Blessing in the Curse

"And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time." (Luke 1:20)

For most of my life I have viewed this statement by the angel to Zacharias as something along the line of a curse imposed as a punishment on him by God for his unbelief. Probably I have assumed that for several reasons, most of which are connected to how I was taught growing up and my conclusions based on typical teachings about God and about this story.

But as my understanding of the real truth about God's character has been changing rather dramatically over recent years, I find that assumption more and more out of harmony with the God I now worship with more love. As a result I feel compelled to reexamine my assumptions in this story paying more attention to both the context in the story as well as impressions that the Spirit may bring to me alerting me to better interpretations consistent with everything else He has been teaching me.

Why would Gabriel react so intensely to the doubting attitude of Zacharias? If God's ways of relating to sinners are not founded on reward and punishment as I have been learning, then how are we to view this story in a different light that makes more sense?

What I have been learning is that the reward/punishment system that has pervaded pretty much everything on this earth is an infection received from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sadly we often attribute this philosophy as coming from God, as the normal way in which God deals with sinners and offenders of His laws. But what I have also been learning is that while God's relationships are not primarily based on rewards or punishments, there is another system based on principles that are far more powerful than artificial law with artificial punishments. That is the system of natural law with all its cause and effect relationships. In this system it is God's grace that is the most noticeable and even out-of-place operative in that, were it not for grace we would all be dead because of experiencing the natural effects of being out of harmony with God's principles of life.

I am now beginning to see throughout Scripture that many, if not most of the time, where it appears that God is punishing offender or where writers of Scripture assume that is the case, in reality God is simply respecting the choices of the people involved to push away His protecting grace that has been preventing natural consequences as well as evil forces to have effect in their lives. Having that in mind, I can now see other distinct possibilities in this story to understand maybe why Zacharias became dumb due to his unwillingness to believe the wonderful news of the most important angel sent directly to him from the very throne of God. This also has serious implications for me as well.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how I look at it), I find myself all too readily resonating with the mindset of Zacharias in this story . When I hear phrases like the ones spoken to him by the angel, I know that if they are spoken to me directly with application to my own life, I might find it just as difficult to embrace them readily like we assume he should have done. Because of past experiences that have shaped me and my personality and my outlook for the future, words such as joy and gladness and rejoicing just seem to ring hollow or even feel threatening in some ways.

Now, I know that might sound rather strange to people who thrive on such things in their lives. But for those like me who feel that we have been seriously shorted in these areas, it makes far more apparent seeming sense that we should have doubts as to the viability of such things suddenly exploding into our lives. In fact, things such as delirious joy or celebrations are so foreign to our way of living and thinking that we might even feel scandalized to be asked to believe in such notions and attitudes. Life has been hard, stern and rough for many of us. To expect us to believe that we should just throw off our inhibitions and suddenly become someone we have never been before, sounds similar to asking a strong conservative religious person to become an out of control party animal overnight. It just doesn't sound like something God should expect us to do.

Maybe that is exaggerating a bit – or maybe not. But the gist of what I am trying to say here is that for those of us who have grown up deeply entrenched in the sense of security gained from following all the rules while feeling secret disdain toward others who have thrown off restraint to become party animals and may have ruined their lives in the process, these words by the angel can potentially feel a little unsettling at the least.

The context infers that Zacharias and his wife had lived much of their life increasingly disappointed over their inability to have children. This was in a society where having children was a much bigger deal than it is in our culture. Children contributed hugely to a couple's prestige and sense of identity in that culture. To not have children, especially a boy, deprived them of social esteem and cut off their ability to pass their name on to future generations. It also left them unable to have anyone as family to inherit their land and possessions. In effect, their memory on earth as having any importance or impact was severely limited or curtailed if they could not produce offspring.

To make things even worse, they belonged to a select group of people who were supposed to be more highly esteemed by God because they were part of the priesthood. It was no inadvertent chance that the status and lineage of this couple was identified here. These were people who were assumed to be more blessed and noticed by God than most other classes in the world. So for them to have this apparent curse over them all of their lives was likely a deep source of embarrassment and shame for them. But at this stage in their lives they had likely become resigned to it and had just learned to live with it.

Given this scenario, it might be a little more understandable why Zacharias should have such incredulity when it came to being able to embrace readily what this angel had to say to him about their barren situation. To suddenly be expected to believe that what they had come to view as their fate with no possibility of recourse, should now be suddenly reversed would be a huge stretch of faith for nearly anyone. Their lives had become settled by this time to accept their sad situation and now they were just biding their time until the end of life.

But suddenly a supernatural being shows up to challenge the status quo and insist that they believe the seemingly impossible. To really appreciate this could be a real challenge for our shallow ways of thinking too. It is easy to criticize Zacharias and think that if we were exposed to an angel of glory that we would not be so reticent to believe, but in reality many of us would find ourselves all to similar to how Zacharias felt. And this is exactly where I find myself so challenged by this story.

As I think back on much smaller encounters with the Spirit of God urging me to move beyond my own comfort zone and how much resistance I often have in my heart to move outside the box, I can feel a great deal of sympathy for how Zacharias must have felt. But at the same time, in being able to resonate so readily with him I also realize that I can be in just as much danger of resisting incredibly good news from heaven were it to confront me in some way like he was confronted. And on that score I really don't like the idea of having to suffer what he went through for nearly a year because of his unwillingness to change his thinking when God suddenly challenged all his assumptions.

I think I am also starting to get a better sense now as to maybe why God allowed Zacharias to lose his voice for a period. If that had not happened, the natural doubts and expressions of unbelief or critical questions might have worked to spread a viral infection of doubt and fears to many others that could have seriously tainted the very things the angel was predicting. If Zacharias had not had this discipline to prevent him from spreading the disharmony that was in his heart to others, his influence may have worked to undermine the very blessings that God was intent on bringing into his life.

When he walked out of the temple that day to the wondering crowd with his voice intact, he might have been tempted to avoid mentioning his vision of the angel for fear that he would have to explain a message that he was still not ready to embrace himself. But in doing so he would have been damaging the reputation of the very God who wanted to bless him so lavishly; he could have easily discredited these promises to Zacharias and Elizabeth. So in allowing his voice to go offline temporarily, God was in reality helping to prevent Zacharias from further infecting both himself and those around him with the debilitating virus of unbelief so that God's plans could more readily be accomplished in their lives.

If Zacharias had not lost his voice, he might also have been a source to undermine his wife's faith in what God had promised them. In fact, if this unusual 'curse' had not taken place, both of them might have been tempted to question whether in reality Zacharias had even received such a vision or if it had only been a deception or a mirage. But because of the shock value of his loss of speech directly resulting from the angel's words, there was no doubt in Zacharias' mind that he had indeed encountered a messenger from heaven and he needed to take his message totally serious.

In reality, losing one's voice for 9-10 months is about as light of a 'punishment', if you want to call it that, that one could receive. There is very little pain or suffering involved in not being able to speak. Some might even suggest that it could have been a blessing for those around him if his speech had become less than life-giving at that point. Maybe Zacharias had started to become bitter about their situation and had been tempted to start complaining about God and his seemingly harsh treatment of them. Maybe his spirit was becoming infected with increasing doubts about God's goodness and care for them, or maybe as he saw the deep corruption of the religious leaders around him he was becoming cynical and losing his view of God.

Of course we can't be certain of all these things. But we do know that at this point in his life he had a real struggle to believe that anything anywhere near as good as what the angel was describing to him could ever possibly take place. And underneath that kind of thinking is always found reservations about what God is like and how He feels towards those who have been petitioning Him for so long.

This is where this story can really intersect with my own life and some of those around me today. How many of us feel resistance in our hearts to startling announcements of wonderful news after we have spent years immersed in a culture of dark views about God that now strongly restrict our ability to think differently about Him? How many of us have become locked into life-long patterns of fear, doubt, misgivings and unbelief in God's overwhelming goodness and grace that we find it nearly impossible to embrace anything that challenges those opinions?

Speaking for myself I have to admit that I have similar struggles as what I see Zacharias having in this story. That in turn awakens an element of fear in my mind that I too might have to be disciplined like he was for my own unbelief. But that awareness should also alert me that I can choose to do something different about my present attitude of resistance to participating in things involving joy or celebration. I recall that for years my slowly awakening heart increasingly yearns for outlets of greater expressiveness in ways that other parts of me find totally unacceptable and even scandalous. Yet deep inside I sense that God's ways are almost always viewed as outrageous and even scandalous to many who view themselves as experts about religion and God.

As I am reading back through this story again about the encounter between Zacharias and the angel, I now see more words and phrases that jump out at me. The angel declared to Zacharias that the impossible was about to not only be possible but would definitely happen. And he said that this was in response to their years of prayers that Zacharias had been tempted to think may have all been wasted. The angel specifically noted that this promised son was a direct answer to their petitions. In addition Gabriel said directly to Zacharias that he would have joy and gladness in all of this.

Again, from my perspective of feeling a sense of resonance with other words in this passage such as the foreboding and fear felt him when suddenly confronted with the presence of an angel, I see a real need to challenge my own feelings and preconceptions about how God feels toward me personally. And even while my heart longs to rejoice and dance and sing and celebrate God's goodness without fear and in total freedom and abandon, it feels hijacked and suffocated by another part of me that has been religiously trained to disdain such behavior and that doubts that God really approves of such things. What I am seeing here are the irreconcilable differences between what God has been revealing about Himself to me over recent years and my lingering internal conservative pictures of Him acquired from other sources over a lifetime.

While I certainly don't like the idea of being disciplined in some way like Zacharias experienced, at the same time I don't want to miss out on both the heart change like he finally experienced or the joy and celebration that he eventually participated in when these promises were realized. What I see in this story is grace once again at work to transform the thinking of people about what God is like, even through the supposed curse of losing his voice. In preventing Zacharias from spreading his doubts so easily while at the same time giving him a notable sign that would grab other people's attention, God was actually using this disability as a blessing for him and those around him. And while it would likely have been a much happier story if Zacharias could have simply believed more readily from the beginning, at least he did not lose out on the joy altogether.

The good news is that knowing about this story does not mean I have to take the same route that he chose. These stories were provided for our admonition. That means we don't have to repeat the same mistakes that others have made because we can learn through them to take a different course ourselves.

I don't have to cling to my doubts and lies about what God is like after He has continually been revealing His glory to me over recent years. And although it may be true that my pictures of God have been terribly distorted by well-meaning but misguided religious people throughout my life, I don't have to keep allowing my past to define my identity or let these lies continue to inhibit new opportunities to see Him through new eyes.

There is something else that comes to my attention in this story. It seems that more often than not it was the women in the Bible who seemed to find it easier to believe in God's promises and His goodness than most of the men. I sometimes feel jealous of those who readily embrace the positive pictures of God even in the face of unbelief in all around them: people like the mother of Jesus and even Elizabeth. I am sure that are other examples and of course there are plenty of examples of those who needed much more evidence before they were ready to believe.

But for each of us, no matter what gender or background or spiritual disability we may have, we all are confronted with fresh, startling revelations of the emerging truth that God is far better than we ever have dared to allow ourselves to imagine. God knows our handicaps in this area and deals with each one of us accordingly. But the more I am coming to see His incredible goodness and compassion and unconditional love that exposes the lies I have assumed about Him, the easier it is to abandon those lies in favor of the radical truth of His love for me, even though it puts me at odds with others around me.

Zacharias did at last get to to relish the joy that had evaded him for so many years. At last he got to celebrate the birth of a son – his son of promise – a miracle child. Even better than that, they had the incredible privilege of having their niece become the mother of the Messiah of the world which was ever farther beyond their wildest dreams they could have ever imagined before. And through the process of choosing to believe and obey the words from God to him, Zacharias became liberated from bonds that had held him for so long. For not only did he regain the use of his voice to praise the God who had been so gracious to them, Zacharias was catapulted into a life of joy-filled faith and a much deeper relationship of intimacy with his God who was so full of love for His children.

I love the contrast between the beginning of this story and its amazing conclusion.

Before –

Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear gripped him.

Zacharias said to the angel, "How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years."

"And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time." (Luke 1:12, 18, 20)

After –

And at once his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak in praise of God.

And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant-- as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old-- salvation 'from our enemies', and 'from the hand of all who hate us;' to show mercy toward our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on 'before the Lord to prepare his ways;' to give to His people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, 'to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,' to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:64, 67-79)