December 7
Heard Prayer
Luke 1:13
“Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard…”
In the 1960 Pulitzer Prize winning novel from Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird, the novel’s protagonist Atticus Finch, tells the narrator, his daughter Scout that, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” The lesson is a very simple and universal one, that true compassion comes from empathy, from being able to put yourself in someone else’s position to feel what they feel in order to understand why they say or do what they say and do.
I have come to the conclusion that there are some things that we would never understand once those things remain outside of our actual personal experience. One of those things is childlessness or barrenness, more familiarly called infertility today. For those for whom the natural systems work, you have no idea of the emotional, psychological, social, cultural, medical, ethical, and spiritual burdens and pain carried by the infertile who keep trying and praying.
God is after relationship with people, individual people, and so God is concerned about each of our personal issues and crises. There is a big picture, but God doesn’t miss the trees because of the forest.
And so, we come back to the passage we are contemplating, Luke 1:5-25. Zacharias, the old priest from the hill country, had a very personal problem, he and his wife Elizabeth were infertile. The normal, natural systems weren’t working, and the pressure was on. This situation had no doubt drained them emotionally, troubled them psychologically, pressured them socially and culturally, and must have challenged them spiritually. (If they were around today it might have also ruined them financially.)
In their brief biography the scripture records that “they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” Luke 1:6. The biography then injects the big BUT in verse 7, “But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.” Elizabeth had lived through barrenness and now, at her age, all hope was all but gone. Elizabeth’s biography closes with a note that because of the reproach she lived with, she hid herself and her baby bump from the society that had for so long kept her under pressure.
Just like Zaharias, everyone who comes to church, comes to God with a need. Many of us have needs today. A need for money to get out of debt, need for healing of a broken relationship, need for healing in the body, need for a child, or some other need. Many of these needs have been with us for a while. Another Christmas is coming and still many of these needs remain unmet.
A big challenge that we face is spiritual, how to remain committed in spite of the outward circumstances. Commitment is often affected or dependent on circumstances. Many of us struggle with commitment when we are in difficulty and do not hear a word from God, or our prayers go seemingly unanswered.
In our text Zacharias had his deep personal problem, but there were also problems in his community, and huge problems in his nation. On this day when he was selected for service, he had to have all of these on his mind. As a husband and Jewish man, he had to be troubled by his lack of offspring and heir, and as a priest he had to be concerned about the community and country and be praying for them.
There is no feeling in the world like the feeling you feel when you know that God has come through for you. Sometimes, when we hear no answer, we may wonder if our prayers ever get past the ceiling. But when you have a word from God all it needs from you is amen.
Andraé Crouch has an old song about that, Let the church say amen, based on Nehemiah 8:6 “And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. Then all the people answered, “Amen, Amen!” while lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground.”
Unfortunately, old man Zacharias got a word from God, delivered by Gabriel, but had his voice taken away from him. He couldn’t tell the people and get their amen just yet.
Think on these things:
- Are you confident that God actually hears your prayers when you pray?
- Is there anything that you have been praying about for a very long time and that you are still hoping for an answer from God?
- Have you ever had the experience of knowing for certain that God has answered your prayer?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today for the faith to keep on praying.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex