Angels of Faith: Overcoming Doubt
Luke 1:5-20
November 30, 2008
First Sunday of Advent
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. 7 But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. 8 Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. 10 Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. 11 Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. 13 But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. 14 You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. 16 He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." 18 Zechariah said to the angel, "How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years." 19 The angel replied, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.
Have you ever been visited by an angel? If you have been, did the angel have a message for you, and did you believe? If an angel were to visit you today with a message, would you believe? I think that most of us think we would believe, but I wonder if that’s true? How many of us would still doubt? I wonder how many of us would be like Zechariah?
Most people don’t appreciate the subtleties of the story about Zechariah in the passage above. When you understand the story more, you understand the depths of Zechariah’s doubt and what it says about our doubts. Zechariah was a priest serving the great temple in Jerusalem. When we think of priests today, we tend to think of Roman Catholic priests or pastors. Zechariah was not that kind of priest. Temple priests in Jesus’ day presided over sacrifices in the temple, or did other various duties surrounding those sacrifices. Everyday, thousands of the Jewish faithful flocked to the temple to offer up their sacrifices. To be a temple priest, a man had to be a direct descendent of Aaron, Moses’ right-hand man. In Jesus’ day, there were so many descendents of Aaron that few priests were permanent. Instead, most priests worked regular jobs and served in the temple twice a year. There were approximately 24,000 priests, with about 1000 serving the temple each week. Thus, each priest served in the temple for two weeks per year, and it was the high point of his or her year.
Zechariah was serving his two weeks in the temple, and he had a special duty on this particular day. He was to light the incense in the inner part of the temple. The incense was believed to have the power to lift the sacrifice to God, so it was a special and powerful duty, and would have served as the highpoint of his life. He entered the inner sanctum to light the incense, his hand shaking in nervous awe as he put the flame to the incense. Suddenly, the angel Gabriel stood before him. Gabriel told Zechariah that his wife, Elizabeth, was to bear a child (John the Baptist), who would have the spirit of Elijah in him. John would prepare the way for the coming of the messiah. Zechariah doubted. I’m not sure how you would have been in that situation, but Zechariah had a common affliction. He couldn’t get rid of his logical self. Logic said that there was no way his wife could bear a child. She was in menopause. Physically, logic says, it was impossible for Elizabeth to bear a child. So Zechariah asked Gabriel how he could be sure that what Gabriel said was true. Gabriel responded that because Zechariah doubted, he would be struck mute until John was born.
Put yourself in Zechariah’s shoes (or sandals). Would you have believed? Belief, even in the face of a visit by an angel, is harder than you think. I remember years ago talking with a professor at a local university who was an agnostic leaning toward atheism. He told me that back when he was a teenager or a child, while he was going through some very difficult times, he woke up to find Jesus sitting on the end of his bed. I asked him if it was really Jesus or just a dream. He said it was really Jesus, that he could have reached out and touched him. I asked him what Jesus was doing. He said that he was just looking in a caring way. Was there a message? “Not really,” he said. I then asked if, looking back at that experience, he was still an agnostic leaning toward atheism, and he said yes. I asked him in several different forms how he could have been visited by Jesus and not believe. He told me that he didn’t know, but that he just didn’t believe. Doubt, sometimes, is easier to come by than belief.
When angels, the Spirit, Jesus, or some other manifestation of God visits you, what do you do with your natural doubts? There are ways to prepare yourself to have an open heart and soul to them, ways to be open and ready whenever God comes to you. I believe that God speaks all around us all the time, but we aren’t always receptive. How do we become receptive? Well, I’ve asked an expert on receptivity to talk with us about an experience she had. So I’m turning my sermon over to Connie Frierson, our program director, to talk about her experience of being visited by God:
As many of you know I am a widow. I was with my husband Allen for twenty-two years, when he very suddenly died of a heart attack in July of 2006. Allen and I met in the Air Force in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was a hotshot fighter pilot and I was a JAG otherwise known as an Air Force lawyer. And we were really happy. So the time after Allen’s death was one of the darkest times in my life. But God was present with me in my grief and God helped me put my loss in perspective. One of the ways God spoke is through this necklace I am wearing today.
About three months after Allen’s death, my dear sister Beverly was in Lake Mills, Wisconsin visiting with her daughter, Julie and Julie’s husband, Mike. Lake Mills is a charming little town and has a farmers market every Saturday. Bev, Julie and Mike went to the market in the park and were wandering about looking for pumpkins and squash and vegetables. All the things we enjoy in the fall. But the market also includes some crafters. In one end of the park was a woman with two tables full of beads and jewelry. Bev was idly looking over everything when she was struck with one necklace and earring set. She knew that that necklace was for me and she had this idea that the necklace was somehow from Allen. Now Bev and I are bargain hunters to the core and we just don’t buy each other jewelry. So Bev dismissed this notion of the necklace and moved on. But she couldn’t seem to get this idea out of her head. She asked my niece, Julie, to come back and look at these tables of jewelry. Bev asked Julie, “Is there anything here for Connie?” Julie immediately went right to this necklace. So Bev decided to buy the necklace for me. As the woman was wrapping the necklace and earrings up, Bev asked her if she knew anything about the beads in the necklace. Bev was just making conversation. But the woman lit up and she said, “Oh yes, I know all about these beads. The brown bead is a brown agate from Tibet, said to heighten spiritual awareness and the turquoise is a special order from a little family mine somewhere out west, called Pilot Mountain.” At that point both Bev and Julie started to cry because this necklace really was a gift to me from my pilot husband.
But the deeper I looked into these beads the more I found. The Pilot Mountain Mine isn’t just somewhere out west. Pilot Mountain is in Tonopah, Nevada. Tonopah Nevada is a very, very small town closest to the Tonopah Test Range. Allen was one of probably less than 100 pilots in the 1980’s that were part of a group flying and training in the then Top Secret stealth fighter, the F-117 on the Tonopah Test Range. This was the group Allen was flying with when we met. This is the group that I became the attorney for in my time in the Air Force. As Allen flew into the Air Field at Tonopah, Pilot Mountain was one of the checkpoints into the field. He flew over it nightly. This necklace was tied to an incredible time in my life and Allen’s life. No kidding, this was a gift from Allen.
But something even more interesting was happening here. The week that I received the necklace, I was in the beginning of a Christian Education Class at Seminary. The book we were reading by Craig Dystrika, Dystrika used a certain phrase over and over again. It was his primary metaphor for Christian Education. The phrase was, “What do these stones mean?” The phrase is taken from the book of Joshua, chapter 4. That phrase was the title of a chapter in Dystrika’s book. He mentions it in his introduction and his dedication of the book. It was the main topic of my professor’s lecture for three classes. In my small group or section, I had to listen to four students reflection papers on that one phrase, “What do these stones mean.” At the end of about two weeks of this I realized that God wanted me to think about WHAT DO THESE STONES MEAN! What do the stones in this necklace mean?
As I looked at the necklace you see that the Pilot Mountain Turquoise is cut into little hearts. The veining of the turquoise are like little cracks and fissures. The hearts look like they are broken. That certainly matched my experience of a great love and a great loss. But the characteristic of Pilot Mountain Turquoise is that the crackling and fissures range from deep, dark black to golden. As I looked at these broken and fractured hearts I realized that God was speaking to me in a very real symbolic way. Grief is black and heart breaking, yet in time and God’s grace our greatest sorrows can be transformed, that darkness can be changed to gold. This necklace was a very real reassurance that my grief would be transformed.
What do these stones mean? I then turned to Joshua Chapters 3 and 4. This is the story of the people of Israel crossing into the Promised Land. After forty years in the wilderness the people are going into the land of milk and honey. God tells Joshua to pick men of each tribe. And when the priests cross the River Jordan carrying the Ark of the Covenant. When the Jordan River is held back so that the priest cross on dry ground. The men are to pick up the stones that the priest’s feet touched. And these stones will remind everyone that God has held back the waters and that God was present in the Ark of the Covenant when the people of Israel crossed into the Promised Land. What does it mean when we say or sing of crossing the River Jordan and entering the Promised Land? Most often it means that we are looking forward to life with God beyond the life on this earth. The Pilot Mountain necklace, the hearts broken and transformed, the assurance of God of a Promised Land, all of these have come together in understanding what these stones mean to me. God has used a language unique to me, to comfort and reassure. If you listen and are open God speaks to you as well.
Connie’s story teaches us a lot about being receptive to God. First, it teaches us that it takes a willingness to believe. Are we willing to believe when what we experience goes against human logic, against our logic? Second, it teaches us that if we are willing to look, listen, and sense beyond our normal human senses, we can hear God. Are we willing to listen with our hearts, spirits, and souls?
God speaks, but are we ready to hear?
Amen.
