Real People, Real Faith Series
Mary, Elizabeth & Zacharias:
Quiet Faith
Ron Fast
[email protected] Copyright 2007 by Ron Fast
Intro
Imagine yourself as a typical person. You live in a small, sleepy town that seems to be unaffected by time. The town never changes. The people who are born there live out their lives and die in the same town. Each person who lives in the sleepy, little town can trace their family tree back for generations. Your grandfather, great grandfather and great, great grandfather lived and died in the same town you now live in. In fact, they lived in the same house that you are growing up in. The house is filled with antiques. There are pictures on the walls of your grandparents and your great grandparents. In the corner of the living room, sitting atop an antique table, is an old phonograph that doesn't work anymore.
The chandelier in the dining room came as a priceless relic of years gone past. It was a wedding present to your great, great grandmother from her parents.
Nothing much changed in this town. It's been the same for. . . oh. . .um. .. let's see. . . around 200 years. The streets that you walk to school every day were the same streets that your parents walked to school. Of course, they weren't paved then and as your parents so often tell you, they used to walk to school in 60 feet of snow, uphill both ways, and they were barefoot. . . Yeah. . . right mom and dad.
There is a cellar under the house where your grandparents used to store the potatoes and onions from their garden.
And in the back yard is the same smokehouse that your great, great grandfather built so that they could smoke the meats that would have to last them well into the harsh winters.
Your neighbors have lived beside you forever. Their grandparents knew your grandparents. They went to grammar school with them in a one-room school where they learned the three R's: Reading, Riting and Rithmatic.
You wonder if anything ever changes in this town. It seems as though time stands still. You wonder why it never changes. Maybe God has long forgotten the people in this town. Is that possible? Oh. . . Well!! You don't give it much thought. You kinda like it here. You feel so safe and secure because you know the town will continue to stay the same for at least the rest of your lifetime.
You sleep well at night because crime is almost non-existent. Every night you say your prayers before you hit the sack. Getting pretty boring. . .huh?
Your name is Mary and you are in your late teens and you can trace your ancestry back for generations. You are as ordinary as ordinary can be. You have been raised in a Godly home and you yourself love God very much. Your parents took great pains to teach you the Scriptures. Your mom taught you how to always put others first, to serve others before serving yourself. That was the culture that you have grown up in.
You had just become engaged to a very cool guy. It was customary for girls to get engaged and married while still a teenager. You were excited to get married because then you would be considered a respectable woman in the town. Everyone would admire the great catch you made with your future husband.
You never thought you would be or do anything great but you were cool with that. All you wanted out of life was to be a good wife and a good mother.
One night you head to bed. You slip on your PJ's and kneel beside your bed to say your prayers. You jump into bed and pull your covers up to your neck and start to doze off.
It seemed like you had just fallen asleep when suddenly you were jolted awake by this incredibly bright light. It seemed that the sun had snuck into your room and then just for fun flooded your room with a brilliant white light. It happened so suddenly that you were shaking in bed. You can't imagine what was going on. As you open your eyes and stare at this brilliant light, you see a face appear. It was the most beautiful face you had ever seen. It . . . It looked like a person. He . . . or whatever it is. . . was wearing a robe so bright that it looked like it was on fire, but not red and orange-like flames from a regular fire. The light was more like pure white light, the purest light you have ever seen and the light didn't flicker as flames from a fire would. The light was warm but not something that you felt on your arms and face like how a fire would feel. It seemed as though the light warmed you from the inside. It's nothing that you've ever experienced before. But in a way it was a familiar warmth. . . sort of like. . . like you felt when God was really near. It was like those times when God was speaking to you, not in a voice that you could hear but like He was speaking to your heart and you knew it. You remember that when He spoke to you that way that you would feel this incredible peace, that indescribable peace that could only come from the Living God. This peace warmed you from the inside out. It feels like a spiritual shower.
You look at this. . . whatever it is. . . and think to yourself, "This has to be a dream." This thing is so incredibly beautiful that you can scarcely look at it.
It looked like an angel. You, of course, had never seen an angel but you remember stories of people who have had visions from God, who have actually seen and spoken to angels. Like the story of Hagar, Sarai's servant. That angel was not just any angel though. That was the "Angel of the Lord", the second person of the Trinity, God. But . . . but this couldn't be an angel . . . Why would an angel come and visit me, ordinary, plain-Jane Mary? I'm nothing special. I'm not a priest or anything like that. Besides no one has had a special messenger or message from God in . . . well. . . let's see. . . um. . . It must be more than three . . . or four hundred years, well, a long time anyway, at least that I know of.
But it sure looks like an angel. Maybe I'm dreaming. Here . . . I'll pinch myself and see if it hurts. . . here goes. . . AHHHHHHHHH, okay, that hurt. Uh-oh, do you know what that means? That means that I'm not sleeping. This isn't a dream. Maybe I'm losing my mind then. I've heard that insanity runs in my family. . . kidding.
Okay, so if I'm not dreaming and I'm not insane, then maybe it's just a reaction from that really weird dessert that mom made last night. I don't know what she was thinking or where she came up with that dessert but it was really weird. I've heard that if you eat really rich stuff just before you hit the sack, you start seeing things. Okay, so maybe it's not real and I'm just reacting to mom's really weird dessert. Yeah, that's it. . . I'm just seeing things.
Mary!!
Who . . . who said that?????
Mary!!
The voice was coming from the hallucination. Oh. . . This was good. . . my hallucination was getting pretty weird. It really sounded like it was talking to me.
MARY!!!
Okay. . . I'm really beginning to freak out. Why did I eat that dessert? I'm always a sucker for something new. Mom always used me as a guinea pig. She would make these new dishes for company and say, "Mary, come try this new dish I made. If you like it, I'll serve it to our guests."
Maybe if I close my eyes and concentrate really hard it will go away. . . . . . . . Nope, shoot, it's still there.
Mary, I am real and I'm an angel from Heaven. God sent me to give you a very cool message.
Okay, now I'm totally wigging out. I've lost my marbles. My elevator stopped going to the top floor. I'm a card short of having a full deck. One of my two brain cells just fried itself. The light’s on but nobody's at home anymore. I haven't been this scared since my youngest brother hid a dead snake in my bed. He was always doing stuff like that but I got even. One night I took his underwear, soaked it in water and then stuck it in the freezer. Boy, you should have seen his face when he realized that was his only pair. I hid the rest. It was great.
I was rolling around on the ground and laughing so hard that I thought my sides would split. Anyway, back to reality and being scared.
Okay, I'll play along with this. Who are you really?
I'm really an angel, really!!
Okay, so if you are really an angel from God, how old am I?
That's easy. You're 18!!
Okay, lucky guess. . . Um, let's see . . . okay, I've got it. Tell me something about myself that I've never told anyone before, not even my bestest friend. That way I'll know that you really are an angel.
Actually, no. . .I'm not going to play these games anymore. You already know that I'm an angel and you're just trying to keep yourself from freaking out. Mary, God wanted me to tell you that you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a Son, God's Son. You are to call him Jesus because He is going to be the Savior of the world. The long awaited Messiah.
Nah. . . You're kidding me, right? First of all, I'm not even married. I'm engaged but not yet married. I'm a virgin. How could I possibly get pregnant? And what would the neighbors think? I'm pregnant and not married. I wouldn't be able to show my face in public. My family would disown me. Don't you know it's a sin to get pregnant before you get married?
Mary, listen to me. God Himself, the Holy Spirit, will cause this to happen. It will be a miracle from God's very own hands. This baby will be called the Son of God. You remember Elizabeth your relative? She is also pregnant and is already six months along and she's way older than you. You see, there is nothing that is impossible for Almighty God.
No way. . .Wow. . . that's so cool. Who am I that God would allow me the privilege of bearing the long-awaited Messiah? But I believe you and I'm willing to be used of God any way that He wants to use me. I am His servant, a servant of God Almighty. Go ahead. Tell Him I'll do it. I'll do anything He wants me to do. Whatever He wants, it's cool by me.
Have you ever imagined what it was like for Mary to be the mother of Jesus? There had been countless prophecies about the coming Messiah. Everyone knew the Scriptures and what they told about the Messiah. But when the angel Gabriel showed up and told Mary that she would be the one, the one person in all of history, to help bring the Son of God into the world, I can't imagine how she felt. This G-TRAX is not about the Christmas story. It's about Mary and the faith, the real faith that she had to have to be that person that bore the Messiah and bring Him into this world.
Monday
Zacharias and Elizabeth
When we talk about the birth of Jesus, we have a tendency to focus on Mary because she alone bore Jesus and gave birth to Him. But just before the birth of Jesus, two other people were intimately involved in the birth of our Savior.
Read Luke 1:5-7 - What was Zacharias' profession?
Who was his wife?
How do these verses describe their walk with God?
Why were they kid-less?
Tuesday
Mary wasn't the only one who saw an angel. It's been a long time since the people had any word from God. Then all-of-a-sudden, God starts to speak again.
Read Luke 1:8-13 - An angel appears to Zacharias. How did he react?
What did the angel say to Zacharias?
Why do you suppose God chose Zacharias and Elizabeth?
The angel even told them what they were supposed to name the baby. Who would their baby grow up to be?