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 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, ⁴⁰ where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, , and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ⁴³ But why am I so favoured, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her!’

Tom Wright points out that this a wonderful picture of ‘the older woman, pregnant at last after hope had gone, and the younger one, pregnant far sooner than she had expected’ (‘Luke for Everyone’, p.16).

But I was thinking: doesn’t something like this happen when you go to another part of the country, or, indeed, to another place in the world, and you meet a fellow-Christian? Your heart leaps. You sense a spiritual connection – something like electricity sparking between you.

Today’s paragraph is, of course, about a much greater reality than that, but it made me think about those times when I’ve run into a fellow-believer elsewhere, and the awareness of us being bound together by the same Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist and Jesus were to share the most significant and unique spiritual connection: Jesus being the Messiah and John his forerunner; and even as un-born babes they appeared to recognise each other. How marvellous!

And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.’

For no word from God will ever fail.

Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her!’

Here we see it again – the complete reliability of God’s Word.

In just under a week we will enter a new year. May we do so knowing we can count on the promises of God. In a world full of flim-flam, and which lauds and glamorises the vacuous, how we need somewhere to firmly plant our feet. We have that sure place in God’s Word.

According to Ajith Fernando, in his book ‘Jesus Driven Ministry’, George Mueller travelled all over the world as an itinerant evangelist until he was eighty-seven. When he was asked the secret of his long life, one of the three reasons he gave was ”the love he felt for the Scriptures and the constant recuperative power they exercised upon his whole being.” (p.96).

PRAYER: Lord, help me to immerse myself in your Word and believe you in everything

 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”

²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

³⁴ “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

³⁵ The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. ³⁷ For no word from God will ever fail.”

³⁸ “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

In Romans 12:1 Paul writes:.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 

Mary is a living example of what this mean. She offered her body:

• She offered her body that Jesus might come into her life (be conceived in her);
• She offered her body that Jesus might grow in her;
• She offered her body that Jesus might come to totally fill and dominate her;
• She offered her body that she might bring Jesus into the world (by the power of the Holy Spirit).

Mary is a working model of ‘consecration’ in action. She surrendered all; yielded herself to God; submitted fully to His Word and will.

Paul writes what he does in Romans 12 ”in view of God’s mercy”. He is looking back over His shoulder to everything God has done for us in Christ. Although Paul doesn’t specifically mention the Incarnation in Romans, its reality is implicit in everything he writes about Jesus. If He hadn’t come into the world, He couldn’t have gone on to do everything else Paul outlines and celebrates.

A true and fitting response, then, to all that Christmas means, is to offer ourselves To God. Maybe we may need to do this afresh on this Christmas day?

 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering (Romans 12:1: ‘The Message).

Such a posture will make for, not only a happy Christmas, but also a happy life. There is no real happiness in living your own life and having your own way.

‘…we shouldn’t miss the contrast between muddled, puzzled Zechariah in the previous story and the obedient humility of Mary in this one. She too questions Gabriel, but this seems to be a request for information, not proof. Rather, faced with the chance to be the mother of the Messiah, though not yet aware of what this will involve, she says the words which have rung down the years as a model of the human response to God’s unexpected vocation: ‘Here I am, the Lord’s servant-girl; let it be as you have said.’ Tom Wright: ‘Luke for everyone’, p.12.

The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. ²⁰ And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

²¹ Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. ²² When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

²³ When his time of service was completed, he returned home. ²⁴ After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. ²⁵ “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favour and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

‘Faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation.’ Andrew Murray

Recently I decided to read slowly through Luke 1 and on in chapter 2, and something grabbed my attention: a repeated emphasis on the reliability of God’s Word. He says what He means, and means what He says; and though there may be a long interval between prophecy and performance, God’s Word will come to pass. We can stand on it. He calls us to believe it.

Just think, if numerous Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in the first coming of Jesus, we can have every confidence that those concerning His second advent will come to pass also, ”…at their appointed time.”

‘Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man’s power ends.’ George Mueller.

One of the big lessons Christmas teaches us is this: God is totally reliable.

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.

 “He’ll drink neither wine nor beer. He’ll be filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment he leaves his mother’s womb. He will turn many sons and daughters of Israel back to their God. He will herald God’s arrival in the style and strength of Elijah, soften the hearts of parents to children, and kindle devout understanding among hardened sceptics—he’ll get the people ready for God.”

In the early days of our church planting initiative in Boston Spa, I was invited to speak to a group of older people about the work we were involved in. One man I knew well came up to me after I’d spoken, fixed me with a steady gaze, and said, ‘What you need over there are ‘soul-winners.’ I instinctively knew he was right. Thank God, there came a time when He gave us such people, and is there any joy like seeing genuine conversions?

We might say that John the Baptist had a ‘soul-winning’ ministry. But note how this flows on from the words about him being filled with the Spirit. He could not do what He did out of his own resources.

While all Christians have a responsibility to be witnesses to Jesus (by life and by lip), some are especially gifted to be evangelists. They seem to have a God-given knack of bringing people to Christ. However, we all need the Holy Spirit’s power to fulfil our calling (Acts 1:8).

“This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” (Zech.4:6).

‘Our high and privileged calling is to do the will of God in the power of God for the glory of God.’ J.I. Packer

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. ¹³ But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 

Note three things:

• The naming of a baby was usually performed by the father, but God told Zechariah the name of his boy. This showed that He was making John His responsibility.
• We again see, in this chapter, that true greatness is to be found ”in the sight of” God – regardless of human opinion;
• There is no formula for being ”filled with the Holy Spirit”. John’s situation was unique, and he wasn’t in a position even to seek this fullness, but an anointing was sovereignly given him even before his birth. I don’t think anyone can read the New Testament, and then come up with ‘one sure-fire way it always happens. There are a variety of ‘being filled with the Holy Spirit’ stories. ”The wind blows wherever it pleases” (John 3:8a). I heard that one well-known Christian leader said this about the Spirit’s fullness: ‘It doesn’t matter how you get it, just get it!’ ”Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with Spirit…’ (Eph.5:18). (Note, there was a particular prohibition on John drinking wine or other fermented drink, because of his special calling. From Paul’s words we see that the general restraint on Christians pertains to drunkenness).

But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.

This story of persevering in prayer sent me searching for something I remembered reading about George Mueller. I found it on the GeorgeMuller.org website:

​”In November 1844, I began to pray for the conversion of five individuals. I prayed every day without a single intermission, whether sick or in health, on the land, on the sea, and whatever the pressure of my engagements might be. Eighteen months elapsed before the first of the five was converted. I thanked God and prayed on for the others. Five years elapsed, and then the second was converted. I thanked God for the second, and prayed on for the other three. Day by day, I continued to pray for them, and six years passed before the third was converted. I thanked God for the three, and went on praying for the other two. These two remained unconverted.
​
Thirty-six years later he wrote that the other two, sons of one of Mueller’s friends, were still not converted. He wrote, “But I hope in God, I pray on, and look for the answer. They are not converted yet, but they will be.” In 1897, fifty-two years after he began to pray daily, without interruption, for these two men, they were finally converted—but after he died! Mueller understood what Luke meant when he introduced a parable Jesus told about prayer, saying, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1).”

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. ¹³ But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 

‘Sometimes regular duty provides the context for extraordinary visions.’ Tom Wright: ‘Luke for everyone’, p.7.

‘Prayers of faith are filed in heaven, and are not forgotten, though the thing prayed for is not presently given…’ Matthew Henry.

Jesus taught the necessity of persevering in prayer (e.g. Lk.11:1-13; 18:1-8). How long had Zechariah and Elizabeth been praying, we wonder?

Gabriel’s words to Zechariah may refer to his prayers, as a priest, for the salvation of his nation. If so, these prayers, along with those of many others, had been heard. Deliverance was about to come in the form of the Messiah. However, I believe the most natural way to understand them is in relation to his – no doubt their – prayer for a child.

Tom Wright comments:

‘This story, preparing us for the even more remarkable conception and birth of Jesus himself, reminds us of something important. God regularly works through ordinary people, doing what they normally do, who with a mixture of half-faith and devotion are holding themselves ready for whatever God has in mind.’ (pp.7,8).