experienced life-altering divine intervention. The angel of God appeared to him while he was serving in the temple, announcing that he and Elizabeth would have a son.

Zechariah and Elizabeth would be given the desire of their hearts, the answer to their prayers: a child to enjoy.

But what God was doing was much bigger than just giving them a gift for enjoyment. He was calling them to be part of His bigger story. Their child was foretold in the prophecies of the Old Testament, part of God’s narrative for the redemption of mankind. They would enjoy their gift, and they would also suffer deeply—but they would be blessed.

The reward for simple faithfulness to God is always bigger than we can see in the moment.

Two Different Questions

Some months later, Mary would also receive a visit from the angel and the promise of a Child. Her encounter would have some things in common with Zechariah's.

Both Zechariah and Mary heard the angel say, “Fear not.” Both Zechariah and Mary were given the promise of an impossible birth. Both were told they were part of God’s bigger plan. Both asked the angel for further enlightenment.

But the questions they asked were quite different from each other. To paraphrase them, Zechariah’s question was a dubious, “How can I be sure what you say is true?” And Mary’s question was a submissive inquiry: “I believe you, I’m just wondering how this will work?”

There’s a big difference. Asking questions of God is not a problem. The important thing is the heart behind the question.

From Zechariah we learn that when God speaks, we must not question Him on the basis of mere earthly circumstances and impossibilities. We have to believe Him over what we see around us. Abraham was also given the promise of an impossible birth, and Romans 4 assures us that he looked squarely at that impossibility and still believed God could fulfill the promise. Zechariah looked at the impossibility and questioned the promise. He needed correction for that.

Zechariah had to suffer some temporary consequences in order to learn his lesson: he was unable to speak until his baby was born.

Of course, his wife Elizabeth had to live with those consequences, too. I find it humorous that she said about Mary, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45), in contrast with her husband who hadn’t!

The good news is that Zechariah still received the fulfillment of the promise.

He learned the lesson he was meant to learn from his time of discipline. Once his baby was born and his tongue was loosed, he opened his mouth in a song of praise and prophecy that rings down through the ages with words of victorious hope.

Both Mary’s and Zechariah's songs of praise are recorded in Luke 1 as a part of God’s eternal Word. And from this, we learn that failure is not final. Zechariah’s initial failure of faith did not define him forever. He changed.

And so, we must ask ourselves, do we walk faithfully with God in all our daily tasks? Do we read His Word in order to know Him? Do we believe what He says? Do we believe Him even when it seems impossible?

Praise God, we can choose to believe Him, like Mary did. And praise God, even when we fail to believe as we should, we can take heart from the story of Zechariah: failure is not final!