There are two pregnancy announcements in the opening pages of the book of Luke. Two announcements that, given their proximity to one another, Luke seems to want us to compare.

The first finds the angel Gabriel, descended from on high, speaking to a priest named Zechariah. This priest, we are told in chapter 1 verse 6 is as good and holy a man as could ever be found. He “observes the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.” So when he is chosen by lot - that is in the beliefs of the time chosen by God himself - to enter into the Temple while other believers were left outside to pray (verse 10), we reading are left thinking, Zechariah was a man who deserved this honour.

When Gabriel appears to Zechariah, the good and holy priest, we read shook with fear. But Gabriel comforted him, telling Zechariah that soon he would have a child. A son who would grow up to one day be the herald of God himself. This child would be the one to clear a path for the coming Messiah. To make clear the way for the Lord, just as Isaiah had foretold centuries before. To this amazing news, we read that Zechariah does not believe the angel. “My wife is too old to have a child,” is how he responds.

The second pregnancy announcement in the opening of Luke takes place a half-ish year later according to verse 26. In it, we meet a young girl, likely a teenager, engaged but not yet married, who almost certainly was not from a well-off family, though our reasons for thinking that come from later in the chapter. She is at home, going about her day when suddenly the same angel appears before her.

Mary’s meeting with Gabriel ends quite differently than Zechariah’s. “Greetings,” Gabriel calls out, “One who the Lord favours.” To this, while we read that Mary was concerned with the Angel’s words, It does not appear that she is scared as Zechariah was. And so Gabriel continues, telling Mary of how she would soon give birth, though she was a virgin, to a son who would be the son of God himself. Hearing this message, it is easy to understand why Mary was concerned. In her society, to be a poor, unwed, pregnant teenager was not an enviable position to find yourself in. It was in fact one that could quite often find you on the wrong side of being shamed out of your community. And yet Mary does not doubt. “I am the Lord’s servant”, is how she replies.

When we compare the two angelic pregnancy announcements in the opening chapter of Luke, in Zechariah’s story we find a man who is in every way an upstanding believer, yet is unable to believe the messenger of God. This is almost the complete opposite of Mary’s story, in which we are confronted with a young girl from circumstances no one at that time would envy in the slightest, but who nevertheless readily accepts what Gabriel has to tell her on the spot.

So what should be our takeaway be from this? I suspect there are a number of them, including a reminder that the marginalized and down and out of our society are who God is 100% all in for. Afterall, it is a young woman in an unenviable position that our Lord and Savior chose to call his mother. But I think there is another point to take from this comparison that those of us who have been believers for a while would do well to heed this Christmas season.

The choice to doubt God is one that we all must continue resisting to make. This goes no matter how mature a believer or how green to the faith you may be. While this may seem obvious to say, this comparison Luke makes I think sheds a light on one place where the new and young believers in our midst, the Mary’s if you will, may actually have a leg up on us old Zechariah’s who have been around the block a time or two.

Those of us who have followed God all our lives, I think develop more expectations about what God can and cannot do than we may realize. Expectations that come from that lifetime of lived experience. Zechariah, we are told, prayed for a child likely all his life. So when Gabriel told Zechariah that finally he would have a son, he doubted that could even be true. Because of course he did! Zechariah had a lifetime of experience to back up his doubts. A lifetime of prayers that had gone unanswered all telling him that this could not be done. That his wife was too old to have children was, to him likely was just the last nail in the coffin of this possibility. But of course, praise God, a child was born.

The young and the new to the faith, however, don’t have quite as much life experience to draw from to say what is and is not possible with God. That Mary is so quickly able to accept this miracle l think in part reflects that. This is not to take away from this young woman’s unbelievable faith and courage at accepting and living out this role set for her by God, but instead to recognize that in this decision there is more for us mature believers to seek to emulate than we may at first glance see.

So, for those of us who have been around the block, here is my takeaway. Spend time in prayer thinking about what you think is and is not possible for God. Having trouble seeing your blind spots? I suggest you spend some time talking with a young or new believer. There will be hesitations that you have that they do not that could shed light on hangups you have developed over the years.

In our church over the months to come, we are going through a time of refocusing on Christ. Great and life-giving time spent, especially following the hardships of the year gone by. If you want to do this as well, I suggest that you try this exercise on for size. Because you may very well find that any amount of work you do to refocus on the soon to come Messiah may come to a screeching halt if you don’t first work at removing the roadblocks that have caused your past attempts to go deeper with the Lord to come up short as well.

But what do you think? What other points would you take from the comparison of the two pregnancies announced in Luke? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.