When God became man: The promise to a priest

"It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord" (Luke 1:17).

After hundreds of years of no revelation from God to His people, the angel Gabriel spoke to a frightened priest in the temple. This priest, Zacharias, and his wife Elizabeth were not only childless but without any realistic hope of becoming parents because of their age.

That changed when Gabriel told Zacharias his wife would not only bear a son to be named John but this miracle child would be a great man with a great mission -- to go before the Messiah and to prepare the people for His coming. God had again spoken. His promises from long ago were about to be fulfilled. A miraculous reproduction would prepare the way for an even more miraculous birth.