Gabriel at your door

What would you do if the angel Gabriel came to your door? Would you answer it? Now the reason I ask you these questions is quite simple. Gabriel is mentioned as telling both Mary and the couple Zechariah and Elizabeth that they were to have a baby in impossible circumstances. Now most of us know the Nativity story – the birth of Jesus. But before Gabriel went to Mary he was sent by God to Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. Now I asked this question to some friends as we looked at Jesus birth and what was happening around the time of his birth. What would you do if the angel Gabriel came to your door? Would you answer it? My friends are like me and have husbands and children; a couple of them even have up to seven children. The agreed method to deal with Gabriel was to shut the door in his face and hide. Now if we did not have any children we would gratefully accept him into our houses and praise the Lord that he wanted to bless us so much.

What else that is interesting when you read up about Gabriel in the bible (Luke 1) is the difference in the way the women responded to Gabriel to their male partners. Mary and Elizabeth understood this was the working of God and happily took on the role God wanted them to do; even if Mary was a little bit afraid and unsure at first. Zechariah did not believe Gabriel about his wife Elizabeth coming pregnancy and ended up not being able to tell anyone what had occurred until John was born. Joseph a righteous man had to have an angel appear to him in a dream to marry Mary; before the dream he was trying to figure out a way to not marry her (Matthew 1:18-24).

God definitely works in mysterious ways. So I ask you again - What would you do if the angel Gabriel came to your door? Would you answer it?






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