I had decided earlier this year that I'd work through the New Testament for my quiet time, and this morning arrived at the beginning of Luke. A nice, orderly account, complied so Theophilus, and then of course we, would know exactly what went down. Maybe that introduction helped focus my attention as I started reading, but for some reason two little words stood out in Luke "can" and "will". They've got me thinking about imagineering.
We think of imagineering with Disney in front of it although it was Alcoa in the 1940's that made the word, for a time, a household phrase. Wherever it came from it's a wonderful word. It breathes creativity, the idea of stepping beyond the boundaries, of achieving so much more, imagination constantly expanding beyond itself - the thing we had as children and lost along the way. Who wasn't a super man or super woman in their childish imagination?
And God, or a least God's right hand angel Gabriel, is not happy about our lack of imagineering. If Gabriel had his way we'd all spend most of our lives silenced, not allowed to speak, muted. When Gabriel says "Shut Up!" to Zechariah he's not exclaiming incredulity - I think Gabriel would always speak what's hip to today's generation - he is literally telling Zechariah to "Zip It!!" because Zech, I'm feeling a lot of empathy for Zechariah just now, Zech has lost the ability to imagineer.
If I haven't lost you already, here's where I'm going with this. Zech says in response to Gabriel's message to him "How can this be?", opposed to Mary's response "How will this be?" Zech has lost his imagineering, he can't even conceive of the idea of conceiving. It's clear that being childless is not what they imagined when he and Elizabeth married. Now that he has the one thing they've missed in their married life offered to him he's going to squelch it with all the reasons it can't happen. He's going to turn off the very idea of it. He is going to kill it... If he keeps going, so Gabriel says "Shut Up!" and makes sure that Zech can't foul it up before it's an accomplished fact.
Mary on the other hand, her mind is already, as soon as Gabriel tells her, filled with the reality of the child she'll carry. She is asking, "How will it happen?" because she sees it already accomplished. Her imagineering is still fully functional. Gabriel clearly encourages imagineering when he reminds Mary "For nothing will be impossible with God" (Luke 1:37 NET)
Crank up your imagineering, begin again today imagining what will be possible with God! We don't need to see how it can be done, only imagine and let God create.
