unbelief

The hardest thing about being a believer is all the times I struggle to believe.

Sometimes I get muddled up in the fossil record and the scientific interpretation and I wonder about the creation story. I cringe at the way the Gospel can sound so stridently hateful when reduced to picket signs or Twitter posts. I grapple with doctrines like election and wish it could be another way. Sometimes I want to be them, the world, because they seem nicer than us, the church.

That's why I always feel for Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. When he got word of the impending miracle of his coming son, he questioned the news. And this is what he got (Luke 1:19-20): "The angel said to him, 'I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.'"

If I was struck dumb (silent, not stupid - I'm struck stupid all the time) every time I questioned something God revealed to me, our house would be a lot quieter. It doesn't seem fair.

But for nine more months the secret of this particular phase of God's Great Rescue Plan would remain a secret. Until the day of the baby boy's naming, Zechariah wouldn't be able to speak. It's like his own little Advent time, his period in the wilderness. Waiting for the day his voice would return.

It's interesting to me to think that, in a way, what we wait for at Christmas is our Voice. Jesus is not only the voice that speaks to us of God, he's the voice that speaks to God of us. He makes our prayers perfect, and argues for us in that great heavenly court. My stupid dumb mouth can't do a thing to help me. But my Advocate (hmmm, a word used to mean lawyer, a word whose roots go back to the word voice) represents me every moment of every day.

Yet another wonder of the season. Yet another reason to rejoice.