I believe in miracles from God! I know of no formula or method that can guarantee our receiving one. Miracles came in diverse shapes, kinds, and sizes. In John 2 water is turned into wine rescuing a week long marriage festivities from community disdain. In John 5 a man lame for thirty eight years waiting at a pool for an angelic miracle receives a touch from Jesus instead with instant restoration. In John 11 Lazarus is raised from the dead by Jesus after He’d delayed responding to the family’s request to come to heal him. In Luke 1 Zacharias and Elizabeth are going to receive a seemingly overdue answer to prayer in the form of a miracle named John.
Zacharias and Elizabeth have given up expecting a child as they are senior citizens, and it is physically no longer possible. The timing is clearly not their choosing, and yet God is directly connecting their miracle birth to the soon to follow greater miraculous birth of Jesus. How do people that barely see a glimpse of what is going on, don’t understand the timing, and getting ready to retire actively partner with God? They just show up! Day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Lk 1:6 “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.”
This story that is such an important piece of the greater Christmas Story is a good reminder to us that to receive or be part of a miracle, knowing the Lord and walking with Him is far more important than knowing the what, when, how, and why of what He is doing. The surprising elderly couple have done the right thing as a life style, while living through decades of disappointment. They just kept showing up. Zacharias’ unbelief clearly demonstrates his weakness, yet his perfection isn’t required to be part of the miracle plan.