Rocked In Role.

Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. (Luke 1:8-12)

It seems as if Zechariah was not expecting to have a Divine encounter in the temple of the Lord.

I wonder how many of us, particularly those of us who are ministry leaders, share Zechariah's plight. We keep the customs of our faith. We carry out the directives of God concerning what we do in God's house (and how we do it). We follow the script: we sing, we preach, we play instruments, we usher, we dance, we do "our thing"... then after we have done "our thing", we leave. It's just another service, come and gone, and we've executed our office. It's so routine that we can practically do it in our sleep... but are we working with the expectation of encountering the Divine?

In yesterday's sermons, Pastor Sam spoke of the Divine drama involving the priest Zechariah and the archangel Gabriel. And, if I may be frank and transparent, our pastor's sermon rocked me. It was as if he had reached into the core of Christian service and pulled out the ugliest of partners, two things that should never travel together: diligence and doubt.

The great irony of Luke 1 is that Zechariah, according to the text, is actively engaged in doing precisely the sort of thing that would cause Gabriel to show up. Zechariah's task was to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. We are told in Revelation chapters 5 and 8 that incense is representative of the prayers of the saints, the people of God throughout the ages. And we see in Daniel chapters 8 and 9 (and Luke 1) that Gabriel is the angel God sent to speak to His chosen servants, giving them clear revelation of the plan of God.

So, this year, Bronx Bethany has the theme Engaging Transformational Prayer... Experiencing Transformational Provision. But what does it mean when we lift up our prayers to God without expecting Him to answer?

Pastor Sam shared two points concerning this twinned specter of diligence and doubt. The diligent doubter says:

• Lord, I love and serve You faithfully, but deep in my heart I think You're incompetent. You can't do what I've asked.
• Lord, I love and serve You consistently, but deep in my heart I believe You are uncommitted. You won't do what I've asked. 

In other words, God, I'll do these rituals, but I don't trust You to sustain me. That was the error of Zechariah. Amazingly, God in His great mercy proceeded to answer the prayer of Zechariah's heart, even as He meted out discipline to chastise Zechariah for his unbelief.

What about us? Do we expect God to break in as we carry out our work of worship? Or are we simply going through the motions, not really looking for His appearing?