Baby

"They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly," Luke 1:6.

Remember some gracious elderly people, from your youth perhaps? Kind, gentle souls, waiting on God? (Yeah, we've all known the other kind, too!) Well, here they are. Who? Zechariah and Elizabeth. Old couple without kids. Good people, but old. Seniors quietly living out their religious rituals. Just old folks waiting on God to do something, waiting to die. So. In this way Luke starts the story of Jesus. The gospels start, not with Jesus' ministry, but with the son of that ancient couple. Yes, we read right, their son. She, a little embarrassed by her late, way late pregnancy, he, speechless. But both excited and thankful. A baby's on the way. God doing something about the mess we're in.

We touch bases with a brother or sister today, and speak of God's unseen work to fix our mess. And of God's overwhelmingly evident work, too. And, together, we give thanks that God's work ever advances independently of our appreciation for it.