I only met my great grandfather a handful of times. He was a sweet man, and my most vivid memory is riding with him, his wife, and two little dogs in his huge conversion van. That memory is a whisp in my consciousness. I know it happened, but it hardly feels real. I was with him but I never truly knew him. My dad can recount stories that help me feel like I knew him, but in the end, those words are held up by his experience not my own. With each passing generations people, words, and experiences, grow fainter as they slip into the backdrop of passing time. We are both forever connected to the past, but disembodied from its memory so that the implications of promises made and actions taken, seem to conjure without warning. Until suddenly, we meet the past as a familiar stranger who is at the same time unmistakable but difficult to recognize.

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This paradox plagued Israel for 400 years. The final prophetic words left Malachi’s mouth generations ago. He promised to send someone who would pave the way for the Messiah and who would;

 

 "And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

 

Malachi 4:6 (NKJV)

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For generations this prophecy stood at a distance, each new generation pointing to it as a source of hope in the midst of a harsh reality. But as time passed, generations grew hoarse  and the vision of hope was crowded out by the empire Rome was building. But the promise was ever present. Like a seed dormant in soil waiting for the right time to bloom.

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Then a priest named Zechariah who held tightly to the hope of this prophecy became the first to see the seedling come to life. He was an old man, that had earnestly prayed for children but was never afforded them and he would bring Christmas’ other child into the world.

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"But the angel said to him, 'Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.'”

 

Luke 1:13-17 (NKJV)

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Zacharias would be struck dumb—not as punishment, but as mercy. His excitement would have overwhelmed his self-discipline and the time was close but hadn’t quite arrived. So, he silently monitored the birth of two promises. For months, Zechariah would watch the slow evidence of God’s faithfulness grow quietly in Elizabeth’s womb. He watched the glow emanate from his wife as she told him that Mary had visited and her child leapt inside her.

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He shed tears of joy as he scribbled down the child’s name, John.

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He worshipped in joy when he received his voice and proclaimed to all who would listen that Israel stood on the precipice of fulfilled prophecy.

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 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
To give knowledge of salvation to His people
By the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

 

Luke 1:76-79

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This is how God so often works.

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What feels sudden to us has been patiently unfolding all along. What surprises our hearts has long been settled in heaven. We stumble into joy as if it has just arrived, unaware that God has been preparing it through years of silence, prayer, and ordinary faithfulness.

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It is part of our human nature to sing in silence for the hope our souls long for. We cover our vulnerability with a veneer of self-reliant cynicism, busyness, and apathy, yet beneath it all our hearts ache to be surprised by joy.

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Advent teaches us to live in that space.

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We wait, sometimes unsure whether the promises we’ve inherited are still alive. We grow weary when hope feels more like a memory than a reality. And then—without warning—God brings the past forward and meets us with fulfillment that feels both unmistakable and strangely new.

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In a world laced with cynicism, heaven sings.
Nature sings.
And even the human soul sings that:

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Hope is not naïve.
God is not silent.
Joy is on its way.