JB (the fifth of five kids) and I (an only child) met in a high school Spanish class the second semester of our senior year. We went on one date before graduation. Then my family moved from Pensacola, Florida to Minnesota. I attended college there (at St. Olaf) and JB went to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. We didn’t even start writing letters until our junior year.
If you had told me back then that I’d go on to marry that handsome, brainy, creative young man, it would be a stretch but I might have believed you. However, if you also informed me that we would have six children, that I’d home school them for fourteen years, and that JB would go from high tech, to an art business, to Bible College, and then back into high tech–a roller coaster life if there ever was one–I NEVER would have believed you! I could not have begun to imagine such a crazy scenario. Maybe that’s why God did not warn me ahead of time!
On rare occasions, however, God does give people a heads up. In Luke chapter 1 two separate angels tell two unlikely individuals in two separate locations that each will become a parent.
The first, a priest named Zechariah living in Hebron, had a wife named Elizabeth. Luke describes the couple as “advanced in years.” Elizabeth’s years of barrenness left them without hope of ever having their own child. Yet one day as Zechariah performed his priestly duties, a privilege limited to Aaron’s descendants, an angel showed up out of nowhere, announcing that the old couple would soon have a baby! Zechariah’s reaction? “No way! How could that possibly be?” That response resulted in his muteness until the baby’s birth!
Months later in Nazareth, the angel Gabriel appeared to an unwed virgin named Mary going about her daily routine. Gabriel announced that Mary would give birth to Jesus, the Savior! Mary knew the Messianic prophecies but had no idea she’d be the one to bring Him to earth! Unlike Zechariah, she didn’t look solely to her physical reality and argue with the angel. Instead she asked how that would work–more out of curiosity than disbelief.
Both Mary and Zechariah heard impossible news. The “religious expert” responded in unbelief based on the scientific facts of his situation, while the unsophisticated, untrained teenager replied, “I’m all in and I feel so blessed!” She had faith that God could override the facts, that the Creator of science was greater than science.
How about you? How big is your God? In Matthew 19:24-26 Jesus, referring to salvation, told the disciples, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”
As we celebrate Christmas this year, reflect on who Jesus is to you. Is He merely a baby in a manger, the one about whom we sing Christmas Carols? Does He continue to hang lifeless on the cross? Or is He the strongest, wisest, most perfect One who transcends time and space? If you dare to believe, the risen Savior can bring about the “Him-possible” in your life.
Thank you, Carrie, for reminding us nothing is impossible with God. Even with “impossible” people! 🙂