As we continue on through the Christmas season, we’re reminded that God’s plans are very rarely in line with our own.  He doesn’t often work in the way in which we would expect Him to nor when we would expect Him to.  There is perhaps no better example of this reality than with the Christmas story.

Even though the arrival of Jesus was prophesied about in great detail, even those who were scholars and teachers of these prophesies who were eagerly and earnestly seeking out after this Messiah didn’t recognize Him face-to-face.

We could probably spend quite a bit of time going around the room here and sharing testimonies of painful times in life when it felt like God was so far away and that our prayers were going unheard.

We could share times when the enemy caused us in this season to question God and ourselves.  When he caused us to wonder if we were being punished by God because of our sin or if we have somehow strayed outside of God’s will or a whole slew of other doubt-seeding questions.

I’m sure that we could also spend quite a bit of time going around the room sharing testimonies of how God worked a miracle on our behalf and how we could then understand a little better how God’s ways were better than our own.  Not every story ends that way while we’re still living in this flesh, but so many of them do!

This is why we’re called to walk by faith and not by sight.  That’s why we’re called to trust His word and not our feelings.  That’s why we’re called to:

Proverbs 3:5-6

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

6 in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight.

We start this morning with a couple who spent decades in that very place and what God did for them; Zechariah and Elizabeth.

Luke 1:1-45

1 Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Luke was a Gentile physician who travelled and ministered with the apostles as we find documented in Paul’s epistles.  He also served as a bit of a historian as he interviewed and investigated and documented the accounts of first-hand eyewitnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  There were plenty of truths and lies alike being spread about these events and Luke wanted to be sure that Theophilus could place his faith in certain truth.  This written account still serves the same purpose for us nearly 2,000 years later!

The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold

5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

Now these few verses can be quickly read, but can’t even begin to describe the torture that this must have been for Zechariah and Elizabeth.  To be barren was considered to be cursed and punished by God and yet they were blameless and righteous in God’s sight.  Both of them being descendants of Aaron in the priestly bloodline would have made their barrenness that much worse. 

Though they were blameless in God’s sight, well, people would have found plenty of reason to blame them.  As Elizabeth soon describes their condition in the people’s sight as disgraced.  Though they faithfully served the Lord their whole lives; tradition believes that they were in their late 80’s at this point, people would have thought otherwise.

How quick d