And the angel said to Zechariah, “Do not be afraid. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.” Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her years.” The angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. My words will be fulfilled at their proper time. But listen to me. Since you did not believe my words, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things come to pass.” Luke 1:13, 18-20

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was very perplexed at this statement, and was pondering what kind of greeting this was. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.” Luke 1:26-31

Gabriel, whose name means ‘God is my strength’, is no run-of-the-mill angel. Here he was assigned the crucial role of preparing Zechariah and Mary for the miracle of the first Advent. The birth of John the Baptizer and of Jesus the Christ. The gravity of God’s incarnation as a baby in a manger necessitated that Gabriel deliver the messages clearly and lovingly so that God’s plan would be properly set into motion.

Interestingly, Gabriel showed up some 550 years earlier in the Old Testament to advise Daniel (Chapters 8 and 9) that the vision Daniel had seen was what would happen at the end of days, which will be Jesus’s second coming.

Advent is a season of commemoration of Christ’s first coming and the anticipation of His second coming. Taken from the Latin adventus (coming, arrival, invasion), Advent proclaims the coming of Christ in two ways: it celebrates His long-awaited arrival as Messiah over 2,000 years ago, and it anticipates His imminent return as King of kings and Lord of lords. Christians often speak of Christ’s “first advent” and “second advent”; that is, His first and second comings to earth. His first advent was His birth in Bethlehem (the Incarnation) that we celebrate as Christmas. In 2025, Advent begins on November 30th and runs through Christmas Eve December 24th. This year our Advent focus is on supporting players in the Christmas story: Zechariah, Elizabeth, John, Gabriel, Augustus, Herod, the Innkeeper, Simeon and Anna.