Angel to Zacharias...John

4^th set of blogs to all the kids

Hey Sweet Alden,

These days you like to look a certain way….good! Or funny as with those checked golf pants, very attention getting. No doubt you got lots of notice from the girls and other golfers when you wore those. How did that affect your playing? Jesus had a cousin who dressed in an unusual way and ate in an unusual way, John. He wore clothes made of camel’s hair, not for a fashion statement, well, I actually don’t know why he did. Maybe because there was no way to go shopping and the river was his laundry. Camel’s hair lasts a long, long time but it may be kinda itchy.

John’s birth was a miracle, too, but very different from the birth of Jesus. John had a mother and an earthly father who were both old, too old for a woman to be having a baby, but God renewed their bodies to a younger functioning capability and made it happen. In this case, the angel, Gabriel, came first to Zacharias, the father. Zacharias, who was a priest and very familiar with the idea of angels, reacted just like everyone else who saw an angel, he was scared!! Gabriel told him not be afraid and that his prayer had been heard. (Don't you love it that God hears prayers?!!!)

 Like most men, Zacharias had wanted a son, but at this age it seemed unattainable. Even the angel saying it would happen was not convincing so Zacharias wanted a sign. So the angel gave him a sign, one he would not soon forget, at least for nine months!  Zacharias could not speak until the child was born. No matter that he wanted to rush home and shout, “Elizabeth!!!!! We’re going to have a son!!!’ He could not say a word….but he could write. After trying with sign language to relate the news, and enough time passed, the baby was born. Zacharias wrote that his name was to be “John” as the angel had told him.

Jesus called him John. We often call him John the Baptist…because he was a baptizer…but that’s another writing. Gabriel had said that John would go before the Lord, indicating that he would tell people of Jesus ahead of Jesus. So John was born first, began his ministry first, and was killed first, but John will be resurrected the same day you are

.Luke 1:13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.”

Possible prayer,  “Dear God, thank you for blessing Zacharias with a son in spite of his doubting the possibility at first. I pray that I, too, will tell people what I know about Jesus.”