Today we celebrate the second Sunday in Advent.  I missed the first.  Maybe because we never put it on our church calendar when I was growing up.  (Too Roman Catholic-like for the Assemblies of God.)  Or maybe I missed the first Advent Sunday just because Christmas snuck up on this old guy without breaking a sweat!

All that to say, I’ve got some Christmas posts to write along with a lot else during December.  Luke 1 and 2 fascinate me.  They’re so “Narnia-like.”  You know, C. S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia”.  London children get magically transported to the land of Narnia where animals talk and “the deep magic” overcomes dark evil and Aslan the Lion appears just in time to rescue his people.  It calls me to be a child again.  Luke’s Christmas Story is like that.

Luke, however, wrote like a historian, not a fairy-tale-teller.  His Christmas Story happened . . .

Dear Theophilus: Many people have done their best to write a report of the things that have taken place among us. They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these things from the beginning and who proclaimed the message. And so, Your Excellency, because I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you. I do this so that you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught (Luke 1:1-4, GNT).

Underline these words:  “the things that have taken place among us” . . . “what we have been told by those who saw these things” . . . “I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning” . . . “I . . . write an orderly account . . . so that you will know the full truth . . . “  Brush this story off as childhood fantasy if you will, but you’ve got to admit Luke wrote it as reality.

So there was this Jewish priest . . .

During the time when Herod was king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife’s name was Elizabeth; she also belonged to a priestly family. They both lived good lives in God’s sight and obeyed fully all the Lord’s laws and commands. They had no children because Elizabeth could not have any, and she and Zechariah were both very old (Luke 1:5-7, GNT).

Zechariah, as far as we know, though he and his wife “lived good lives in God’s sight and obeyed fully all the Lord’s laws and commands”, was just another priest.  Ordinary.  Stand him with all other Jewish priests, and he’d be lost in the crowd.

Childlessness humiliated his wife, Elizabeth. (Children being a sign of the Lord’s approval.)  Plus “both were very old.”  No chance now of having a child.  No chance of achieving importance.  Just an ordinary old couple.

One day Zechariah was doing his work as a priest in the Temple, taking his turn in the daily service. According to the custom followed by the priests, he was chosen by lot to burn incense on the altar. So he went into the Temple of the Lord, while the crowd of people outside prayed during the hour when the incense was burned (Luke 1:8-10, GNT).

It was an honor to burn incense on the Temple altar.  Also a stroke of God’s blessing, because there were more priests than opportunity.  The priests were chosen by lot.  Zechariah must have thanked God when the lot fell to him.  But he also must have feared.  To enter the Lord’s Temple was risky.  To misstep could mean death in the Lord’s holy presence.  So, probably with mixed emotions, when the day came he entered the Temple while a crowd gathered outside to pray for God to fulfill his messianic promises to Israel (and perhaps for Zechariah’s service to be acceptable).

 An angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar where the incense was burned. When Zechariah saw him, he was alarmed and felt afraid. But the angel said to him, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son. You are to name him John. How glad and happy you will be, and how happy many others will be when he is born! John will be great in the Lord’s sight. He must not drink any wine or strong drink. From his very birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and he will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. He will go ahead of the Lord, strong and mighty like the prophet Elijah. He will bring fathers and children together again; he will turn disobedient people back to the way of thinking of the righteous; he will get the Lord’s people ready for him” (Luke 1:11-17, GNT).

Well, of course the old priest was “alarmed and felt afraid”.  The Holy Place was semi-dark.  Zechariah’s carefully following the ritual.  And suddenly “an angel of the Lord” appears!  He tries to calm the priest.  Then, of all things, tells him “God has heard your prayer.”  His wife will bear a son!  And not just any boy.  One who will be great in the Lord’s sight.  One from birth filled with the Holy Spirit.  One to return many Israelites to the Lord.  One “strong and mighty like the prophet Elijah” who will go ahead of the Lord to “get the Lord’s people ready for him.”

Did you hear?  It was almost laughable.  (Remember how old Sarah had laughed when the Lord told her she’d bear old Abraham a son?)  But Zechariahs’ and Elizabeth’s son would be more than a child of their old age.  He would get the people ready to receive Messiah!  “Messiah’s about to come, old priest!  And your son will be his prophet!”

Now it’s one thing to read about Abraham and Sarah.  Quite another when an angel comes to you.

Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know if this is so? I am an old man, and my wife is old also.” “I am Gabriel,” the angel answered. “I stand in the presence of God, who sent me to speak to you and tell you this good news. But you have not believed my message, which will come true at the right time. Because you have not believed, you will be unable to speak; you will remain silent until the day my promise to you comes true.” In the meantime the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he was spending such a long time in the Temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them, and so they knew that he had seen a vision in the Temple. Unable to say a word, he made signs to them with his hands. When his period of service in the Temple was over, Zechariah went back home (Luke 1:18-23, GNT).

Gabriel expected Zechariah to believe.  When the priest asked for evidence, he got instead a broken tongue—silence until the boy’s birth.  Why not blind his eyes or cripple his legs?  Perhaps so unbelieving Zechariah wouldn’t convey unbelief when he blessed the crowd once he finished in the Temple.  Or perhaps the Lord was making for a greater miracle when he freed the priest’s tongue.  In the end, we don’t know.  But that’s how it is with the wonder of God’s ways:  sometimes we just don’t understand.  And that’s part of the fear of being caught up in his wonders.

Some time later his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and did not leave the house for five months. “Now at last the Lord has helped me,” she said. “He has taken away my public disgrace!” (Luke 1:24,25, GNT).

Messiah stands on the threshold.  But Luke tells us the story of Elizabeth’s joy.  For a moment, his story is all about a priest’s old barren wife’s fat tummy.  She knows it’s the Lord’s help (at last).  She rejoices that her public disgrace is removed.

But, you see, this is how the Christmas Story works.  It’s all about Messiah.  But little ordinary people aren’t overlooked.  In fact, for no reason other than mercy (God could have had John born ordinarily to young parents) the Lord catches up little ordinary people (like you and me) in Messiah’s story.  And he blesses us.  He gives us joy.  Out of hopelessness, he brings brighter light than we can imagine.

Even if, at times, our faith needs a sign.