Good things come to those who wait: A meditation on Luke 1

 “When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named
Zechariah. He was a member of the priestly order of Abijah, and his wife, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God's eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord's commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive, and they were both very old.” Luke 1:5-7, New Living Translation

As a rule, people don't like waiting – for anything. While we know the old adage that “good things come to those who wait”, really we'd rather not. I think of what Seuss once said in his classic Oh the Places You'll Go! about a terrible place he called The Waiting Place where people lay idle...

Waiting for a train to go

Been there, done that

or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

We've all been there. Just as we've also been in places where we've prayed constantly for our ailing loved one to recover or our wayward child to come to their senses or for a marriage to heal. And yet for all our trouble we are met with more of the same – waiting, hoping, praying and – at times - succumbing to hand-wringing despair that the things we hope and pray for will never happen.

I'd be afraid too

Imagine old Zechariah's surprise that day in the holy place as he had just completed his priestly duties and an angel appeared to him to announce that his prayer had been answered. Just to clarify which prayer he meant (for as a priest he must have offered thousands of prayers in his lifetime) he added, “Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son...” Now there are many ways one can respond to an angelic visitation. Doubting a messenger of heaven who has come directly from God's presence to announce this wonderful news is not one of them. While we can commiserate with him – after all, Elizabeth was way past the child-bearing years – it was a fairly stupid thing to do.

Never talk reason with a spirit

In my mind, it's like that moment in Dickens' A Christmas Carol when Scrooge tries to broker with Marley's ghost a better way to bring him comfort instead of being haunted by three spirits. For his trouble Marley comes unhinged at the audacity of this man “of the worldly mind.” In Zechariah's case, he's told by the angel in no uncertain terms that to teach him a lesson in humility his tongue will be tied until his son, not yet conceived, is born and circumcised. From that moment on, he's mute, unable to fully communicate to his fellow priests, his wife or his family just what he had heard and seen in the holy place. All he can do is watch and wait as this remarkable and miraculous story unfolds.

If she was expecting this would make the
national nightly news

Of course, about six weeks after his return home, his wife needs no
convincing because wonders of wonders she is, at long last, with child. Think of some couple you know in their 70s or 80s who in their annual Christmas card announce that in the year to come they will become parents. What's more, no gender-reveal stunt is necessary as they are confident that before the new year is done the old man will be bouncing a baby boy on his aged knees. Who among us wouldn't think it was some kind of joke or – God forbid – the onset of senility. But a few months after Zechariah's return from Jerusalem his old lady had a definite baby bump.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for him to wait and watch and wonder while his wife came to full term and not be able to speak of it, wonder out loud about it, laugh about it, praise God for it? Like Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his relative through marriage to Elizabeth, he too must have “kept all these things in [his] heart and thought about them often” (Luke 2:19, NLT).

The angel had instructed him to call his son, John, and that he was born for a special purpose – to make way for the King of all kings to come. In due time, Elizabeth's baby was born – a son – and eight days later as is the Jewish custom – the men of the village gathered to circumcise his son and make him a member of the Covenant. They had intended to name him after his dad but Zechariah would have none of it. Anxiously motioning for his writing tablet that he had grown accustomed to carry around with him since his return from Jerusalem nine or so months ago, in large, clear script he wrote: “His name is John.”

At that moment, the curse was broken and his tongue was loosed and nine months of thanksgivings, rejoicings, ponderings and hallelujahs gushed out of him like a prospector striking oil. They emerged from foggy bottom in the form of a beautiful song (Luke 1:68-79) of surrender, worship and thanksgiving for God's goodness and his ability to make good on his promises.

Zechariah, whose very name means “God remembers”, is a reminder to those of us who pray unceasingly through the years for God's grace in our own life and in the lives of those we love that contrary to how we sometimes feel, God does hear us when we pray. And while we wait is at work bringing about his good purposes in his good time. For people of faith, the dreaded Waiting Place we never want to get to or be in becomes a place of worship and surrender, a place where we choose to believe that though the answers to our prayers have not yet come he is good and he loves us and he knows best.

"And you, my child, will be called a prophet of
the Most High; for you will go on before the LORD
to prepare the way for him..." Luke 1:76, NIV