Christmas and Work: When God Interrupts Our Work

Our work matters to God because he made us to be workers and instructed us to work each day, except for the seventh day of rest. We glorify God through our ordinary work when we offer ourselves to him for his purposes.

Yet, there are times when God does special things in the context of our work and we would be wise to pay attention to these. Consider the case of the priest Zechariah, for example. He was visited by an angel on the most important workday of his life — the day he was chosen to minister in the holy place of the Jerusalem temple (Luke 1:8).

Now, we may not think of the temple as a workplace, but rather as an unusually sacred site. Yet, for the priests who served in the temple, it was clearly a place of hard work. The Theology of Work Bible Commentary on Luke 1 observes: “While we may not be accustomed to thinking of the temple as a place of labor, the priests and Levites there were engaged in butchery (the sacrificial animals did not kill themselves), cooking, janitorial work, accounting, and a wide variety of other activities.”

What happened to Zechariah as he was burning incense in the temple was not ordinary. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. An angel appeared to him, revealing that his elderly wife would give birth to a son. When Zechariah disbelieved the angel’s promise, the priest became unable to speak until the day of his son’s birth. Nevertheless, God did as the angel had foretold, and Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth did give birth to a son, the person we know as John the Baptist.

I wonder if Zechariah responded as he did to the angel, in part, because he was so focused on his work that he was not prepared to be interrupted by God. Maybe I’m reading too much of myself into this story. The truth is that I can concentrate so completely on my work that I can easily miss God’s interruptions. Perhaps you can relate.

This story from Luke 1 reminds us that God can and will interrupt our ordinary lives, including our work. May we be ready, attentive to God’s surprises, whether they come in the form of an angel, or the whisper of the Spirit, or the news of a friend in need.