How shall I know this?
Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” – From Luke 1
Oh, boy. Gabriel does not take well to Zechariah’s doubt. “I am Gabriel, who stands before God!” Zechariah thought he was afraid before, but now, he is terrified. At the angel’s proclamation, this middling Hebrew priest was silenced before the Lord and before his people until his wife Elizabeth, advanced as she was in years, bore their son, John.
Can we go back once more to Karl Barth’s Advent sermon? He takes Zechariah’s silence and applies it to us all. Inside we all have this remembrance of the angel of God, but we can never say much about what we have. Our words come out crooked, jumbled, never quite right. What we saw before birth, or as children, or suddenly one day at work, or finally on our deathbeds … we see but cannot say. Our personal, cherished vision is mostly made smaller by our too-small, tinny words. The sound of my voice makes it all less precious. It even seems less real. We easily lose track of its source. But still:
Without this word we would not suffer so deeply from the need that presses in upon us, and from the injustice that we must stand by and watch. We would not be able to resist so powerfully and become so indignant against the lies and violence that we see dominating life apart from this word. We would not have the urge to exercise love and to become loving if it were not for the fact that within us is God’s voice, placed into our heart.
When Zechariah’s lips are loosed, his words take flight. They have inspired generations since: “The tender mercy of our God, like the rising sun, will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Can our lips be loosed too? Barth is sure of it:
The fire of God can actually burn us, the earthquake of God can still shake us, the flood of God awaits to rush around us, the storm of God actually wants to seize us. O, if we could actually hear, if we could but hear this voice that resounds so clearly within us as actually God’s voice. If we could only believe. Then we could also speak!
While Zechariah waits for the fullness of time to come upon Elizabeth, he “lives right on,” as Wendell Berry might say. He goes home, he resumes his priestly duties, he feeds the sheep, he reads the Torah, and he loves his wife. Then in a rush, the baby comes and his words flow. “His name shall be John! Praise be to the Lord!”
Luke tells two stories in the first chapter of his gospel, and as this one ends, the other is just beginning.
Thank you for all these words, thank you for the sentences and the visions they evoke. Your stories are the best, Lord. I want to read them and ponder them and pray through them and believe. Let the earthquake of your love rock my soul.
 Karl Barth, “Lukas 1:5-23,” from Predigten (Sermons), 1917, pp. 423-431, translated by Robert J. Sherman. Included as entry for December 13, in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas, 2001, Plough Publishing House
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