Steve Lindsley
(Luke 1: 5-20; Isaiah 2: 1-5)

When I started seminary, I lived for the summer with some friends in their spare bedroom.  Their apartment was in Vinings, outside Atlanta, up I-75 in the far northwestern corner of the city.  The seminary was way over in Decatur, due east of Atlanta.  It wasn’t an ideal commute, but the place was free so I wasn’t complaining.

The first time or two to the seminary, I took the interstate down into town and then hung a left on Ponce de Leon, which led right into Decatur.  On paper it looked pretty straightforward and simple, but if you’ve ever driven in Atlanta you know very little is straightforward and simple.  Just under fifteen miles the trip was – and yet, in the horror that is Atlanta rush hour traffic, it took me nearly an hour to drive it.  And most of the time my car was just sitting still in the road.

So one night I got out the map – this was before the days of Google Maps and GPS, mind you – I got out an actual paper map and unfolded it and started looking for another route.  And I found a string of neighborhood roads, winding through Buckhead and Lindbergh and down into Morningside and Emory Village.  It still took me the same hour to get to the seminary. So why did this become my go-to route for the rest of the summer?  Simple.  I was moving.  It was nearly a third more miles, but I was totally okay with that.  Because I was moving.  And that made all the difference.

Truth is I, like most people I know, do not like to wait.  To paraphrase a well-known song: what is it good for?  Absolutely nothing. Say it again….

Our scripture today, if you didn’t notice, is chopped full of all kinds of waiting; this odd little story of the priest Zechariah and wife Elizabeth, and how the pregnancy of John the Baptist came to be.  Zechariah and Elizabeth had been waiting – waiting for a child, waiting a long, long time for a child.  The people of God also were waiting – waiting for Zechariah to emerge from the sanctuary where he’d gone to offer incense to God.  This is what the priest would do from time to time, when the people were feeling like they hadn’t heard from God in a while and were tired of – you guessed it – waiting.  One of the priests would be chosen by lot, by chance; and sent into the temple by themselves to offer incense and receive a vision from God. Of course, this vision didn’t happen instantaneously, so the priest would have to wait for it.  And the people as well, waiting outside the temple, waiting for their beloved priest to emerge with a good word. 

Can you imagine if this were how sermons went?  We all gather here in the sanctuary, sing hymns, pray some prayers, read some scripture; and then Grace or me, back in the library, lighting some incense and waiting for a sermon to come.  And you all out here, just sitting in the pews during that time, doing whatever you do when you’re waiting for a sermon in church.  I don’t think that’d work out well for either of us!

But here – here, Zechariah is doing his waiting in the temple when the angel Gabriel appears.  This terrifi