“And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” – Luke 1:20 Zechariah, a priest and the father of John the Baptist, was confronted by the angel, Gabriel, and told to, quite literally, “Shut up!” I always find this passage interesting. First off, Zechariah sees the angel and is scared out of his mind. It takes Gabriel to say, “stop being afraid, I’m not here to kill you,” before Zechariah calms down enough so that they could have a conversation. Secondly, and much more importantly, why wouldn’t a professional religious person believe an angel’s testimony? Third, what is the implication of shutting Zechariah up until his wife, Elizabeth, gives birth? Today, we will unpack all three observations. First, I want to remind all of us that angels are not cute little things that wear diapers and play tiny little harps while blowing hershey kisses to the world. In most instances, when they appear in the Bible, angels are these brolic beings that not only scare, but can destroy, you. Check out any passage in the Bible where somebody meets an angel, and take note of their reaction. It’s almost always, “Woe is me.” I tell you this because in our own religiousness, our disbelief is pretty incredible. You don’t have to be a professed agnostic or atheist to be skeptical, either. The disbelief that we Christians have in our own faith, puts atheists to shame. Zechariah didn’t believe Gabriel, although he knew that the angel could kill him and that he should be afraid. But he didn’t believe the God who commands this angel that is immensely fear worthy could do something out of the ordinary. It’s easy to understand why– he lived a long and hard life and at the end of the day was resigned to a hopeless life situation that he had accepted as normal. Tell me this isn’t the reason for most of our disbelief and skepticism. The angel knew that if Zechariah kept speaking, he would talk himself out of the blessing God was about to bestow upon his family; so, he shut his mouth up to seal the deal. I want you to understand this principle lesson. For Zechariah, being shut up was for his benefit: to teach him a lesson on who’s really boss. For us, when we shut up our disbelief toward God’s vision for our lives, we cease to sabotage ourselves; and, more importantly, we begin to see that we are not the center of our own lives. It is the easiest thing to be the focal point of our own lives, but it is the wrong thing. When we see ourselves as the center, we speak and act in ways that discredit the power of God and contradict in our self-proclaimed belief in Him. Even here, Gabriel tells Zechariah that having a baby is neither for his or his wife’s sake– that is to say, that having progeny, as important as it is in first century Judiasm, is not point. The baby that is to be born miraculously serves a purpose much greater than what Zechariah could understand. Likewise, the visions that God gives to us, no matter how fantastic, serve a greater purpose than we realize and should not be disbelieved or discredited by our words. Today is the day we all begin to shut our disbelief up, and open ourselves to experience the true purposes of God’s plan for us.