Wonder - Day 17
The wonder of possible impossibilities
Luke 1:57-64
57 When it was time for Elizabeth’s baby to be born, she gave birth to a son. 58 And when her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had been very merciful to her, everyone rejoiced with her.
59 When the baby was eight days old, they all came for the circumcision ceremony. They wanted to name him Zechariah, after his father. 60 But Elizabeth said, “No! His name is John!”
61 “What?” they exclaimed. “There is no one in all your family by that name.” 62 So they used gestures to ask the baby’s father what he wanted to name him. 63 He motioned for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s surprise he wrote, “His name is John.” 64 Instantly Zechariah could speak again, and he began praising God.
I know what it was like for me, on the day I became a father for the first time. I was excited, scared, and so full of emotions that I couldn’t put into words. So those feelings just kept leaking out my eyes in the form of tears.
But I was 25 when I became a dad, not old like Zechariah and Elizabeth. And for Elizabeth, she had endured the shame that came in those times with being barren. Likely, she had endured years of people walking by her, shaking their heads. And now, here in her old age when everyone else, including her, had written off this ever happening, now, Elizabeth holds her sweet baby boy in her arms.
Of course, once babies are born, the names come next. And in their culture, it was common practice to name newborns after a family member. So when Elizabeth remained obedient to what they angel had told Zechariah, naming the baby John, the people were shocked. They didn’t understand. It made no sense, just like it didn’t make sense that an old couple could become pregnant and give birth to a healthy child.
So they turn to the patriarch in the family, father knows best, right? They hand Zechariah a writing tablet, and he begins to write but they can’t see what he’s writing until he turns that tablet to face them. To their shock, they read the same name. Elizabeth gave, John. Then all of a sudden, the man who hasn’t been able to speak for the last nine months, begins to speak. And the first thing he does with the return of his voice? He praises God!
May we always remember God’s words through the prophet Isaiah, when He told the children of Israel, “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9, NLT)
We won’t always be able to explain, with human words and with human understanding, everything there is to know about God, about Scripture, about how faith works or even about who God is. There will always be a gap between our understanding, and His. Jesus came to be a bridge between us and God, but still, there are things to lofty for us to comprehend. Instead of bemoaning that gap, may we turn our limitations into praise to the One who was and is and is to come. May we rejoice in His promises, trust in His presence, and accept the fact that we’ll never have all the answers. The best we can do each day is be faithful to our next step.
For Elizabeth and Zechariah, that next step was naming their boy, John. Then tomorrow, they’d have to wake, and be faithful again to what God was asking them to do next. The same would be true for every day of the rest of their lives, but as they remained faithful, they were also going to witness things said and down that they only dreamed about before, as they watched their boy grow into the one who would “clear the way for the Lord’s coming!” (John 1:23b, NLT)
QUESTIONS
Luke 1:57-64
57 When it was time for Elizabeth’s baby to be born, she gave birth to a son. 58 And when her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had been very merciful to her, everyone rejoiced with her.
59 When the baby was eight days old, they all came for the circumcision ceremony. They wanted to name him Zechariah, after his father. 60 But Elizabeth said, “No! His name is John!”
61 “What?” they exclaimed. “There is no one in all your family by that name.” 62 So they used gestures to ask the baby’s father what he wanted to name him. 63 He motioned for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s surprise he wrote, “His name is John.” 64 Instantly Zechariah could speak again, and he began praising God.
I know what it was like for me, on the day I became a father for the first time. I was excited, scared, and so full of emotions that I couldn’t put into words. So those feelings just kept leaking out my eyes in the form of tears.
But I was 25 when I became a dad, not old like Zechariah and Elizabeth. And for Elizabeth, she had endured the shame that came in those times with being barren. Likely, she had endured years of people walking by her, shaking their heads. And now, here in her old age when everyone else, including her, had written off this ever happening, now, Elizabeth holds her sweet baby boy in her arms.
Of course, once babies are born, the names come next. And in their culture, it was common practice to name newborns after a family member. So when Elizabeth remained obedient to what they angel had told Zechariah, naming the baby John, the people were shocked. They didn’t understand. It made no sense, just like it didn’t make sense that an old couple could become pregnant and give birth to a healthy child.
So they turn to the patriarch in the family, father knows best, right? They hand Zechariah a writing tablet, and he begins to write but they can’t see what he’s writing until he turns that tablet to face them. To their shock, they read the same name. Elizabeth gave, John. Then all of a sudden, the man who hasn’t been able to speak for the last nine months, begins to speak. And the first thing he does with the return of his voice? He praises God!
May we always remember God’s words through the prophet Isaiah, when He told the children of Israel, “For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9, NLT)
We won’t always be able to explain, with human words and with human understanding, everything there is to know about God, about Scripture, about how faith works or even about who God is. There will always be a gap between our understanding, and His. Jesus came to be a bridge between us and God, but still, there are things to lofty for us to comprehend. Instead of bemoaning that gap, may we turn our limitations into praise to the One who was and is and is to come. May we rejoice in His promises, trust in His presence, and accept the fact that we’ll never have all the answers. The best we can do each day is be faithful to our next step.
For Elizabeth and Zechariah, that next step was naming their boy, John. Then tomorrow, they’d have to wake, and be faithful again to what God was asking them to do next. The same would be true for every day of the rest of their lives, but as they remained faithful, they were also going to witness things said and down that they only dreamed about before, as they watched their boy grow into the one who would “clear the way for the Lord’s coming!” (John 1:23b, NLT)
QUESTIONS
- If you’re a parent, think back to all those feelings of welcoming your newborn into the world. Can you even put how you felt into words?
- If you aren’t a parent, have you ever seen a new life come into the world either through a physical birth, or even via baptism? What was it like to witness and be a part of that moment?
- When was the last time you were speechless before the Lord? What happened?
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