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Hearing God's Word

                 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” (Luke 1:18-20)

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” (Luke 1:34-37)

 

Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. (Judges 6:17)

“Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”  Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. (Exodus 3:5-6)

A third time the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy.  So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

 So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

 The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”

Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”  (I Samuel 3:8-10)

 

The five passages above are all responses by those who have encountered either God or an angel. Until I took a closer look, I thought that Zechariah’s and Mary’s responses were basically the same. But Zechariah sought reassurance. How could he know for sure that this being, or this vision, or this daydream wasn’t yanking his chain? Gabriel gave him the sign he sought, but it wasn’t the sign he sought. It’s impossible to say what he wanted as his proof, but what he got was silence for more than 9 months. At least one scholar has suggested that he was not only silent but kept in silence – that he was deaf for that time, too.

Mary’s response might be considered her search for marching orders. If she was to bear a son, was she supposed to marry Joseph as planned? Or someone else? How was it supposed to work? She was given an explanation and a sign, too: her “too old to be pregnant” relative, Elizabeth, was pregnant. Not only did Mary accept this good news that could have resulted in her shaming her family (and fiancée) but that could have ended with her being stoned to death, but she made up a song about it. I’d like to be that courageous  

Gideon was a little bolder. He asked the angel to stay for dinner. Was this for bragging rights? Was his goal to wheedle more information out of the angel over food and wine? We don’t know, but the angel worked within Gideon’s ideas and caused the offered repast to go up in smoke. Theat’s the sort of sign we’d like. Later, he asked for the signs involving the fleece.

Perhaps the best response was Moses’. It began with curiosity: why wasn’t the bush burning up? Then God called to him and announced Himself. Moses bowed in worship and/or fear. Of course, technically, God provided a sign using the fire and the bush. This is the category I wish I was in – I think.

But the last one is the category I fear too many of us are in. We “hear” the voice of God, and run to an authority, thinking the authority had called. Or, we look around and wonder if we heard anything. Or we assume that if we heard anything, it probably wasn’t God. At the very least, we might seek the wisdom of a “Eli” in our lives.

As we set our resolutions for 2025, perhaps one ought to be to listen more carefully for God’s voice, and to respond better.

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