God's Hidden Timing

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. (Luke 1:26-27) 

Advent begins not with spectacle, but with hidden timing—God waiting for faith to mature in quiet places before acting openly. Elizabeth stayed in seclusion for five months. The passage begins by drawing our attention to God’s timing: “In the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary.” There is something deliberate and revealing about this timing. God’s action with Mary seems responsive to Elizabeth’s long season of hidden waiting.

Perhaps Elizabeth waited to see if this baby would survive. Perhaps she had known miscarriages before and wanted to confirm God’s word to her while living quietly with silent Zechariah. Both of them waited—maybe with doubts in their hearts. Perhaps they were familiar with this kind of anxiety and had learned disappointment from it. In the quiet, God seems to allow Elizabeth’s faith and hope to ripen, both for herself and for her coming meeting with Mary.

Elizabeth’s recorded words may reflect a slow recognition of God’s faithfulness to Zechariah. They may be the joy that finally emerged at the end of her seclusion: “In these days of seclusion he has shown his grace to me!” Now she could step into the joy of pregnancy rather than hide with the pain of loss from friends and family.

At this sacred moment in Elizabeth’s life, God sends Gabriel to Mary with both warning and hope. Mary is told that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her—echoing the Spirit hovering over the face of the deep at the beginning of creation. A new creation is beginning. God is gentle with his prophets and his people. He speaks with them before he acts, preparing them for what is to come. Mary’s faith was not blind; it was invited, informed, and sustained by God’s words to her.

Gabriel also gives Mary a gift of confirmation and companionship: “Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age.” Another miraculous birth. God strengthens Mary’s faith not only with promises, but with signs, and not only with signs, but with companions. She would not walk this path alone. 

Advent often unfolds this way for us as well—faith growing quietly, out of view, before joy is ready to be shared. Much of God’s work in us happens before we feel permitted to rejoice. 

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Prayer

Lord, you favored Mary with clear communication and faithful companions on her path of obedience. Favor us as well. We need your voice to make sense of our lives, and we need companions for the journey we walk with you. Meet us in our hidden seasons. Open our ears to your words and our eyes to the friends you place along our way. Amen.

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Advent Action

You may not see an angel this season, but today listen carefully for God’s message through your conversations and encounters. Ask God to open your eyes to companions who are walking the Way of Jesus alongside you. Consider writing down one moment today when God’s message came through another person.

Finding Certainty

   “Keep that light before your eye, and go directly toward it, and then you shall see the gate, at which, when you knock, you will be told what you are to do.”

    So I saw in my dream that the man began to run. Now he had not run far from his own door when his wife and children, perceiving his departure, began to cry out to him so that he might return. But the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on crying, “Life, life, eternal life.” So he did not look behind him, but rather fled toward the middle of the plain. (Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress)

 In the Gospel of Luke he begins, "Many have undertaken. . . ." In spite of the many, we all need to undertake this brave venture for ourselves. In spite of the many, we must draw up our own accounts of what has been fulfilled in our lives, what our lives have been filled up with. In the end we all will enter into the account that Luke started from those who saw and heard God made flesh. Our accounts will tell of what we thought of that one account.

So we see that Luke explaining, "I myself have carefully investigated." So, we find we do not undertake this venture in spite of the many before us, but informed by them and even spurred on by them. This venture begins and continues with careful investigation. Those who seek will find. For those who knock, the door will be opened. We do not seek mere facts in order to be right, but signs of God's graceful hand in order to be rescued. And his work shines most brightly in the life, words, and presence of Jesus among us.

All of this, "so that you may know the certainty." The end result of this investigation is not only faith in God, but knowing God the Father and Jesus, whom he sent. Only then will we know we have been taught well. Only in this intimate relationship with Jesus can we find the certainty we long for, a place to stand in a sinking age.

What is the account of your life with God? Is he a forgotten memory, a distant light, or a true friend? How might Luke's account affect your account? What sort of things do you carefully investigate? What motivates you? Are you certain of anything? Do you think you can find certainty in anything?