Reflection on the Silence of Zachariah

It’s officially here for me…Christmas season. This weekend we put up the tree, decorated around the house, and as a local church body we started a new series walking through the first 2 chapters of Luke focusing on the birth of Jesus. I’m trying to be “intentional” this year in my approach to celebrating the birth of Jesus. What I mean by that is that I don’t want to sit back passively as the season rolls by, as if it were for my enjoyment; but really view the story of Jesus’ birth as a clarion call to a missional life! With this in mind, I want to share something I learned from Zachariah’s story on how NOT to do it.

To catch ya up…Zachariah is an elderly priest mentioned by Luke to be the father of John the Baptizer (Luke 1:5-25). Luke says he was a very dedicated man and faithful to all God asked of him. As he’s going about his priestly duties Zachariah has an amazing angelic encounter, breaking 400 years of “silence” from God. Understandably shaken by this meeting he asks a question that initiates a transition from the silence of God to the silence of Zachariah. At first I was a little dismayed by what happens. It seems others have asked God questions or for confirmation and weren’t met with such a harsh reply. So why was Zachariah’s question different?

Keeping in mind’s Eugene Peterson’s 5 characteristics of a story, specifically that nothing is insignificant, I thought it would go a long way to reflect on this for a moment. In this process I noticed something. There is a difference between a question that asks “how” God will accomplish something and a question of “can” God accomplish something. God seems to be perfectly comfortable with questions of “how” because in some ways it is recognition of our own limitations. There is humility, and God honors that (James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5). But a question of “can” is an affront to him as God. If God says He is going to do or not do something He has the ability to follow through. I think the problem is that the focus of Zachariah’s question is Zachariah. Rather than letting this incredible news germinate and birth life-altering faith (i.e. belief in action), Zachariah jumps ahead of himself and asks if this is even possible for God to do.

The result…silence, except this time not from God, from Zachariah. Imagine, you have the most amazing news in 400 years and you can’t share it. God doesn’t remove the blessing, just the ability to share it and see it multiplied.

I think near the core of this “missional” concept of life is the belief that God really does care and He really is going to do something about this messed up world we live in. And intricately tied to that idea…his desire is to use us! I’m learning that often the reason I am “silent” in life has much more to do with my lack of belief in action (faith) than it does with the knowledge of what to do.

Here’s to hoping that this Christmas, we all don’t find ourselves “silent”.