Our family lit the first candle of Advent the day after a mass shooting claimed four lives a mere mile from our house.

My husband, a law enforcement officer, had been on scene, ripping open clothing, searching for bullet holes, and assisting inundated paramedics. He worked fourteen hours, slept, and headed back to work to relieve the graveyard deputies. He made it home just in time for Sunday dinner.

We sat huddled around the table, bellies full and hearts heavy, in the glow of one candle: husband, wife, our four children, and one more teenager we lovingly refer to as our “bonus kid.” Opening up Luke’s gospel to chapter one, we read about an angel appearing to Zechariah, promising that his wife, Elizabeth, would have a baby who would prepare the way for the Savior. Shortly afterward, the angel also appeared to Mary, telling her she would bear a child as a virgin—a baby who would be the Savior of the world.

I asked the table, “What is the difference between Zechariah's and Mary’s responses to their promises?”

Bonus Kid pointed out Zechariah’s doubting.

“But what about Mary’s question?” I asked. “She questioned the angel, too.”

We looked at their responses again.

Zechariah: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (v.18).

Mary: “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (v.34).

I’ve heard it put before that Mary’s question is a matter of logistics. How can a virgin conceive? Solid question. But so is Zechariah’s. How does a post-menopausal woman conceive? Another solid question.

In both cases, the angel proceeds to explain. Based on the angel’s response to Zechariah, “. . . because you did not believe my words” (v.20), the angel was privy to the state of his heart. Zechariah doubted God’s promises. Conversely, the angel explains to Mary what would happen, and Mary’s response was full of faith: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (v.38).

The difference between their responses is a heart issue.

We aren’t given the reasons for Zechariah’s doubt, but there are clues. Elizabeth was called barren. Even Mary knows this about her relative (v.36). Zechariah’s hope had been worn down through all the years of praying and waiting for a child. He couldn’t even recognize the possibility of hope when an angel appeared before him to proclaim it. An angel!

Three days after the violent shooting, my husband was at another gruesome scene. I’ll spare you the news headlines. It felt like too much in one week for anyone, even a deputy who signed up for this. Add this to the regular life sorrows of the past months, and this season feels especially dark. Grief casts a long shadow.

Perhaps you are living in the shadowlands, too.

The older we get, the more prone we become to Zechariah’s heart posture. We get salty—and not in the salt and light kind of way. Grumpy. Jaded. Disillusioned.

Mary, however, was still young in this story. Most historians estimate her to be between thirteen and sixteen. She had not lived long enough to have her heart broken a thousand different times and ways. She did not know what it was like to wait for something for twenty-five-plus years, only to watch her body become too old for that dream to materialize.

If you are like me, living in these middle years, can I look knowingly into your haunted eyes from the depth of my own? We’ve seen some things. Our hearts have been broken. We’ve waited and waited and waited on something. We’ve lamented our broken cities and a world where someone can storm into a two-year-old's birthday party and murder three children and one young man. Maybe we rage against it and demand change. Maybe we weep. Maybe we resign ourselves to it. Maybe we make plans to move to a little farmstead in the country. We’ve sighed big sighs and shed big tears. We think we know how this world works. And we don’t like it.

Yet, we are nearing the end of the Advent season. We’re about to celebrate the arrival of Jesus. Many traditions assign the first week of Advent to hope and have already moved on by this time in the season. But let me ask you this: How is your hope, friend? Are you going through the motions of the Christmas season? Are you heavy and burdened? Are you full of joy? Joy is a good gauge of our hope because joy is the product of a sure hope. I want that kind of joy. I want to see my beat-up hope restored. Maybe you do, too.

I think of our Christmas traditions: carols and hot cocoa and the living room aglow with twinkle lights. I see the wild, untamed joy of my youngest kids—padding into our bedroom with footie jammies and bedhead hair: “Wake up! Christmas is here!”

I think of young Mary in the joys of youth—like a balloon lifted off the ground with the helium of dreams and potential—to whom the angel says, “Nothing is impossible with God,” and she believes it.

This is the childlike wonder and curiosity we must return to. This is what Zechariah forgot. This is what we must remember. Even here in this shadowland.

Especially here in the shadowland.

After Zechariah is told that Elizabeth will conceive regardless of her age, he learns he will be unable to speak until his promised son is born. I’ve always viewed this as a punishment for Zechariah’s unbelief. But what if God, in his infinite wisdom and deep care for Zechariah’s heart, gifts him with exactly what he needs to restore his hope?

God didn’t only gift Zechariah with silence; he gifted him with anticipation. His was a joy he got to tuck into his cheek and savor like a lemon drop for nine long months as he watched his wife’s belly swell and felt his son’s kicks against the womb. His words, moving from doubt to tentative hope, were given inwardly to God alone, who knew his heart better than he did.

Zechariah had tried out hope before. He’d done the waiting thing. He’d done it for years. Ultimately, in his own strength, his hope was reduced to doubt. This waiting was different. God gave Zechariah a promise he could hold onto—and time to sit in silent awe and wonder along with it. Zechariah got to be like a child in joyful anticipation of Christmas morning. There was a giant gift awaiting him. An angel of the Lord told him so.

Friend. Your waiting is also attached to a promise from God.

Christ is coming back. All will be set right. God even put a down payment on that promise in the shed blood of Jesus. Christ is our guarantee. God took on flesh and cameto us. He gave us everything we need in his first advent through his death and resurrection. Our hope is sure. Great joy awaits us. God has told us so.