Zachariah said to the angel, “Do you expect me to believe this? I’m an old man and my wife is an old woman.”

Tom Wright, in his commentary on Luke, says we shouldn’t be afraid of finding the Bible funny when it is. There is certainly ironic humour here, don’t you think, and if we laugh it is probably at ourselves. We are looking in a mirror and seeing what is frequently our own ‘half-faith’, as Wright puts it.

This reminds me of Acts 12: 12-16 – the story of when Peter was miraculously sprung from his prison cell:

Still shaking his head, amazed, he went to Mary’s house, the Mary who was John Mark’s mother. The house was packed with praying friends. When he knocked on the door to the courtyard, a young woman named Rhoda came to see who it was. But when she recognized his voice—Peter’s voice!—she was so excited and eager to tell everyone Peter was there that she forgot to open the door and left him standing in the street.

15-16 But they wouldn’t believe her, dismissing her, dismissing her report. “You’re crazy,” they said. She stuck by her story, insisting. They still wouldn’t believe her and said, “It must be his angel.” All this time poor Peter was standing out in the street, knocking away.

That is so funny, and true to life!

PRAYER: Lord, I have to confess I see myself in these passages. I believe, but please help my unbelief. Have mercy on me, and increase my faith.