Shownotes
Welcome to Day 2291 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me.
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
The Characters of Christmas-2 A Christmas Miracle-Zachariah and Elizabeth – Daily Wisdom
Putnam Church Message – 12/04/2022 The Characters of Christmas: A Christmas Miracle: Zachariah and Elizabeth Last week, we began our Advent series exploring five characters of Christmas, starting with Joseph, The Unsung Hero of Christmas. Today, we continue our Advent series as we explore A Christmas Miracle: The Story of Zachariah and Elizabeth. Our initial scripture for today is Luke 1:5-25, on page 1587 in the Pew Bible. Follow along as I read. The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold 5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; /his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old. 8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. 11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” 18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” 19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” 21 Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. 22 When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak. 23 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24 After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” Elizabeth becoming pregnant was certainly “A Christmas Miracle.” Everybody, it seems, is looking for a miracle at Christmas. Something about this time of year makes a yearning for something new in the heart. Just google “Christmas miracle,” and you will find over 124 million results. We are all in search of a bit of magic around the holidays. This is, perhaps, why we fill the season with warm and fuzzy memories and indulge in sentimental movies and music. We do this to return to a time of innocence and peace. However, we know that whatever “miracle” we seek, eventually, the post-Christmas letdown kicks in, and we have to deal with reality again. An unfulfilled dream, financial worries, and secret health anxieties. Even those of us who know the real hope of Christmas and the real miracle of God coming to earth, in the flesh, as a baby, can be caught up in a kind of rootless sentimentality that papers over the anguish of our world. This is why, when we open Luke's gospel and read his narrative of how the first Christmas began, he gives us a deep window into the heartache and longing of suffering people. The angels' joy and the shepherds' wonderment come later. At the time of the decree from the emperor Augustus, it had been four hundred years since God had spoken to His people, Israel. Four centuries of apparent silence. The book of Malachi ends with a faint promise of future hope: (4:5-6) 5 “Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. 6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.” That was the last word from God. After that, no prophets were sent to bring messages of judgment or prosperity. No angels. No kings. No deliverers. Israel had been shaken by revolution and war in these 400 years. Most of God’s people were scattered among the conquering nations. Some had come back to the land with Zerubbabel and Nehemiah. The Syrians came and savaged the land and the people. Then, a revolution by their own Maccabees brought temporary hope—only to be crushed by Pompey the Great, the Roman who again brought Israel under bondage. Every day, as they walked to the temple, built by Herod, the ruthless and illegitimate king of Israel, they saw the Roman flag waving in the wind, high above their land. Yet amid the darkness, when it seemed all was lost, and nobody could be trusted, God was silent ... but not sleeping. Psalms 121:2-4 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth! 3 He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber. 4 Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps. It might be a little trite to say that “darkness comes before dawn,” but a new day was dawning in this beleaguered land amidst an oppressed people. The faint hope of Malachi would be fulfilled. A Righteous Couple and a Quiet God In the time of Herod king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah. Herod was the powerful monarch on the throne in Israel, put there by Rome. Zechariah was one of three hundred priests in the family of Abijah (Luke 1:5; 1 Chron. 24:10), one of twenty-four divisions of priests in Israel. That totals up to 7,200 priests. So, a stark contrast exists between a powerful king and an ordinary priest and his wife, Elizabeth. The news of Israel's deliverer, who would change the world forever, would not come from the palace but to an aging priest in a Jewish house of worship. Zechariah was a common name in those days. There are even multiple Zechariahs in the Bible. But it is not a coincidence that the first words from God to His people in four hundred years would come to someone whose name means “the Lord has remembered!" It didn't seem to the Jewish people living under Roman rule that the Lord had remembered. But it recalls an earlier time when the oppressed people of God languished for four hundred silent years in Egypt. The God who remembered them in Egypt would now rescue them from their sins. So it’s not simply that God didn’t forget. It’s that in God's remembering, He acts. And God was about to act not only on a national level on behalf of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s people, Israel; He would intervene personally. Their pain was grounded in the brokenness around them and centered on their private anguish. Like a long line of godly women in the story of God, Elizabeth was unable to bear children. To suffer the indignity of infertility is cruel in any age, but it was especially difficult in the first century, when the ability to conceive was seen as a direct sign of God's blessing. They'd resigned themselves to their fate at this point in their lives. Never would they hear the whisper of a child's first words. Never would they walk a son or daughter to the temple. Never would they have the sweet privilege of handing down the story of Israel to a generation of their own. There is a theme in Scripture of God visiting the barren. Who can forget the despair of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel in the line of Abraham, each with their authentic pleas to God for children? Or the guttural cries of Hannah in the temple, kneeling before God and begging Him to open her womb, or the bitter spirit of Michal, David’s first wife? Luke carefully contrasts the righteousness of Zechariah and Elizabeth with their infertility to tell us that the inability to bear children was not a result of personal sin or lack of blessing. Zechariah and Elizabeth were faithful. And yet God allowed them to suffer for their good and His glory. Here was a devout couple who, like many children of Abraham under the old covenant, believed God’s promise, and their faith was “counted to him as righteousness” (Gal. 3:6; James 2:23). When God Shows Up God is always with us, and we are never alone, but there are times when the presence of God is seen and felt powerfully, and this was the case in the lives of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Zechariah was a priest from the family of Aaron, Moses's brother. Elizabeth was also from Aaron's family. So, priestly functions and duties were in their blood. There were twenty-four divisions or families of priests, each with three hundred priests. Every division would have two weeks out of the year to serve at the temple, outside of the major festivals, where it was all hands on deck for every priest. This particular day that Luke describes was a special day for Zechariah because he was chosen to go into the holy place and burn incense at the altar. To decide who would get this honor, priests would cast lots. If chosen, this would be a once-in-a-lifetime event, the highest honor in a temple priest's life. Zechariah would be the one to offer incense before the Lord at the temple. He had waited his whole life for this. Undoubtedly, among the faithful worshipers in the outer courts were friends and family who came from afar to watch him and celebrate this moment. After this, Zechariah would be viewed as a spiritual leader among his people, like others chosen for this duty. It would be the first or second line in every conversation about him. He once served incense at the altar. This would be a special day because of the incense lighting and because an angel appeared as Zechariah lit the incense. But, if you know the Christmas story well, you can easily shrug and move on. Angels are as synonymous with Christmas as reindeer and mistletoe. But angels didn’t just regularly appear at Herod’s temple in Zechariah's day. The people of God, let’s remember, had not heard from God in four hundred years. So after this long winter of silence, suddenly and without warning, Gabriel, the same angel who had appeared before Daniel (8:18) five hundred years earlier during a time of sacrifice, was now in the presence of the trembling priest, Zechariah. What do you do when an angel visits you? Zechariah's response is identical to Daniel's: they both fell on their faces in fear. But, of course, /when we think of angels, we are not afraid of them. To be “touched by an angel" is to be followed by Clarence, the affable messenger from It's a Wonderful Life. But in Scripture, when a messenger of God arrived, it sparked fear. Fear because an angel, even in a diminished sense, represented God's holiness and white-hot glory. In those days, God was not seen as the helpful “man upstairs.” Instead, he was the One who could strike with a vengeance and who judged the nations. We'd be wise to remember that God’s character hasn't changed in two thousand years. Sure, in Christ, He has visited us, and we can have a personal, intimate relationship with Him by faith. Jesus is fully human and understands our deepest pains and emotions. But He is also God, the One who fashioned us from dust and hung the stars in place. So while Gabriel’s words to Zechariah to “Do not be afraid" (Luke 1:13) are instructive to us today —we don’t have to fear because God has reconciled us to Himself in Christ— we would be wise to remember that the fear of the Lord is, as Solomon once wrote, the beginning of wisdom. Silence and Faith It's more than ironic that the place God chose to speak was the temple, built by an illegitimate king of Israel and often, as Jesus would later expose, overtaken by a corrupted spiritual leadership. God was signaling to His people that something new was afoot;/ a new day was dawning. /Everything up to this point in Israel’s long history—the sacrifices,/ the temple, /the feasts, /and festivals—would culminate in God Himself descending to earth in human form. The temple and, by extension, the synagogues among the scattered people of God would no longer be the only place where God met His people. Gabriel's announcement stunned Zechariah. “Your prayer has been heard.” What prayer? Some speculate that this refers to their years-long desire to bear children. Others speculate that the angel referred to the prayer Zechariah gave in the temple, the one whispered by every faithful Jew, praying for the coming of the Messiah. But as I read this, I wonder if the angel might, in a sense, be referring to both. The desire for a son and the longing for God's kingdom are the same. The long years of anguish and darkness, of year after year with no child, likely gave way to a desperate pleading for God to come. /There are requests we send to the Almighty that seem doable and reachable, and there are those we send with a wrapping of cynicism and doubt, as if the only time we might see the resolution is when God entirely renews and restores the world. Was this Zechariah's daily heartbroken prayer? Was this what his feeble lips whispered as he lit the incense on the altar? We don’t know, but we do know what Gabriel said in response: Your prayer has been answered. We don't have to imagine how those words hit the priest. /So long had he prayed./So long had he pleaded./ So many years had passed, /and so many tears were shed. And now, it was happening, and he couldn't believe it. So the angel repeated the words, this time with more authority (19): “I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring this good news.” Zechariah, the aging priest, and Elizabeth, long past childbearing, would have a baby. Not just any baby, but one that the Holy Spirit would empower in a way reminiscent of the empowering of the Old Testament prophets. (Jer. 1:5) Also foreshadowing the time when God would pour out His Spirit upon all who believe (Acts 2:28 - Pentecost) in fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God in Joel 2:28-29: Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike. (all are one in Christ) John would come in the spirit of Elijah, Gabriel says. He would, like Elijah, call God's people to repentance. /John’s ministry would be one of both disruption and renewal./ He would speak truth to power. (and lose his life for it) / He would provoke deep repentance and a turning toward God in Israel./ His message would return “the hearts of the fathers to the children” in fulfillment of those closing words from the prophet Micah./ But ultimately, this unique child would have one job: to point people to Jesus. John 1:29 “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Zechariah's response was one of stunned disbelief. It might be easy to confuse his questions with those of Mary, whom this same angel would visit months later and promise an even more miraculous birth. But while Mary's inquiries were laden with trust. Zechariah’s response was encrusted with cynicism and doubt. How can I be sure of this? I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years. His statements were not like the complicated and challenging doubts thrown at God by David in Psalms 13:1. Or Habakkuk asked, “How long, O LORD?” in Habakkuk 1:2. Zachariah’s declaration, like those of Peter, when told of Jesus' future death and resurrection Matthew 16:22: “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!”. A declaration in opposition to the plan of God. They were like the faithless disobedience of God's people who stood on the pre/ci/pice of entering the promised land and declared to Moses that God could not do the impossible in Canaan. God loves hearing our doubts,/fielding our questions,/ and our anguished cries. But disbelief is a sin, our unwillingness to trust that God can do the impossible. And so, Zechariah’s punishment was to be struck mute for the duration of Elizabeth's pregnancy. And in a way, this affliction was less of a punishment and more of a gift from God. To not speak would be to sit in silence before God, to quiet the chattering of the soul and the noise of his circumstances. In a way, this is a work God seeks to do in the heart of all of us. Christmas is an excellent time to practice silence, sit and listen to God's voice, and put away the devices and inputs that so often...Transcripts
This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
The Characters of Christmas-2 A Christmas Miracle-Zachariah and Elizabeth – Daily Wisdom
/:The Characters of Christmas: A Christmas Miracle: Zachariah and Elizabeth
Last week, we began our Advent series exploring five characters of Christmas, starting with Joseph, The Unsung Hero of Christmas.
Today, we continue our Advent series as we explore A Christmas Miracle: The Story of Zachariah and Elizabeth.
, on page:The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold
5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; /his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.
8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.
11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”
19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”
21 Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. 22 When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.
23 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24 After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”
Elizabeth becoming pregnant was certainly “A Christmas Miracle.” Everybody, it seems, is looking for a miracle at Christmas. Something about this time of year makes a yearning for something new in the heart. Just google “Christmas miracle,” and you will find over 124 million results.
We are all in search of a bit of magic around the holidays. This is, perhaps, why we fill the season with warm and fuzzy memories and indulge in sentimental movies and music. We do this to return to a time of innocence and peace.
However, we know that whatever “miracle” we seek, eventually, the post-Christmas letdown kicks in, and we have to deal with reality again. An unfulfilled dream, financial worries, and secret health anxieties. Even those of us who know the real hope of Christmas and the real miracle of God coming to earth, in the flesh, as a baby, can be caught up in a kind of rootless sentimentality that papers over the anguish of our world.
This is why, when we open Luke's gospel and read his narrative of how the first Christmas began, he gives us a deep window into the heartache and longing of suffering people. The angels' joy and the shepherds' wonderment come later.
At the time of the decree from the emperor Augustus, it had been four hundred years since God had spoken to His people, Israel. Four centuries of apparent silence. The book of Malachi ends with a faint promise of future hope: (4:5-6)
5 “Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. 6 His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise I will come and strike the land with a curse.”
That was the last word from God. After that, no prophets were sent to bring messages of judgment or prosperity. No angels. No kings. No deliverers.
Israel had been shaken by revolution and war in these 400 years. Most of God’s people were scattered among the conquering nations. Some had come back to the land with Zerubbabel and Nehemiah. The Syrians came and savaged the land and the people. Then, a revolution by their own Maccabees brought temporary hope—only to be crushed by Pompey the Great, the Roman who again brought Israel under bondage. Every day, as they walked to the temple, built by Herod, the ruthless and illegitimate king of Israel, they saw the Roman flag waving in the wind, high above their land.
Yet amid the darkness, when it seemed all was lost, and nobody could be trusted, God was silent ... but not sleeping. Psalms 121:2-4
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!
3 He will not let you stumble;
the one who watches over you will not slumber.
4 Indeed, he who watches over Israel
never slumbers or sleeps.
It might be a little trite to say that “darkness comes before dawn,” but a new day was dawning in this beleaguered land amidst an oppressed people. The faint hope of Malachi would be fulfilled.
A Righteous Couple and a Quiet God
Chron.:The news of Israel's deliverer, who would change the world forever, would not come from the palace but to an aging priest in a Jewish house of worship. Zechariah was a common name in those days. There are even multiple Zechariahs in the Bible. But it is not a coincidence that the first words from God to His people in four hundred years would come to someone whose name means “the Lord has remembered!"
It didn't seem to the Jewish people living under Roman rule that the Lord had remembered. But it recalls an earlier time when the oppressed people of God languished for four hundred silent years in Egypt. The God who remembered them in Egypt would now rescue them from their sins. So it’s not simply that God didn’t forget. It’s that in God's remembering, He acts.
And God was about to act not only on a national level on behalf of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s people, Israel; He would intervene personally. Their pain was grounded in the brokenness around them and centered on their private anguish. Like a long line of godly women in the story of God, Elizabeth was unable to bear children. To suffer the indignity of infertility is cruel in any age, but it was especially difficult in the first century, when the ability to conceive was seen as a direct sign of God's blessing. They'd resigned themselves to their fate at this point in their lives. Never would they hear the whisper of a child's first words. Never would they walk a son or daughter to the temple. Never would they have the sweet privilege of handing down the story of Israel to a generation of their own.
There is a theme in Scripture of God visiting the barren. Who can forget the despair of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel in the line of Abraham, each with their authentic pleas to God for children? Or the guttural cries of Hannah in the temple, kneeling before God and begging Him to open her womb, or the bitter spirit of Michal, David’s first wife?
Luke carefully contrasts the righteousness of Zechariah and Elizabeth with their infertility to tell us that the inability to bear children was not a result of personal sin or lack of blessing.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were faithful. And yet God allowed them to suffer for their good and His glory. Here was a devout couple who, like many children of Abraham under the old covenant, believed God’s promise, and their faith was “counted to him as righteousness” (Gal. 3:6; James 2:23).
When God Shows Up
God is always with us, and we are never alone, but there are times when the presence of God is seen and felt powerfully, and this was the case in the lives of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Zechariah was a priest from the family of Aaron, Moses's brother. Elizabeth was also from Aaron's family. So, priestly functions and duties were in their blood.
There were twenty-four divisions or families of priests, each with three hundred priests. Every division would have two weeks out of the year to serve at the temple, outside of the major festivals, where it was all hands on deck for every priest.
This particular day that Luke describes was a special day for Zechariah
because he was chosen to go into the holy place and burn incense at the altar.
To decide who would get this honor, priests would cast lots. If chosen, this would be a once-in-a-lifetime event, the highest honor in a temple priest's life. Zechariah would be the one to offer incense before the Lord at the temple. He had waited his whole life for this. Undoubtedly, among the faithful worshipers in the outer courts were friends and family who came from afar to watch him and celebrate this moment. After this, Zechariah would be viewed as a spiritual leader among his people, like others chosen for this duty. It would be the first or second line in every conversation about him. He once served incense at the altar.
This would be a special day because of the incense lighting and because an angel appeared as Zechariah lit the incense. But, if you know the Christmas story well, you can easily shrug and move on. Angels are as synonymous with Christmas as reindeer and mistletoe.
But angels didn’t just regularly appear at Herod’s temple in Zechariah's day. The people of God, let’s remember, had not heard from God in four hundred years. So after this long winter of silence, suddenly and without warning, Gabriel, the same angel who had appeared before Daniel (8:18) five hundred years earlier during a time of sacrifice, was now in the presence of the trembling priest, Zechariah.
What do you do when an angel visits you? Zechariah's response is identical to Daniel's: they both fell on their faces in fear. But, of course, /when we think of angels, we are not afraid of them. To be “touched by an angel" is to be followed by Clarence, the affable messenger from It's a Wonderful Life. But in Scripture, when a messenger of God arrived, it sparked fear. Fear because an angel, even in a diminished sense, represented God's holiness and white-hot glory. In those days, God was not seen as the helpful “man upstairs.” Instead, he was the One who could strike with a vengeance and who judged the nations.
We'd be wise to remember that God’s character hasn't changed in two thousand years. Sure, in Christ, He has visited us, and we can have a personal, intimate relationship with Him by faith. Jesus is fully human and understands our deepest pains and emotions. But He is also God, the One who fashioned us from dust and hung the stars in place. So while Gabriel’s words to Zechariah to “Do not be afraid" (Luke 1:13) are instructive to us today —we don’t have to fear because God has reconciled us to Himself in Christ— we would be wise to remember that the fear of the Lord is, as Solomon once wrote, the beginning of wisdom.
Silence and Faith
It's more than ironic that the place God chose to speak was the temple, built by an illegitimate king of Israel and often, as Jesus would later expose, overtaken by a corrupted spiritual leadership. God was signaling to His people that something new was afoot;/ a new day was dawning. /Everything up to this point in Israel’s long history—the sacrifices,/ the temple, /the feasts, /and festivals—would culminate in God Himself descending to earth in human form. The temple and, by extension, the synagogues among the scattered people of God would no longer be the only place where God met His people.
Gabriel's announcement stunned Zechariah. “Your prayer has been heard.” What prayer? Some speculate that this refers to their years-long desire to bear children. Others speculate that the angel referred to the prayer Zechariah gave in the temple, the one whispered by every faithful Jew, praying for the coming of the Messiah. But as I read this, I wonder if the angel might, in a sense, be referring to both. The desire for a son and the longing for God's kingdom are the same.
The long years of anguish and darkness, of year after year with no child, likely gave way to a desperate pleading for God to come. /There are requests we send to the Almighty that seem doable and reachable, and there are those we send with a wrapping of cynicism and doubt, as if the only time we might see the resolution is when God entirely renews and restores the world.
Was this Zechariah's daily heartbroken prayer? Was this what his feeble lips whispered as he lit the incense on the altar? We don’t know, but we do know what Gabriel said in response: Your prayer has been answered. We don't have to imagine how those words hit the priest. /So long had he prayed./So long had he pleaded./ So many years had passed, /and so many tears were shed.
And now, it was happening, and he couldn't believe it. So the angel repeated the words, this time with more authority (19): “I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring this good news.”
Zechariah, the aging priest, and Elizabeth, long past childbearing, would have a baby. Not just any baby, but one that the Holy Spirit would empower in a way reminiscent of the empowering of the Old Testament prophets. (Jer. 1:5) Also foreshadowing the time when God would pour out His Spirit upon all who believe (Acts 2:28 - Pentecost) in fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God in Joel 2:28-29:
Then, after doing all those things,
I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your old men will dream dreams,
and your young men will see visions.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on servants—men and women alike. (all are one in Christ)
John would come in the spirit of Elijah, Gabriel says. He would, like Elijah, call God's people to repentance. /John’s ministry would be one of both disruption and renewal./ He would speak truth to power. (and lose his life for it) / He would provoke deep repentance and a turning toward God in Israel./ His message would return “the hearts of the fathers to the children” in fulfillment of those closing words from the prophet Micah./ But ultimately, this unique child would have one job: to point people to Jesus. John 1:29 “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Zechariah's response was one of stunned disbelief. It might be easy to confuse his questions with those of Mary, whom this same angel would visit months later and promise an even more miraculous birth. But while Mary's inquiries were laden with trust. Zechariah’s response was encrusted with cynicism and doubt. How can I be sure of this? I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.
eath and resurrection Matthew:God loves hearing our doubts,/fielding our questions,/ and our anguished cries. But disbelief is a sin, our unwillingness to trust that God can do the impossible. And so, Zechariah’s punishment was to be struck mute for the duration of Elizabeth's pregnancy. And in a way, this affliction was less of a punishment and more of a gift from God. To not speak would be to sit in silence before God, to quiet the chattering of the soul and the noise of his circumstances. In a way, this is a work God seeks to do in the heart of all of us. Christmas is an excellent time to practice silence, sit and listen to God's voice, and put away the devices and inputs that so often keep us from faith. A priest, who often spoke words of blessing on God's people, would be silenced and would emerge with a renewed faith in the possibility of God's promise.
Sometimes, God has to quiet us so we can hear Him./ Sometimes, we have to be still so we can see Him move. /Sometimes, our words and busyness get in the way of our faith. /They form a cynical shell around our hearts.
Waiting for Dayspring
Imagine the newfound joy in the lives of Zechariah and Elizabeth. Not only would they become parents after decades of infertility, despair, and disbelief, but they would also parent the last of the Old Testament prophets and a forerunner of the Messiah.
The delight in Elizabeth’s life was evident when she hosted her younger cousin Mary after Mary's visit with the angel Gabriel. When she heard Mary's news—that in her womb would be the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit—Elizabeth gushed with worship toward God. “Why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Luke 1:43). Even though she was present with her own story and her miracle, she quickly looked past herself and toward the unborn Christ.
I'm struck by this entire scene, described by Luke. An older pregnant woman is blessing her younger pregnant cousin. The baby John leaps in the womb and worships the baby Jesus. Here God’s promise to Eve was being fulfilled, through the pains of childbirth. A prophet/ and the Christ child/ and the dawning of new birth.
Our new birth is the real story of Christmas. It is the heart of Christianity: brokenness and new birth. The same God who birthed life into Sarah's dead womb had breathed life into Elizabeth and Mary. And this baby, Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, breathes new birth into His people.
This theme is echoed in Zechariah's prayer at the birth of John nine months after he first saw the angel. Quiet for so long, now Zechariah is experiencing a renewal of obedience and faith. (63) He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” Typically, it was customary for the father to name his firstborn son after himself, but humbled by God's incredible faithfulness and broken by repentance, Zechariah yielded to the Almighty. Every genuine act of repentance is met by brokenness /and then obedience. There is always a break from the old ways. There is no cheap grace here.
Not only was God birthing something afresh in Elizabeth, but He was also birthing something new in Zechariah and birthing something new in His people. This is why Zechariah's song, often called the Benedictus, (Luke 1:67-79), is one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture. (Bulletin) It reflects the fulfillment of longing and desire and the signaling that something new in Christ has come. I encourage you to read it this week.
This is a new dawn of God’s Kingdom on earth. The beginning of the restoration of Eden, but on a global scale. Zechariah now sees his story as part of God’s long story, from Abraham through David. The long-awaited time had come. The narratives of Israel, every single life story from Abraham to Malachi, were only small dramas in Jesus's grand story.
The message of Christmas is not about manufacturing sentimental feelings in vain hopes of a miracle. Instead, it's about believing that God has birthed something new in Jesus, and because of this, God will birth something new in you and me. And that newness is breaking out, still today, in the hearts of God's people amidst a broken world. Sinful, dead hearts are finding life again. And we, at Christmas, sit in silence and await another Advent, when that child returns as the King, to complete His mission to restore hearts and renew the world. (Bulletin-Advent reflections)
Next week, we will explore the heart of Mary, the Simple Girl at the Center of Everything. So please read Luke 1:26-56 in preparation for next week.