So This is the Way

"This is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when He looked with favor upon me, to take away my disgrace among men." (Luke 1:25)

I think I may be starting to get it, at least a little more than for much of my previous life. As I read this glowing testimony of Elizabeth while she withdraws largely from public life to relish her late-life pregnancy, she responds to the effects of marinating in the goodness of God. And as she increasingly becomes aware of just how gracious God really is her heart overflows with wonder, joy and love for this God who is so different than what most of the people around her perceive Him to be.

As I read this verse again this morning my attention was drawn back to a previous place in this story when the angel had first told her husband what would come of God's promise to them. Gabriel was a messenger sent direct from the throne of God, where the One who shaped and governs all the universe with compassion, power and infinite love, now chose to reveal to Zacharias God's plans to prepare the world for the imminent revealing of the Messiah. Gabriel had told Zacharias "You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth." Now Elizabeth is beginning to taste that very joy long before the birth of this miracle child, for her heart may not have been so incredulous as that of her husband's and she was a more willing recipient for this miracle that was taking place in their home.

There are a number of questions that have stirred around in my mind over the years about this story. When I examine the response of Zacharias compared to that of Mary the future mother of Jesus to a very similar announcement from this same angel, I find very little difference between them. I am very aware of the nit-picking, detailed exegesis that many give to these responses in order to explain why one was treated so severely while the other was so profusely praised. But what I sense when I read these stories is that the difference between the two responses had far more to do with the spirit of their heart rather than the words they chose to use. As Jesus Himself explained later, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Words are far more along the line of symptoms rather than the real issue themselves.

I suppose that this is of interest to my own heart because of the progression over the years that my understanding of the real truth about God has so radically changed. After spending many years suffering under the abusive oppression of dark, fearful beliefs about how God feels about me, revelations of the real truth about His love and His feelings towards me have forced me to challenge every belief I ever had and to alter drastically my views about religion. But in the process I am finding myself moving ever more closer to being able to respond with actual hope when God proposes good things for my life instead of the usual pessimistic reaction that has been so typical most of my life.

What is becoming ever more clear in my thinking is that as I focus on the goodness of God and all His attributes He is revealing to me in contrast to the confusing mixed bag of notions that religion taught me about Him, I find this to be the only real antidote to the pessimism of my past. Like Elizabeth, I find myself starting to sense new feelings stirring deep inside of me as Christ is being mysteriously formed in my own life just as baby John, full of the Holy Ghost, was being formed inside of her. I am beginning to taste a new perspective, a sense of a totally different reality that is uncommon and nearly unknown in the world around me. I think I am beginning to perceive what Jesus must have been talking about when He kept referring to what the kingdom of heaven was all about.

I can distinctly remember the many years when my mind simply had no internal realistic definition for things like joy or passionate love, especially as related to God. Oh, I knew all the right clichés to throw around in religious conversation, but I'm talking about heart language here. For me the word joy was more like a slap in the face, like something to taunt me with like holding out water just out of reach to a man dying of thirst in the hot desert. I could become angry when confronted with discussions about joy because in my life there was nothing I could relate it to that seemed to fit the descriptions offered.

I wonder if this might have been the case with John's father Zacharias. Maybe he had become cynical about hope by this time in his life. Being very much involved in the religious system of his day he surely was all too aware of the pervasive corruption and hypocrisy and greed at all levels of religion and government. I have found that dwelling on such information, no matter how accurate or true it is, has the effect of creating more cynicism, hopelessness and pessimism. Had Zacharias come to the place where he was just putting in his time, treading water spiritually until it was time to die because all his dreams had long since dissipated? There seems to be hints of that in this story.

But even this alerts my attention to the graciousness of God in the way He treats this family. Rather than taking this news directly to Elizabeth who would be the one bearing the miracle child, God sends Gabriel to her husband, the more cynical one, in order to turn his attitude around as much as possible in advance of the years of training they would need to give this boy. And although Gabriel had to take rather intense measures to discipline Zacharias for his habits of doubt and fear that had taken over his life and caused him to disbelieve even a vision direct from heaven, God cared so much about getting him involved that He did whatever it took to include Zacharias in this event.

Of course there is also the matter of needing to have Zacharias go home and become physically intimate with his own wife in their old age to initiate this new birth. That was in contrast to Mary's experience which is another story with its own amazing revelations. But what is emerging for me here is a glimpse of how amazing the graciousness of God is to those who have become jaded and skeptical because of the abuse of religion, politics and all the other corruption that surrounds us. In other words, this story is yet another example that He is using to remind me that He will also do whatever it takes to transform me from a cynical pessimist into a joyful child full of wonder, gratitude and praise.

This picture of a child has been one that God presented to my heart many years ago. In spite of all the inhibitions acquired from so many around me growing up, God shared with me that as He continues to transform me I will indeed learn to become like a little child, willing to skip and dance and twirl and be spontaneously joyful in ways I have long forgotten how to do. But this can never happen by being forced or persuaded or commanded to do it; all such attempts only serve to stifle any such expressiveness of genuine joy. Rather, God has promised me, just as He promised Zacharias, that the direction my life will take as I allow Him access to my heart will ever move inexorably in the direction of true joy, gladness, rejoicing and spontaneous celebration.

Like Elizabeth I am already beginning to sense the joy and gladness growing in my heart as my perceptions of what God is really like continue to amend. With her, I can resonate with the sentiments she expressed and concur with her description of what was transpiring deep inside her wounded but healing soul. So this is the way the Lord deals with me as He looks with favor upon me, to take away my shame and fear and disgrace I have felt for so long among the people who matter in my life.