Christmas Hope for Religious Cynics

Yes, the Reality of Christmas is better, much better than anything we can Photoshop in or Photoshop out of it. 

The Reality is also worse, much worse than we are often willing to admit.

Take, Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, for example.

Good man.  Religious professional.  Faithful, untarnished by scandal, both he and his wife.  If anybody ‘deserves’ to be treated by God with special favor, it’s this couple. 

There is one thing they want more than anything else.  They give it their own best shot and it doesn't work. But that's O.K. They have a backup. Clearly, it’s in God’s power to grant this little request.  So they pray. Month after month, year after year, they pray and hope and wait; and they hope and wait and pray.

Nothing.

Yet, they continue in their faithfulness, following the rules, doing the job.

One foot in front of the other.  Persevering in what is right, and good, and true. Not only studying and knowing God’s Word, but actually doing what it says. How often do you and I come across people like that??

Do they ever wonder, Why bother? Why keep on while carrying this ache, this sometimes piercing sometimes dull pain…Enduring the shame and the stigma as if…?       

While Zacharias is meticulously performing all his religious duties, what is going on inside his mind and heart? 

Does he even notice when his hope turns into skepticism? When expectation turns into cynicism to prevent further pain because it is simply unbearable?

And yet, when all hope is gone, God sends His angel to the dutiful yet hardened religious professional.

Hi, Zach, it's a good day for you. God has heard your prayers.  The baby is on the way! And it's just the beginning...

Yea, right. You expect me to believe this?!!! Thanks, but no thanks.  It's way too late for us. 

But, God knows that sometimes it’s the faithful but disillusioned religious professional with a deep wound in his heart who needs to hear the good news the most.