The Promised One: Advent Day 15

Read & Journal

Read Luke 1:57-66. Ponder what you’ve read by considering the following questions and prompts:

• Think about what you’ve read. How would you explain it to a friend?

• Mulling over what happened in this passage, what does it help you to understand about God? About his character?

• What does this passage reveal about John the Baptist and his role in God’s story of redemption?

• Verse 65 says that “awe fell upon the whole neighborhood” as the news of John’s birth and Zechariah’s restoration spread. What are some reasons these events would cause the people to feel awe?

• God’s goodness as well as his faithfulness in keeping his promise was on display in John the Baptist’s birth. Are there moments in your own life where you recognize God’s goodness or faithfulness? Praise God for how he has been at work in your life, drawing you to himself before you even recognized your need for him.

Ponder

At just the right time, God had begun to speak. And when Elizabeth’s time came to give birth, God was as good as his word. Zechariah and Elizabeth were the parents of a bouncing baby boy, despite their advanced age and the seemingly implausibility of it all.

Neighbors and relatives celebrated that God had shown his mercy to Elizabeth (v. 58), and when Zechariah’s voice was restored, the story became the talk of the town—in the best sense of the phrase. “What’s God up to?” the people whispered in awe-struck voices. “What will God do through John?” they pondered.

These people may not have understood everything that was happening, but they knew a miracle when they saw one. They recognized that somehow in all of this, the God who had been whispering promises of hope and redemption from the very beginning of time was at work. God was about to do something, and they had a front-row seat.

Maybe right now, your walk with the Lord is characterized more by disappointment than expectation, like those long centuries of silence leading up to John’s birth when God didn’t speak. Like Zechariah, you wonder if God can really do what he’s promised, if he’s really faithful, if he’s true to his word.

Zechariah and Elizabeth’s family and friends may have wondered the same thing, but they didn’t miss the fact that God was at work. Across the years, God had spoken through prophets, and the people had turned away. Now, when he started to speak through his actions in the lives of those they knew and loved, the people took notice. Rather than turning away in disbelief or disappointment or anger, they let the awe-inspiring facts of John’s birth point them to God. They could have shut their eyes and turned away—like the Israelites had so many times before—but instead, they recognized that God was at work and turned their attention to him.

Don’t miss the miracle today. Don’t become so jaded or discouraged that you refuse to see how God is at work in your life and in the lives of those around you. Open your eyes and trust him. God can really do what he has promised. He is faithful, and he is true to his word.

Don’t miss the miracle.