Daily Bible Reading 2nd March 2026 // Luke 1:5-17
5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
8 Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. 11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. 12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
But an even more sinister consequence has emerged in modern society, through the loss of the supernatural. Man is made for God, and God has set eternity in his heart. He therefore needs the eternal, the supernatural, and when this materialistic and rationalistic age has denied him this, in its denial of the supernatural, man turns elsewhere for the satisfaction of this need in him. Two things have flowed directly from this: people - especially young people - have turned to the drug scene to find an answer to this supernatural dimension in their souls. A whole cult has emerged in our day in which drugs are taken to induce religious experience. The other thing is that people are turning increasingly to astrology and black magic, which again offer the supernatural that their souls crave and were made for. The tragedy is, however, that there is an evil supernaturalism as well as good; and when the good is withheld, it is the evil that draws men, and will even destroy them. It is certainly no accident that it is our modern, rationalistic, scientific age that has been the one to see the resurgence of unhallowed and sinister practices, not only among adults but also among young people, not excluding school children. The only adequate answer to all this is the recovery and proclamation of a thoroughgoing supernaturalism in the Church's message to the world. And it is to this that the angelic visitants in the Christmas narrative bear witness.