Two miracle babies are promised in the first chapter of Luke. Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, have mostly similar experiences with one big difference.  Both are visited by the angel Gabriel.  Both are afraid and are told not to fear.  Both are given similar news that a baby is in their future and they are told the name of the baby even before conception.  Both have questions for the angel.  The big difference is that Mary believed Gabriel and Zechariah didn’t.

Zechariah asks the angel in verse 18: “How shall I know this?  For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.”  Mary asks a comparable question in verse 34: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”  But the old man is struck dumb “because you did not believe my words” (verse 20) while Mary is commended by her cousin Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her” (verse 45).

Mary believed two things:  She was not going to be with a man (she was not married and was not going to sin), and she was going to conceive (the angel said so).  Her question was a wondering how this was going to happen.  The tone is reminiscent of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac.  He knew two things:  He would sacrifice Isaac (God told him to) and Isaac was to be his heir (God promised).  “He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” (Hebrews 11.19).

Zechariah, in the earlier episode, was asking for a sign.  His unbelief is like that of Gideon who actually asked for two “fleece” signals in Judges 6. Or like the Pharisees who asked Jesus for a “sign” of his divinity.  Zechariah’s faith was full when his son John was born, and he blessed God in the prophecy in verses 68-79.  But he was not convinced by the mighty angel’s initial announcement, and it was reckoned to him as temporary unbelief.

So faith and belief are internal and not immediately discerned by statements or actions.  As Hebrews, says, they are “an assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11.1). Our hard, natural, worldly, sinful hearts do not want to believe.  It takes a miracle to soften and save our whole being so that a believer can see, hear, understand, and know the truth of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  And from the examples of Zechariah and Mary, such belief does not always happen at the same pace.