Rev. C.V Symon-Marthoma Church Convention
Your Prayer Has Been Heard
“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 his name John.’” (Luke 1:13 NIV)

We have a pre-Christmas story in the account of the birth of John the Baptist, the messenger that was to come before the Messiah. In the gospel of Luke, we read that John’s parents, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were descendants of Aaron and righteous in the sight of God. When Luke picks up the story, they were childless, because Elizabeth was barren. But there was another obstacle to their having a child at that point in their lives: the Bible says that they were both very old. How interesting to read, then, that as Zechariah ministered as a priest before the Lord, he was visited by an angel, who told him that Elizabeth would bear a son. And here’s the part that should be encouraging to us all as believers: The angel told Zechariah that his prayer had been heard.

What? When did Zechariah pray this prayer? And did he tell anyone about it? Had he even shared it with his wife? Common sense would tell us that Zechariah’s prayer for a child had to have been uttered many years before. Certainly he would not be praying this way once he and his wife had gotten old. So Zechariah’s prayer had been heard! It had not evaporated into the air! And in God’s own timing, Zechariah was receiving an answer to that prayer.

How encouraging that is for us today! Our prayers don’t go away! God hears them, and he treasures them. You may wonder then why he waits to answer some of our prayers. Why did he wait to answer Zechariah’s plea? God waited until the situation was so impossible in the natural that all glory had to go to him as Zechariah’s prayer was answered. Not only was Elizabeth barren, but she was too old to bear a child. Yet she was to have a child in answer to the prayer of her husband many years before, and the whole town was abuzz with the news. Furthermore, this child was going to be “the voice of one calling in the wilderness” as a fulfilment of a prophecy that had been spoken hundreds of years before. Only God could do that!