At the time that Zacharias was a priest, 18,000 other priests were separated into twenty-four divisions. According to the Jerusalem Perspective (https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/2304/), during the Second Temple period, the twenty-four priestly divisions served in the temple at Jerusalem in a rotation system. According to my limited math skills, that means there were 750 priests in one division. Let me point out what I believe to be an unlikely situation: God orchestrated events so that Zacarias would be the one priest out of 18,000 to be selected to go behind the sacred curtain within the secret place of the Holy Temple to hear some incredible, life-changing news. God went to extreme lengths to share a special message with an unlikely candidate.
God spoke a crazy word. He declared that a barren, senior adult woman would conceive a baby. This baby had a purpose. These plans were laid before the foundations of the earth. Her age, her womb, her past record of bearing no babies were not criteria that disqualified her for an extreme encounter with the Living God.
Then, as if we needed more crazy, God does something even more unlikely. He chooses a virgin teenager to be the vessel He uses to bring His Son into the planet. He allows the Holy Spirit to overpower a teenage girl and through power that only requires breath, creates new life inside her womb. God did this. God did the unlikely.
Barren. Old. Virgin. Young. Immaterial when it came to God doing what God had already planned.
I love that this whole story leaves you scratching your head a bit.
- Why did He choose to answer Zacharias and Elizabeth's prayer to have a baby well after their bodies were able to handle the chemistry of virile and young love?
- Why did He choose Zacharias in the first place? Weren't there other priests who were ... more priestly?
- Why did He choose to ask Mary, of good reputation with a bright future ahead of her, to offer her body to carry the Holy One that would save those who mocked her and scorned what they thought to be scandalous life choices?
When both messages of new babies were spread through the lips of the messenger, Gabriel, the message was the same:
Do not be afraid.
If ever fear would be an appropriate response, I think these two situations would qualify. However, I think the circumstances were so insignificant to the greater picture. The news of an answered prayer after many, many, many years of thinking the answer was a no was not the issue - God's faithfulness was. The news of being the one chosen to carry the long-awaited Messiah to full term humanhood was not the issue - again, God's faithfulness was.
Not too long ago, (check out the first paragraph), I said that I liked that God chooses those things that seem so unlikely to have a powerful impact. I like it when it happens to other people - not myself. I get tripped up when God does the unlikely in my own life because I get too focused on the circumstances. I see them from my perspective. I see life through the lens of my number on the Enneagram scale, my Meyers-Briggs, my past experience, and/or the narratives in my head that say this is impossible. I weigh my logic and personality and past against the divinity and faithfulness of God. Honestly, my scale always tips in my favor. My way makes more sense. My way seems the logical path. And thank God, He never listens or bows to my pleading to do it my way. For if He had, the results would have been awful and His authority limited to my own selfishness.
The things in my life that have been most unlikely (hurtful past memories, dysfunctional relationships, losses of way too many kinds to count, anxiety, mental illness of close friends and family, loss of identity) have been the things that God has used in my life to bring about a powerful impact. Unlikely, yes. Undeniably the fingerprints of God, yes!
Most recently, facing a painful memory from my childhood, set me free in more ways than I thought I had been enslaved. The freedom that comes from honesty before the Lord, being afraid but trusting God, allowing the Holy Spirit to overpower you with His truth in light of your lie - unlikely agents of change.
And now we get back to the moral of this story: unlikely is what God does! He, Creator, King, Father, Master, Lord of Lord, Developer of babies in wombs, Calmer of Seas, Provider of Bread and Fish, and listener to every prayer I've said in words or in heart utterances only His Spirit can discern does the unlikely. He does it because, well, He can!
"For nothing will be impossible with God." Luke 1:36
So, have you heard the one about a priest, his wife, and a virgin? Yeah, me, too. And thank God He used them to show us how He used the unlikely and uses the unlikely today!
Telling stories about the priest, his wife, and a virgin,
Christina
