Belmont University Advent GuideMuestra

The Bible bears witness to the truth that the Holy does not tend to show up in convenient ways or at convenient times. God consistently appears in or as an unexpected interruption to what a particular person or community considers ordinary.

In the Hebrew texts God chooses unlikely leaders and prophets, and proceeds to make terribly inconvenient requests of them—God’s choice of Moses, for example, is a disruption of the expected, since, among other things, Moses is not recorded as having possessed the typical qualities of a leader. The “I AM” communicates with Moses in a way that defies the typical operation of natural patterns at the burning bush, then asks him to leave his quiet, predictable life of shepherding in order to defy a Pharaoh.

In Christian scripture, God’s presence as Jesus or Spirit enters unexpected spaces in surprising ways, perhaps the most shocking of which is this: God is understood to have been birthed into the world through the body of an unmarried teenager. The divine presence repeatedly disrupts whatever is the status quo.

In today’s reading from the Gospel according to Luke, we are given another example of this divine disruption. God’s angel appears to poor old Zechariah, who seems to be simply trying to live out the rest of his years in relative peace, faithfully performing his priestly duties, leading a quiet life. The news Gabriel has for Zechariah is of the disruptive sort: Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, both very old, can expect a bundle of joy.

Understandably incredulous, Zechariah expresses confusion, only to be rewarded with temporary muteness! This is not really how God is supposed to show up. I can imagine Zechariah thinking, “This is terribly inconvenient!”

Perhaps Advent can be a time to practice once again the habit—that we might have lost sight of throughout the year—of looking for the presence of God in the most unexpected places and people. In what person, in what place, in what event is it difficult for me to see the Holy? Then that is precisely where I should look.

Beth Ritter-Conn
Lecturer in Religion