1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word for this first Advent midweek service is taken from Luke 1:5-25, it’s entitled, “The Angel Gabriel Brings a Message of Hope in the Midst of Unbelieving Doubt.” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. Daniel stretched out his neck to look up at the tall Christmas tree on the church’s altar. There, sitting at the very top, was an angel, decked out gloriously in bright satin and glittering gold. Every year this angel appeared in that same location. But what did angels really do, he wondered. Were they just nice church decorations, beautiful to see, but always sitting there as a silent watchman? He had heard of angels many times in church, usually in songs in the liturgy. They sang “Glory to God” and “Holy, holy, holy.” At Communion, he often heard of them as the pastor read the Proper Preface: “With angels and archangels . . .” But is that all they did? Just sing?
3. We think of angels in many ways, often as powerful heavenly soldiers sent to protect the faithful, like mighty St. Michael the archangel in his dramatic battles against Lucifer. Yet their very name, angelus in Greek, reveals one of their most important purposes: messenger. And not just any messenger. Only rarely, it seems, does the Almighty dispatch them on such an errand. They come to earth from the presence of God to deliver powerful, life-changing messages of hope in our dark world. And because of these messengers and their special announcements, we do well to pay special attention, especially when it concerns the very hope of our faith. Hope is one of the themes of the Advent season. It’s reflected in the sky-blue of the paraments some churches use, a light color of encouragement in the dark months of winter’s death. And this hope is underscored by nothing less than God’s own messengers from the very throne room of heaven.
4. The first mention of angels in the infancy story of Luke is when Gabriel comes to an elderly priest by the name of Zechariah as he is about his duties in the temple of Jerusalem. Luke 1:8–11 says, “Now while [Zechariah] was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.”
5. Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth, Luke tells us, were “righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (Luke 1:6). They were people of faith, trusting in God’s promises. Yet the very next sentence shows us a heavy burden in their lives: “They had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years,” Luke 1:7 says. At some point, this couple had sadly concluded that their chance to be parents and enjoy the pleasure of a child had passed. Little could they know that this unrealized hope would soon be realized and would place them in the middle of the greatest story ever told: Luke 1:13 tells us, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah,” the angel said, “for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.”
6. But hope that seems denied can put up a wall of doubtful resistance, even in the face of heaven-born assurances. The writer to the Hebrews declared that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Hope hangs on to unseen promises, but it can do so only in Spirit-given faith. While Zechariah was a man of faith, his faith faltered when presented with what appeared as an unbelievable promise, the promise of a son in his very old age. Like many who encounter angels, Zechariah became “troubled” and afraid. He stood in the presence of God’s holy messenger. It was like standing in heaven itself with all the holiness of God. But the angel didn’t come in judgment. He came to encourage and promise a gift: God had heard their prayer! Hope must know that God hears us, especially when years-long prayers seem to go unanswered. The angel told them that they would finally know “joy and gladness” and that not only they, but many others, will “rejoice” at the birth of their son. This child wouldn’t be just any child. This one would come “in the spirit and power of Elijah” the prophet (Luke 1:14, 17), sent to call people to repentance and faith. Their child would be a history-changing figure at the center of the story of the coming Messiah: John the Baptist, the one to announce Christ’s arrival.
7. Wow! How would you react to such a message? Zechariah immediately challenged it with a question. How would he know this was true? And then he backed up his doubts with the reality of the old age of him and his wife that certainly precluded the hope of conception. Certainly no one gives birth when she and her husband are this old! Nature argues against this possibility. It’s a false hope. Only now do we hear the name of this important heavenly messenger come to challenge this doubtful priest: “I am Gabriel [‘Mighty Man of God,’ ‘God’s hero’]. I stand in the presence of God.” God had dispatched no less! Gabriel, the heavenly preacher. “I was sent to speak to you . . . this good news,” he said (Luke 1:19), hinting at even greater good news yet to come in Luke chapter 2. God knew Zechariah’s doubts and disappointments. Renewed hope would come only from God’s special messenger, who came from God’s holy presence.
8. But even this would need an additional sign to meet Zechariah’s faltering faith. He would remain unable to speak until the day of the child’s birth. His muteness would remind him every day of his unwillingness to hope. But it would also remind him that his hope was reborn as he recalled the angel’s words.
9. Hope can be a difficult thing to keep alive. We all struggle to keep an optimistic outlook. Advent comes at a time of the year when nature is dormant and often appears lifeless. Experience tells us that spring sits just ahead, but during a long, hard winter it can seem as if it will never come. Thus, it is a season of depression for many. We even have a name for the disorder: Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD for short. Not all that we hope for is realized and seen in our lifetimes. Disappointment guts the heart of our hope. We assume that what is unrealized in our time is unrealized forever. We strain to see beyond today, let alone years into the future. Even the ancients, the writer to the Hebrews tells us, “died in faith, not having received the things promised.” Yet the writer also tells us that they saw them and greeted them “from afar” (Heb 11:13). Faith must see things as God sees them, from his perspective, in the context of eternity. The Word to which faith clings upholds faith with heaven-born promises anchored in Jesus.
10. Abraham, who received a promise of his own much like Zechariah’s, faced the same unbelievable possibility of fulfillment. Paul tells us that “in hope he believed against hope” (Rom 4:18). His body was “as good as dead” given his advanced age of about a hundred years. Sarah’s womb, like Elizabeth’s, was barren. No earthly hope. But faith believed against that dead-ended hope. It hoped based entirely upon what God could do, anchored in his word of assurance. No distrust could shake Abraham, because he was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Rom 4:19, 21).
11. Many of our hopes come from mere wishes and desires for temporary enjoyments. As we get older, we understand how to handle the disappointments that come when they aren’t realized, so our hopes are conditioned. You just know some things are no more than wishful thinking with little basis in reality. But some of our hopes arise out of moments of crushing crises like serious sickness and impending death. We need certain hopes to come true. We try to hope when disaster strikes and leaves our lives in shambles and shattered fragments. We pray fervently. We hope with every fiber of our spirit. We try to hang on to optimism despite repeated disappointments. Time passes. Hours turn into days. Days turn into weeks. Weeks turn into years. How long can we hope?
12. But hope born of faith fights doubts only when it is anchored in Christ. And such hopes transcend our own limited desires. Zechariah and Elizabeth could hardly imagine how their long-hoped-for son would become the very forerunner of God’s own Son. They would learn that when God sends a heavenly messenger like Gabriel from the very presence of God himself, the promise will not be the foundation of limited hopes. You and I, as those baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, live within great hopes, Christ-filled hopes, hopes that concern the defeat of death and the gift of abundant life. Gabriel’s message therefore comes also to us, concerns each of us in our own disappointments. Look beyond this moment, the messenger tells us. Look beyond your own personal and limited desires. Look to the larger story, the greater plan. Look to the grand plans God has for you in Christ’s death and resurrection, plans like those announced to the prophet Jeremiah in his own difficult times: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me” (Jer. 29:11–13). Yes, God has plans for each of us as well. And these plans in Christ are for our greater good, a good we often can’t even begin to imagine in the darkness of our struggles.
13. The angel high atop that Christmas tree may stand silent, but the real angels come during this holy season with incredible, life-changing messages of true hope. Gabriel’s message of hope to Zechariah, even in the midst of his doubt, has brought us life-changing and doubt-delivering hope too. And because the angels, like Gabriel, come from heaven itself, the messages they bear are God’s very Word. A heaven-born Word of promise. A Word with power to create faith, renew hope, and banish doubt. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
