I love Zechariah's reaction to seeing the angel in the temple.
To fully appreciate it, you probably need to have read the rather long rather mundane laws that governed priesthood found in Leviticus. Convenient, I know.
Anyway, there were bells tied into the garments that the priests wore. The whole point was to make sure that when the priest went in he didn't die. Remember, there were a crap ton of laws surrounding what made you unclean. You go in unclean and they'll be pulling you out with the rope that's tied to your foot specifically for such an occasion.
Zechariah goes in. Chosen by lot. Meaning, in Z's mind, God wanted him in there. God picked him. Old boy goes in and poof, there's an angel. Think Raiders-of-the-Lost-Ark-burn-your-face-off angel not the creep cute Christian one with the droopy eyes.
Zechariah's day is racing through his mind, the steak was medium well, right? No blood. No touching of prematurely bald men that could turn out to be lepers, right? The incense was mixed with the right proportions? No strange fire. Learned that lesson with Aaron's boys. Nothing had made him unclean. So why was this angel here!?!?! There hadn't been a message from God in 400 years!* But here's this angel. Why him? Why now? Surely, God wan't going to kim him, right?
Now that I understand why a priest would be afraid of seeing an angel in the temple (imagine that), it makes sense why Zachariah was freaking out a bit.
Suddenly, the Jewish culture of the NT is making more sense because of Leviticus. Cool.
*sorry, Bible-college-me knew that
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