Silence and then a heaping helping of weird

I have blogged before about certain situations and characters in the Bible that capture my imagination more than others. I think I found another one:

 how God chose to break the 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testaments.

 How strange it must have been for the nation of Israel to have had silence from God in those years. There is no doubt that God was at work. Even a cursory reading of the literature of the Apocrypha would reveal that. But no prophets in the land? That hadn't happened at any time in the Hebrew people's history until now. I can't imagine a dry time like that. Maybe I don't want to imagine it.

 But then things started to get weird. Gabriel - none other than Gabriel himself - was sent by God to visit Zechariah. Then dispatched to Mary. Oh to have been near the people that heard the news of the visitations! I can't imagine what they were thinking. They hadn't heard from God in so long and now, this time, this place, was pregnant with angelic activity and strange news. The strangest of news. The promise of miracles and the hope that this held. Could this be what the nation had been waiting for since the promise that God made to their father, Abraham?

 They had to wait a little longer for the shepherds' report, the magi's visit, and Anna's and Simeon's prophecy. They had to wait even longer for John's baptism and the revelation through him that Jesus was sent to rescue all of humanity from our sins. But what a strange time it must have been - when God chose to break his silence with a thunderous whisper that must have rang in the ears of the faith filled.

 The whisper that rings in my ears to this day and will never, ever cease.

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