Be Still And Know

Luke 1:29-31 The birth of Jesus and the events that led up to it are so familiar to us that it takes some adjusting to realise that it was all a complete surprise to those who were involved. We know exactly what’s going to happen next but, for them, it was all astonishing. We need to remember it had been 400 years since there had last been a prophet in the land, and the Jews were not generally expecting the imminent arrival of the Messiah. We shouldn’t, therefore, be surprised that, time and again, the key characters in this amazing account were told not to be afraid. Zechariah, an elderly priest, was shaken to the core when he met an angel while he was offering incense in the temple. He was just about to be given the incredible news that his equally elderly wife was going to give birth to John the Baptist (Matthew 1:8-25). And then in our verses today we meet Mary. She was probably a teenager, and she certainly wasn’t expecting the angel Gabriel to turn up and greet her. It’s no wonder that Luke rec