Old Zechariah hit the jackpot. He won the lottery. His one in 20,000 chance paid off. He got a once in a lifetime opportunity to enter the Holy of Holies where God is so real you can touch, feel, and taste him. He gets the privilege to celebrate that high priestly function. There, while burning incense to kill the smell of sin, Old Zechariah slipped in another prayer—a prayer of the heart, the hunger of the soul—a haunting question of a lifetime. He'd prayed it thousands of times before. It was the prayer of every Jewish man. It was a question really. “Why, O God, have Elizabeth and I remained childless?" That's when it happened. Zechariah got a nine-month sentence to silence.

I. SILENCE. At first it seemed like a curse of life.

Sometimes we are stunned to silence. Zechariah is stunned t…