The Reading
Luke 1:5-13, 57-80
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named
Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a
descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God,
living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the
Lord. But they had no children, because
Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.
Once when he was
serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by lot,
according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord
and offer incense. Now at the time of
the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the
Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw
him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, “Do
not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth
will bear you a son, and you will name him John.
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore
a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard
that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. On
the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name
him Zechariah after his father. But his
mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” They said to her, “None of your
relatives has this name.” Then they began motioning to his father to find out what
name he wanted to give him. He asked for
a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak,
praising God. Fear came over all their
neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill
country of Judea. All who heard them
pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the
hand of the Lord was with him.
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit
and spoke this prophecy:
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked
favorably on his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant
David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and
from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our
ancestors,and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our
ancestor Abraham to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our
enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him
all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for
you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation
to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in
darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until
the day he appeared publicly to Israel.
The Message
Today, we
have our first new testament reading in several months. Over the past 15 weeks
or so, we have gone through some of the major events and themes of the Old
Testament. We saw God’s promises kept, God’s power to interfere with the world
confirmed, God’s message of love proclaimed by Kings and poor shepherds, to
rulers and everyday people, and God’s desire for us to be his people. This was so that we could have a better
understanding of the history, hope, waiting for and expectation of God’s
ultimate intervention in the world. For us, God acts in the world many, many
ways but the single most important, is Christmas, the birth of Jesus, the
moment when “the grace of God appears, bringing salvation to all”. To tell the story of Christmas, we will have a
few readings from Gospel of Luke and Matthew (Mark and John, the other two
Gospels, do not tell the story of Jesus Birth, John begins with a theological
reflection In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God and
word was God, Mark begins with the work
of an adult John the Baptist in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord).
The story of
John the Baptist can be complicated and hard to talk about. He is an extreme man who lives a barely
sustainable life in the wilderness and aggressively speaks God’s good word to
the poor and powerful. John does not
tell people what they want to hear or suggest that things are okay the way they
are. John demands change in our hearts,
minds and actions, offends people, calls the religious authorities a brood of vipers,
accuses them of pretending in their faith, and tells crowds to repent for the
kingdom of God has come near. He is viewed as a holy man, a crazy man and
prophet, all at the same time. Due to
his large following, independence from traditional authority and
confrontational word, John grows in fame and influence, in the religious
community, John is a force to be reckoned with.
The man lived and worked like he was invincible because he knew God was
with him. The heart of John’s message has nothing to do with him though, he
points people to Christ, to what God is doing in the world, to God’s fulfilled
promise.
The complex
and beautiful story of John and his family can be defined with a single word:
Faithfulness. It is a story of people
who believe God’s promises, who trust God’s word, who understand and fulfill their
obligations. There is faithfulness on a
few levels, People being faithful to each other, people being faithful to their
promises, people being faithful to God and most importantly, God being faithful
to God’s promises and God’s people.
John’s
parents Zechariah and Elizabeth are faithful.
They are good people who do the right thing as best they can. The
husband and wife keep the law and commandments and seriously follow the old
testament religious regulation of their lives.
Each of them knows the law and scripture well and Zechariah takes his
work as a priest seriously. They had no children years but remained together
and did not lose hope that God could provide them with a family. None of this really prepares them for what is
next. While working at the temple,
Zechariah is randomly chosen to offer incense in the sanctuary. I imagine
Zechariah felt good, this work was a great honor and great responsibility, If
he thought like many of us, he probably felt like the Lord had something to do
with it, that there was a reason he was selected.
There, in the
total seclusion of the inner sanctuary, things got real. An angel of the Lord
appears to him, calms him with the words “do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your
prayer has been heard” and sends his life into joy and chaos with the news that
their prayer for a child that he and Elizabeth never gave up on, would happen:
“your wife will bear you a son and you will name him John”. A visit from an angel can be a hard thing to
process. You have to realize you are not imaging things, you know people are
going to think you are making it up, you will be entrusted with great
responsibility and there is a lot of pressure to make sure you do what your
told. Zechariah’s fear is the normal
reaction by people to angels and their messages. Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Mary,
Joseph, the shepherds on Christmas, Paul, everyone really, responds with fear.
In the same way we say “hello” or good morning when we first meet someone,
angels say “do not be afraid”. I think
this fear is because these moments show people all that God stuff is not just a
tradition, something we were raised with, a guide to a living a decent life, a
psychological escape or way to quiet the masses, This God stuff is actually
real. When we pray, someone hears it, when we sin, there are consequences, when
we receive God’s forgiveness, our sins are gone, when we share communion, Jesus
is present, when we die, there is a place for us. Personally I do not think I have ever been
visited by an angel. God can be revealed to us in other ways though, though
worship, serving, scripture, prayer and the comfort of knowing we are loved. However,
we hear God, it should be a moment of fear and great joy
Zechariah
and Elizabeth remain faithful. They never claim to be great or special, they
are simply two of all people that God is faithful towards. Our reading did not
mention it but right after the encounter with the angel, Zechariah is left
unable to speak. That leaves Elizabeth responsible for answering questions over
and over again, witnessing to God’s grace, faithfulness and power and
explaining how she could be pregnant, why Zechariah cannot speak and why, for
no obvious reason, her son should be named John. Elizabeth and Zechariah are
faithful to God’s message, obeying the instructions and the child is named
John. At that point, Zechariah’s speech
is restored and he picks up right where Elizabeth was, witnessing to God’s
grace, faithfulness and power.
With his
first words as a father, Zechariah proclaims,
God is
faithful: “God has raised up for us a
mighty savior in the house of his servant David as he spoke through the words
of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and
from the hand of all who hate us””
God keeps
promises, The Lord has remembered his
holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham to grant us that
we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days
God loves us “By the
tender mercy of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light
to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death”.
God calls
John and each of us us to proclaim God’s love: And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you
will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to
his people by the forgiveness of their sins.
The child born to Elizabeth and Zechariah,
whose unexpected life inspires Zechariah’s words, grows up in faith and comes to be known as
John the Baptist, the one who announces “God is here”. John does not claim to
be special or great, he simply points to Jesus, instructing his followers to
follow Jesus instead. John, like his
parents, does his work faithfully, understanding his work as preparing the
world for Christ and announcing God’s loving presence in the world, a job he
does until the moment is his killed.
We are now a
few days from Christmas, through our readings, worship, song, life and service,
we have prepared the way of the Lord. I
hope everyone can join us Thursday evening as the waiting ends and we gather to
declare all these things have come to be, “Christ our savior is Born”
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