Lessons from Luke | 01.

I find myself back in Luke chapter 1 again.

I say ‘again’ because this is the exact passage I began studying just short of a year ago. Whilst I moved away from it for a time, I’m not sure I ever quite moved on. I’m back where I started.

The irony doesn’t escape me.

After all, life can feel like that sometimes. Like you’re just circling.

A succinct summary of the last few years of my life, I look back and wonder what’s really changed.

Perhaps pointing more to a life stage than anything else, I reflect on the continuity of circumstance that has characterised these times: my job, housing situation and friendships. And while there is a certain sweetness to the steadiness, every now and then something of its sameness stirs up a whole host of questions.

It’s these questions I was processing with the Lord a few weeks back through tears and gritted teeth.

A toddler in the middle of a tantrum I ranted and raved and pleaded and prayed.

And questioned.

“Remember?”

“Remember?!”

Not the nostalgic kind of ‘remember’, I must admit. More the antagonistic, accusing kind.

The kind that cries ‘Pay me attention!’ and ‘What-the-heck-happened-here?’ and ‘Have you forgotten?’ and ‘Have you forgotten me?’ Finished off with a good dose of ‘And when are you going to DO something?’

So, I cry fiercely and scribble furiously and He leads me back to Luke where my eyes fall on that oh-so-familiar story.

It’s the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, an old Jewish couple. He’s some small-time, small-town parish priest. She’s his wife.

The Bible tells us they kept God’s laws and observed all the Jewish customs and were wholly conformist, no correction needed. Model citizens it seems.

Except, they couldn’t have kids.

That’s not to say that you need kids to be a model citizen but it’s worth noting that Jewish culture at the time viewed childlessness as a curse. More than that, a curse brought upon oneself due to some sin or other.

***

Now, I don’t pretend to know the pain of infertility or the sting and stigma of sterility, but my heart really goes out to this couple, because the hurt is probably heavy enough without having the world wonder what the secret sin is that has kept children from them.

Furthermore, as we discovered before, there isn’t any! Children just never came.

I can’t help but wonder if they ever felt resentful about this. I mean, did they ever muse ‘Why us? But we did everything right?’

I’m sure I would have. In fact, I know I sometimes still do.

After all, there is an entitlement we so often attach to obedience and when it doesn’t work out, we are wide open to bitterness and disappointment.

Like, when you study SO hard for those exams, but you still don’t get the grades. Or when you do everything your boss tells you to, but are still passed over for that promotion. Or when you bust your butt for your kids, but they still run rogue.

Who knows whether these thoughts ever passed through Z and E’s heads?

As it is, they faithfully continue serving God and their community despite it all. Priest that he is, Zechariah has things to do, duties to fulfil.

One of these duties involves travelling from his home in the hills twice a year to the big temple in Jerusalem. Here he continues his role as sometimes Bible teacher but mostly butcher, along with many others.

One day Zechariah’s name is picked out of a hat to perform one of the most prestigious temple tasks – that is to offer up prayers and incense to God on behalf of the people in the most sacred part of the temple, separated from the presence of God by only a veil.

It’s our man’s moment! He enters the temple, carries out the tasks and leaves.

…well, not quite!

Much to his surprise there is an angel waiting for him by the altar.

Understandably, Z is terrified but this being has a personalised message for our priest.

‘Your prayer has been heard [Zechariah] and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John’.

Now, there’s nothing to suggest that Zechariah was praying for a son at that moment in time but there’s no doubt he had prayed for a son over many years. As he and his wife passed the child-bearing age by many miles, he may even have stopped praying for a son a while back.

But God chooses this moment to meet with him, to speak to him and to remind him ‘I‘ve heard your prayers’.

***

As I read this passage, it’s like the Spirit highlights it to me, gently showing me why He led me ‘back here again’ in the first place.

‘I hear you Al’.

And I have to close my eyes for a second and let out a sigh because it’s the reminder I need that He always hears prayer, that He is not so deaf to me as my circumstances would have me believe.

***

I’m about to put down my Bible and leave Luke, but there’s one thought that’s still lingering.

Why John? Why does the baby have to be called John?

After doing some digging, it turns out the Hebrew origin of the name John means ‘God is a gracious giver’. The child is a gift to Z and E, forever a reminder of the graciousness of God.

Out of curiosity, I look up Elizabeth’s name too, it means ‘God is my oath’.

And Zechariah? Well, this one gets me…

Zechariah’s name means ‘God remembers’.

Not sometimes, not occasionally, always.

Hidden just another layer deeper is the assurance my heart so desperately needs.

‘Remember?!’ I cry.

‘Yes’ God says.

‘I always remember.’

And there is the simple sentence, the whispered word that instantly soothes my sorrows and dispels my doubts.

What’s more, when the Bible says God ‘remembers’ someone (like Noah and Rachel and Abraham), it’s always the precursor to Him acting on their behalf. Good things are coming.

Friends, I don’t know what’s got you feeling forgotten or unheard today but know that our God hears your prayers and remembers them even more than you do. He is the gracious giver and even now is working all things for your good and for His glory.

Take heart, you are not forgotten!

Always rooting for you Al