Zechariah and the Angel

I made an interesting discovery recently. I was reading through the book of Acts where Paul is before the Sanhedrin (the Jewish council). Paul announces that he is there because of his hope in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6). Then in verse 8 it says, "for the Sadducees say there is no resurrection or angels or spirits, but the Pharisees believe in all of these."

What the Bible never tells us (because most of its original readers would know it already) is that the priests were Sadducees. Being just a few days before Christmas, my mind went to the story of Zechariah the priest. Recounted in the first chapter of Luke, Zechariah has gone into the sanctuary of the Lord to burn incense. Verse 12 says that Zechariah was "shaken and overwhelmed" The angel Gabriel tells him that even in their old age, he and his wife Elizabeth will become the parents of the "Voice crying out in the wilderness," prophesied centuries before by Isaiah to be the forerunner of the Savior. Namely, he was to become the father of John the Baptist. Verse 18 has Zechariah saying to Gabriel, "How can I be sure this will happen?"

I've always thought, "What a strange question. Here an angel is telling him this, and he still wants more proof. What could be more trustworthy than the announcement of an angel?" Gabriel seems to have thought so too, as he scolds Zechariah and then strikes him deaf and mute until the baby is born. But that was always my other problem with the story. It always seemed to me an excessively harsh punishment for a momentary lapse in Zechariah's faith. Verse 6 has already told us that Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God's eyes.

But it all came together for me when I read the story of Paul before the Sanhedrin. Zechariah was a righteous man, but he lacked one thing. He was a Sadducee. Sadducees did not believe in angels. Even as Gabriel was speaking to Zechariah, the good priest was incredulous. His line of thinking must have been "Angels do not exist. Therefore I must not be seeing an angel. I must be hallucinating. But what if it is real? This experience could come and go, and I'll never know if it was real or a figment of my imagination. And what of my colleagues? They'll laugh me out of Jerusalem if I tell them I saw an angel. I can hear it now. 'You talked to an angel? Yeah, and I dined with the Emperor last night!' I know; I'll ask it for a sign. Then when it doesn't happen, I can go back to not believing in angels again."

That's why Gabriel struck him deaf and mute. So that, not just he, but everyone involved would know that his experience was real.

The Christmas season has now come and gone. Our family spent most of it in the US where petty squabbles like whether I should greet my neighbor saying "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" never seem to end.

An interesting difference between Americans and Costa Ricans is that in nearly ten years of living there I have never met a single atheist among them. I have only heard one Tico say they did not believe in a personal God but only in a "cosmic force" (and that person was mentally ill!). "Feliz Navidad" is still the accepted greeting.

So why does Costa Rica need missionaries?

1. Missionaries from countries like the US provide specialization in less-developed areas than Costa Rica has, like Celebrate Recovery, proficiency in English, and theological training. For exmaple, Costa Rica does not need Americans to evangelize their prostitutes. They can do that just fine on their own. What I can offer them, however, is training in Celebrate Recovery to help folks get out of prostitution. Once they have that, they won't need American missionaries for it anymore.

2. Missionaries can do work that others cannot do from an economic standpoint. It does not make good economic sense to do what we've done in Tejarcillos: Spend time with the people over a period of ten years, lead maybe a dozen of them to Christ, and train up a couple of high school dropouts to do children's ministry. Yet that's what we've done over the years, and those two leaders now have a burgeoning children's ministry along with various discipling relationships among the people. I just read today that Jim Zorn was fired as coach of the Washington Redskins because he hadn't built a winning team after two years. I'm sure glad Tejarcillos isn't the NFL and that God is such a patient team owner!

3. Central and South America have long legacies of political instability. Even now, the Sandinistas are back in power to the north in Nicaragua, and the coup controversy in Honduras has yet to be resolved. Costa Rica has had a stable democracy for more than 60 years. Therefore, it has become a centralized location for learning Spanish, theological training (including online seminaries), and as a headquarters for ministries to the rest of Latin America.

4. Finally, like Zechariah, the Ticos believe in God, but too few have had a real experience with Him. Luke 1:6 says that Zechariah and Elizabeth were "careful to obey all of the Lord's commandments and regulations." To most Costa Ricans, religion is a matter of obeying commandments and regulations. Seeing the futility in this, they gave up on it long ago. Someone must show them the Living Christ and how to know Him personally as Lord and Savior.