New Year: Luke 1 for Oct 27

What is God doing? In Luke 1 God's dramatic work immediately prior to the births of Jesus and John the Baptist is given in great detail.

It's tempting to put Zacharias in a bad light, and Elizabeth in a contrasting light, because of the comment of Zacharias in 1:18 versus the comment of Elizabeth in 1:45. But Luke does not allow that generalization (1:6). In fact, Zacharias is not only the father of John the Baptist who "will be called a prophet" (1:76), but himself speaks prophecy (1:67), the final one before Christ's birth in Luke 2.

Zacharias's words (1:68-79) are not even all, or mostly, about his own son John. Some are (1:76-77), but they're mostly about what the meaning of those times are for Israel. Zacharias "was filled with the Holy Spirit" (1:67). Thus also Elizabeth, before she spoke (1:41). John the Baptist himself, "while yet in his mother's womb" (1:15), the same.

The angel speaks something to Mary (1:35) that thousands of years of theology about the Incarnation have not bettered.