Advent ABC's: Zechariah

Read: Luke 1:5-23, and 57-64

I can relate to Zechariah. Maybe you can, too. God sent an angel who told him the plan and Zech came back with a question. Now, I'm not sure if Gabe was having a rough day, but it really seems like he over-reacted. All Zech asked was how am I going to know that this is going to happen? Could you fill in a few of the particulars? I mean really, he was going to have to go home and tell this all to Elizabeth and as happy as she might have been with the news, it would help to be able to lay the whole plan out before her.

The more I got to thinking about this, the more I got to thinking that Zech's punishment seemed a bit unfair. Think about it. Gideon went through the whole fleece thing and God never lost patience with his requests. Sarah laughed, but never lost her voice. Moses came up with every excuse under the sun and even offered a backup plan: send my brother, but God didn't punish him.

I just didn't get this until I started to think about my own journey. On more than one occasion and in more than one way, God has opted to "shut me up" so that I wouldn't get in the way of his plan. I might have really made a mess of things if I had been allowed to proceed in my own wisdom. I never cared for feeling like I was being shelved and silenced, but maybe others were enabled to listen and hear God when I wasn't talking. Not always talking has also helped me to think more. I process and ponder and listen more. I have come to a deeper experience of trust and acceptance of what is and what is probably God's greater plan.

And when the time for silence was over, Zech spoke and people listened. Zech was like an ancient E. F. Hutton. When he finally spoke again people were ready to hear what he had to say. It reminds me of a woman in the very first church I pastored. Lois had sinus cancer and much of the sinus cavity had been removed. She was still able to speak, but it was very nasal and sometimes difficult to understand. Those of us who worshipped with her knew that if she opened her mouth to speak it was because she had something weighty and poignant to share and we made a point to listen.

I wonder. On the one hand we say so much, but do we say too much? We're constantly communicating, but are we connecting? Talk is cheap because we invest so little in our words. Do we need to pay greater attention to what we need to say, words of love, encouragement, hope, and forgiveness? In an effort to make our opinion known, have we forgotten how to speak the truth in love?

When God comes with a word, my prayer is that we won't offer up our own plan instead, but that we will be more like Solomon and respond: speak Lord, for your servant is listening. When he gets done telling us what we need to know, then we'll truly have something to say!