The Lodestar

God is the God of surprises. In our walk with God, surprises await us at every turn. We find many divine surprises in the narrative of John’s birth in the Gospel of Luke (1:5-25).

First, Zechariah, the priest, did not expect to find Gabriel, the angel of God, as he entered the area where the altar of incense was. The old priest was startled at seeing the heavenly being before an earthling like him. Secondly, he did not expect the announcement that he would become a father. He was old and had settled with the thoughts that he and his wife would be childless for the rest of their life.

The worshippers waiting outside were surprised, too. They were surprised that the priest had taken an unusually long time to return. Finally, when he emerged, he could not talk to them. He was mute. Then, they concluded that the priest might have had an encounter with an angel in the inner court of the temple. That also is a surprise—an angel in the inner courts of the Temple?

Elizabeth, the wife of priest Zechariah, also had her share of surprises. She was not expecting a child. However, she tried to keep the secret growing in her belly for five months until it became too big to hide from the people. Now, we can imagine her family and friends' surprise when they discover that the old, barren woman will have a child.

Finally, the child was born. The people wanted to know what they should call the child. The mute father writes the name “John” on a tablet. They were surprised, not because the name was uncommon; “John” was the sixth most popular name in those days. The name was against the customs of the day. Usually, a child is named after the family members—parents or grandparents. However, no one in their family was named that name. Why this name? However, this is the name the angel had suggested to the father—yet another surprise. The moment the father wrote the last letter of the name “John”, his mouth was opened, and he could speak. He had been dumb for over nine months and suddenly started talking again.

At every turn of life, we should expect some surprise as we walk with God. God loves to surprise us. He is not a God who specialises in the mundane and the ordinary, but he loves to do what is beyond the limits of our imagination. He enjoys doing what we dump as impossible. He makes my jaw drop! This is a parody of what the Psalmist said in Psalm 3:3, “the lifter of my head.”

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