When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." (Luke 1:12-17) An ordinary day at the temple worship service.  Folks are going through the motions of talking to God, like they usually do.  Usually: nothing much happens.  No one really expects anything to happen.  Or if they do, they expect it to come slowly through small and subtle shifts.   Over long years of ordinary faithfulness: how many prayers had been prayed here at this Temple?  Over those same long, ordinary years of faithfulness, how many prayers had Zechariah prayed?  Even without many high expectations or mountaintop experiences of answered prayer: they all kept praying anyway.  Kept talking with God.  Kept asking, seeking, and knocking.  Prayers, like incense, continued to rise to heaven. They asked for small, ordinary personal things like daily bread, a good day at work, the words to say the next time they met their neighbour.  They asked for hard, intimate things like healing, reconciliation within their divided families, for children who had walked away from the faith, or for new life to come out of barrenness and death.  Sometimes they asked for the really big things too: for God to save their people, their country, their land.  Their prayers, like incense, continued to rise to heaven.   Usually: nothing much happens aside from the slow, small, and patient work of God.  But on this rare day, something big really did.  The angel appeared next to the alter of incense, that embodiment of the prayers of God's people, assured this frightened old man who suddenly stood in the presence of glory that he was ok, and then spoke incredible words.  "Your prayer has been heard," the angel said.   The small personal prayers had been heard for joy and delight to enter into their small and ordinary days.  The hard prayers had been heard for life being birthed out of barrenness, and for reconciliation in families, and for wayward children to come home to God.  Even the really big prayers of turning the nation back to it's Lord and God had been heard. God would answer all these prayers in the gift of John, whose name means "gift" or "grace of God".  A small baby to be born into Zechariah and Elizabeth's small and homely family.  A small dose of healing and redemption to be injected into the hardened and hopeless hearts of Israel.  It would not be complete healing or redemption.  But, the many prayers of God's people and even particularly of old Zechariah, had been heard.  The grace of God was coming, and with it, rejoicing.   It doesn't always seem like our prayers are heard, but every now and then the thin veneer separating earth and heaven is pealed back and we remember that in big ways or small, through slow means or sudden: the grace of God is still at work.   So, as Pastor Michael encouraged yesterday, so I encourage you again today: as you go about the ordinary events of the day—accompany them with prayer.  Let those prayers rise like incense.  And keep your eyes expectantly peeled, because God's gifts of grace still pop up in unexpected places bringing joy and delight today. Though you walk in darkness, may you see the great light. Though you live in a land of deep shadows—may you see light! sunbursts of light! May God increase your life, expand your joy. May you be glad in his presence! May God give you the joy of a great celebration, sharing rich gifts and warm greetings (cf. Isaiah 9:2-3 MSG).  

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