Christmas reveals what a servant’s heart is like …

Are you a servant of Jesus Christ?

To be a servant of Jesus would mean you would have a servant’s heart. What does that look like?

A servant’s heart is put on display for us by Luke in the first chapter of the Gospel he wrote. This servant’s heart is revealed in the telling of two stories, both of which feature a person who is visited by the angel Gabriel, who brings a different announcement of good news to each of them.

In the first story, Gabriel visits a man named Zechariah. Luke provides us with a brief background about this man, which is a sterling description of someone who was a servant of God in Luke’s time …

“When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member of the priestly order of Abijah, and his wife, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God’s eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive, and they were both very old,” Luke 1:5-7.

It was while Zechariah was serving God in the Temple that Gabriel appeared to him to deliver a remarkable message from God …

“While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar. Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him. But the angel said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John. You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. He must never touch wine or other alcoholic drinks. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. And he will turn many Israelites to the Lord their God. He will be a man with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and he will cause those who are rebellious to accept the wisdom of the godly,'” Luke 1:11-17.

For many years, Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth, had prayed that God would bless them with the ability to have children. But now they were old, and they may have even forgotten the last time they asked God for such a blessing. But God had heard their prayer, and had not forgotten. Instead, He had an amazing answer to their prayers that would come in His timing, not theirs. While they may have thought the time for child-bearing was long past, God was ready now to answer their prayer affirmatively, announcing that not only would Elizabeth have a child, but the son she would bear would be quite a fellow … he would be the Elijah-type forerunner of the Messiah!

As a priest, Zechariah had spent his life in service to the Lord. He and Elizabeth are described by Luke as being “… righteous in God’s eyes …,” these were real servants of the Lord! So their response to such a great blessing, delivered by an angel sent from God, would reveal to us what a servant’s heart really looks like, right?

Not in this case.

Zechariah may have been a weathered veteran priest, but that was no guarantee that he would respond to God’s message with the heart of a servant.

He didn’t.

Instead, the years had gotten the best of Zechariah. He no longer dreamed that God could bless him with a son, instead, he felt with a more worldly heart that would say he’s too old to become a father, and certainly Elizabeth was too old for childbirth. The hopes of having a family were mostly gone, and by now he and Elizabeth had likely learned to tune out the sneers of those who murmured about her barrenness, they had heard it all for too long to pay attention anymore.

In spite of being a servant of the Lord, and in spite of receiving incredible news presented by an angel sent by God, Zechariah didn’t receive the news with joy, or praise, or wonder, or awe … or faith. Instead, he doubted …

“Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How can I be sure this will happen? I’m an old man now, and my wife is also well along in years,'” Luke 1:18.

Zechariah’s response was not the expression of a servant’s heart. His doubt angered God’s holy messenger …

“Then the angel said, ‘I am Gabriel! I stand in the very presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring you this good news! But now, since you didn’t believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time,'” Luke 1:19-20.

Zechariah’s bio may have been what we would expect of someone we think of as a “servant of God,” but it may have been that his years of service had become so mechanical, so much of going through the motions, that he wasn’t responsive even to a message given straight from an angel. He was a righteous man, and “… careful to obey all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations …,” but his responsiveness to the wondrous ways of God had grown dim.

That isn’t what we see in the second story Luke tells in chapter one.

Gabriel would deliver a different announcement of good news to a teenage girl who didn’t have the sterling servant’s resume that Zechariah had. Her background was much simpler …

“In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David,” Luke 1:26-27.

There’s nothing impressive about that bio, in fact, the image of a teenager from Nazareth probably wouldn’t have stirred any respectable images in the minds of people in Luke’s time. But it was to Mary that Gabriel appeared with the other message God had sent him to present …

“Gabriel appeared to her and said, ‘Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!’ Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. ‘Don’t be afraid, Mary,’ the angel told her, ‘for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!'” Luke 1:28-33.

Mary had not been praying years, or decades, to have a child. She was just a teenager living in a rough little village and wasn’t even married yet. Suddenly hearing from an angel that she was going to have a baby who would be “… called the Son of the Most High …” would seriously complicate Mary’s life!

How would a teen from a tough town respond to news that her life was about to be turned upside down?

Not with doubt, but with wonder.

Her only question was to gain insight into what would obviously have to be a miracle …

“Mary asked the angel, ‘But how can this happen? I am a virgin.’ The angel replied, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For the word of God will never fail,'” Luke 1:34-37.

Are you ready to see what a servant’s heart looks like? Read Mary’s response to Gabriel and you’ll see it …

“Mary responded, ‘I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.’ And then the angel left her,” Luke 1:38

Mary’s response was one of simple faith and complete surrender to God’s will for her life. In fact, Luke would continue his narrative by telling of Mary hurrying a few days later to visit Elizabeth, where she would sing praise to God.

Even for righteous servants of the Lord, it can be all too easy to tire of waiting on the Lord; it can be easy to make obeying God something more mechanical than wonderful, and to become unresponsive to the wondrous ways of the Lord.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Mary reminds us of what a servant’s heart is like, that of living out a simple faith while fully surrendering our lives to God’s will for us.

That is what a servant’s heart looks like.

Are you a servant of Jesus Christ, with a servant’s heart for the Lord?

Scotty