Promise…Reality…Legacy

photo courtesy of Washington Post

Mary and Zechariah both learned something that I need to remember.  Patience, people!

Zechariah sees this angel, you know?  

Angel says, “Hey!  Zech!  Elizabeth’s pregnant!” 

Zechariah says, "My old Lizzie, she’s too old!"

Angel says, “God can do it, and God did.  She’s six months pregnant, dog!”

Zech says, “No way!  Can’t be!”

Angel says “Shut Uuuuuuuuuuup!” and old Zechariah, he shut up, all right, ‘cuz he can’t speak.  God thinks “Hmmmm…I gotta let this talker think some on this.

And so Zechariah thinks for three months, reflects on things, goes about his work in silence.  And by the time Elizabeth gives birth to a son three months later, Zech has changed his tune.  He’s changed his thinking, and adjusted his view.  He had opened his mind, and when Elizabeth’s body opened up and produced a son, Zechariah opened his mouth and pronounced his name: John.

Mary sees an angel too, and she says yes, and then her body is closed around the child forming in her, closed for nine months.  These days people get ultrasounds, and post fuzzy images on Facebook.  But then it was just mystery, just trust.  Nine months.  She had said yes to something that would change the world.  Her life changed.  But do you suppose that when the angel disappeared and she was alone again there in the recesses of her parents’ house, that she felt any change?  What about the next week?   I would have had doubts.

These weeks I’ve been working with a group of guys; talented, promising…and homeless.  Like the first homeless person I’d known in Detroit and thought I could “fix” when I saw how good he was, I have found myself suffering disappointment by what I see as a lack of progress.  This morning I came upon an article in the Washington Post about 79 Seat Pleasant Elementary School students.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/local/seat-pleasant-following-the-dreamers/?hpid=z2 The video is a great start; please watch it.  

But the three titles of the three articles are what helped me most. 

The Promise

The Reality

The Legacy

Mary and Zechariah waited, each in their own way, from the promise to the reality.  But just as they suffered the reality, the not-quite-as-I’d-hoped-or-imagined, and just as we do, you and I, all of us are held to discover the legacy only as it unfolds…and keeps unfolding, generation after generation.  Whether homelessness or salvation or family…patience, people!