Did you ever notice that sometimes you get hit in the head with a particular principle or teaching over and over again? That seems to be happening to me this week. Today, as I continued preparing for next week’s Sunday School lesson, I studied Luke 1:18-25. I was particularly impressed Zacharias questioned the angel who came to tell him that he and his wife would have a child.
Let’s take a quick look at the circumstances which surrounded this announcement. Zacharias had been called to serve in the temple. As a descendent of Aaron, he passed that same priesthood on to his son, John, enabling the younger man to baptize Christ. His priesthood also meant that he had temple responsibilities. Bruce R. McConkie tells us,
With his fellow priests, he then drew lots, as was the custom, so that each of the sons of Aaron serving that week might be assigned his duties. There was one service, favored above all others, that a priest to whose lot it fell might perform but once in a lifetime. It was the burning of incense on the alter of incense in the Holy Place, near the Holy of Holies where the very presence of Jehovah came on occasion. And, lo, this time the lot fell to Zacharias; he was chosen of the Lord to perform the great mediatorial service in which the smoke of the incense, ascending to heaven, would symbolize the prayers of all Israel ascending to the divine throne.
So Zacharias stood in the most sacred room of the temple, in a place where God himself at times appeared. Like the celestial room in the temples today, surely this was a place where the Holy Ghost could strongly impress a person. Zacharias, as a man who was “righteous before God… (who) walk(ed) in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly” (Luke 1:6), would have prepared himself for the temple experience. Surely when the messenger from God appeared, the circumstances enabled the Holy Ghost bore a strong testimony.
The angel Gabriel (also known as Elias [D&C 27:6-7] and Noah [Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pg 157]) then appeared to Zacharias as he performed his duties. He proclaimed that John and Elisabeth’s prayers had been heard, and they would have a son, a son who would go before Christ and prepare the way of his coming.
Zacharias’ response? “Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is well stricken in years.” In other words, he asked for a sign, something we know to be a big no-no. Gabriel then performed a sign; he struck Zacharias mute for the nine months it took for Elisabeth to carry the child to term.
Zacharias, it seemed, was not ‘quick to observe’. When an angel appeared before him, when the Spirit surely strongly impressed him as to the truth of Gabriel’s words, he still doubted. While we may not have angels visit us in our daily life or our temple visits, the Holy Ghost will strongly impress us as to the things that we need to do. We ignore these things at our own spiritual peril.
Related Articles:
Sunday Review: Quick to Observe
RS/EQ: Ye Ought ‘Not Procrastinate the Day of Your Repentence’
General Conference: “Discipleship”