Do not be afraid; your prayer has been heard.
I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! Did you spend it with loved ones?
The last 3 weeks, we’ve focused on Christmas from Mary’s POV, the mother of Jesus. But there are two other characters worth mentioning in the Christmas story: Zachariah and Elizabeth. We can read their accounts in Luke 1.
Elizabeth and Zacharias are described as a God-fearing, holy, and blameless couple (verse 6). But despite that, they had remained childless and were now very old (verse 7).
Luke 1:6-7 NIV says:
Both of them were righteous […] But they were childless
Pause for a second to reflect on this line. Righteous, and yet childless. Blameless, but not given their greatest heart’s desire; offspring (verse 13).
Their childlessness wasn’t a punishment for lacking holiness or for a sinful life, nor was their righteousness a guarantee for blessing.
Sometimes, as Christians, our first response when life doesn’t go as planned is that we think “God must be punishing me.” Or our self-righteousness can make us feel like we are entitled to certain blessings of favour from God based on our good Christian behaviour or holy lifestyle.
The story of Zacharias and Elizabeth proves that both ideas are wrong.
When our son Zac fell sick, we received comments from people saying it was God warning us to stop singing secular songs (in those days, Cameron sometimes covered Bollywood songs and mixed them with worship songs). Not only were those comments crude and completely devoid of compassion, but they were blatantly unbiblical!
Everything within me wanted to tell those people, “That’s not how God works!” Instead, I prayed that they would receive a revelation of God’s true nature and His unconditional love for them.
Both blessings and hardships meet the righteous and the unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:45 and John 16).
The story of Zacharias and Elizabeth teaches us to remain faithful and serve God even when our prayers aren’t answered.
In the words of the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:13) who spoke to Zacharias, I want to remind you today:
Do not be afraid; your prayer has been heard.
