The Old Priest Who Couldn't Speak

(Luke 1:5-25, 57-80)

There was an old priest named Zechariah, and his wife was named Elizabeth. They loved God. And for their whole long lives, they had wanted just one thing: a baby of their own.

They had prayed when they were young, and prayed when they were not so young, and prayed when their hair turned gray. And the baby never came.

Have you ever wanted something so long that you finally stopped asking for it? The hope curls up and goes to sleep inside you. That is where Zechariah and Elizabeth were. The waiting place in their hearts had grown still.

And they were not the only ones waiting. Long before, when God sent his last message through the prophet Malachi, he had promised, "Watch! I am sending a messenger to get the road ready for me." And then, for four hundred years, no prophet came. No new word from heaven. The whole land waited, the way you wait and wait for morning.

But God had not forgotten Zechariah and Elizabeth, and he had not forgotten his promise. God never forgets.

One day Zechariah was doing his work in God's house, swinging the sweet smoke of the incense, when all at once an angel was standing right there by the altar. After four hundred years, heaven was speaking again. Zechariah froze. He was afraid.

"Don't be afraid," the angel said. "God has heard your prayer. Elizabeth will have a son. And you will name him John."

Then the angel told him the most wonderful part. This little boy would not be an ordinary boy. He would be the messenger from the old promise. Like a voice calling out early in the morning, he would run ahead of Someone greater and get everything ready. He would say to the people, "Open your hearts. The One you have ached for is almost here."

The One they had ached for. Not only Zechariah and Elizabeth. Everybody.

But Zechariah could hardly believe it. "We are so old," he whispered. "How can this be?"

The angel said, "Because you could not believe my words, you will not be able to speak. Not one word. Until the day it all comes true."

So Zechariah went home silent. He could not say a thing. Month after month he watched Elizabeth, round and glad, and all he could do was smile and wait.

Then the baby came. A real, warm, crying baby boy, just as the angel had promised.

"Name him after his father!" the neighbors said.

But Elizabeth said, "No. His name is John."

And Zechariah, who still could not speak, asked for something to write on. With a shaky old hand he wrote four small words: His name is John.

The moment he wrote it, the very moment, his voice came rushing back like a river. And the first thing he did with it was sing.

He sang about God who keeps every promise. He sang about the morning that was finally breaking over a world so tired of the dark. He looked down at his tiny son and said, "And you, my boy. You will go ahead of the Lord, to make his way ready."

All those years of waiting had never been empty after all. The little boy named John would spend his whole life pointing, with one finger, away from himself and toward Somebody else.

And far away, in a little town called Nazareth, the same angel had one more message to carry, to a young girl named Mary.