Elizabeth – Unexpected News
Taken from my 2015 book Voices Through Advent and Christmas, available through Moorleys
Based on Luke 1:5-15
Well, Zechariah came home with a right tale today.
Well, I say that. It would have been if he could have got it out, but for some reason he was having trouble speaking. Oh men that go to the back of their caves when they’ve got something on their mind. But what a tale it was.
Apparently (ahem), he’d seen an angel. He was the Priest on duty, the one chosen to go into the Temple, and there it had happened.
Goodness knows Zechariah and I have not had the easiest life. Our longing for children has never been satisfied. We’ve tried everything and it’s just not happened, obviously not meant to be – though I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve such a curse. And now it’s never going to happen. I’m way past that now.
Except, that was the message Zechariah had got from this angel. There will be a child, a boy.
For some reason we are to call him John, though there’s no John’s in the family. Still if God’s going to do something this amazing, I guess we can let him name the baby too. Because this is going to be no ordinary baby, he’s got something important to do for God.
I suppose all I can do is let God do what he needs to in and through me and the child I will carry. Still can’t quite believe it. Can’t get my head around it. How will I cope with what God is asking of me? I guess God only knows.
God of surprises and impossibilities,
may I be open to all you seek to do
in and through me.
May I hear your voice,
your call,
your challenge
and respond with my life.
https://youtu.be/4YPr0AD5MhQ
Pam's Perambulation 