Gabriel’s Messages

Luke 1:8-80 

It was anything but a silent night for both Zachariah and for Mary when they each encountered the angel, Gabriel. Before the holy night of Christ’s birth, we see how God answers loudly when things seem silent, and we see how God is worthy to be praised despite the hard things we walk through. 

In Luke chapter 1, we meet old man Zachariah, priest of the division of Abijah, righteous in God’s sight, living without blame according to all the commands and requirements of the Lord, yet culturally cursed because his wife, Elizabeth, could not conceive. Zachariach loved the Lord, yet God was seemingly silent to bless them with a child (Luke 1:1-7). As we learned last week, in God’s sovereignty, Zachariah was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord. Here, Zachariah encounters the angel, Gabriel. Zachariah receives the miraculous news that his barren wife will conceive a son and not only that, his son, John, will live a profound life leading people to repent and know the Lord AND John will have the honor of ushering in the Messiah’s reign. 

What an amazing moment! After years of childlessness, you would imagine that Zachariah would fall on his knees in praise…nope. Zachariah responds in doubt and wants to know how this impossible thing could actually happen. Whatever the root of his unbelief (maybe callousness formed from decades of childlessness), his consequence was silence until the child was born (Luke 1:18-20). 

In the same manner, Gabriel came to the young virgin Mary, betrothed but not yet married to Joseph, of the house of David “and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ He said, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God” (Luke 1:28-30). Up until this point, Mary had spent her life in quiet hiddenness - she had no prestigious title, no worldly renown, yet she had purity of faith and spiritual discernment to receive this miraculous news and to respond with praise. As she became the word on the street and the center of town gossip, Mary was clinging to Gabriel’s word, “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). She was recalling Scripture of old “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). 

Despite Mary’s quiet existence being overturned, her soul magnified the Lord and her spirit rejoiced in her Savior (Luke 1:46-47). Her confident belief in her Heavenly Father’s goodness to fulfill His promises allowed her to magnify the Lord and lift Him up. Elizabeth said of Mary, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill what he has spoken to her!” (Luke 1:45) and we see here that through this very hard season of carrying a child and enduring the scorn of her misunderstanding community, she was lifted up because of her humility, just as James 4:10 reminds us.

Both Zachariah and Mary loved their Heavenly Father and was used greatly in God’s great narrative. This Christmas season, let us take notice to how God is working in our lives and in others’. Let us be aware of how God uses everything for His glory. Just as Mary showed genuine faith and spiritual discernment, let us pursue a pure faith grounded in the promise of God’s eternal presence with us. Sometimes God uses seasons of silence and suffering, just as in Zachariah’s silence, to renew and strengthen our faith. Let us remember that our God is the God of the impossible and that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8). Jesus’ birth is the anchor of our faith. When we could not be at home with God, Jesus Christ became God with us, the very gift of salvation is that we may be home with him forever. Let us magnify the Lord forever!