Mid-Advent 2
Lk 1:5-25
12/7/22
Our
text tonight is filled with the most awkward of circumstances. Zechariah learns amazing news about the child
that his wife his going to have, but he is unable to tell anyone about it. Elizabeth, aged and barren, suddenly becomes
pregnant but her husband has returned from his service in the temple and is
unable to speak.
Now
in the case of Zechariah, he had nine months to ponder what he had been told –
the remarkable truth that he was unable to share in any meaningful way. But at least he knew that his silence would
come to an end. Elizabeth experienced
the very thing for which she had prayed and hoped. When it seemed certain that she would never
have a child, she suddenly became pregnant!
Yet at the very same time her husband returned from Jerusalem with a
disability, and she had no way of knowing whether he would ever be able to
speak again.
Our
text begins tonight with a description of a couple that is both wonderful and
sad. We learn that Zechariah was a
priest, and that his wife Elizabeth also descended from Aaron. Luke tells us, “And they were both righteous before God,
walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.”
This was a pious and faithful Jewish couple.
Yet even as they lived as the faithful people of God, there
was a great tragedy in their lives. Luke
says, “But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren,
and both were advanced in years.” The modern world treats children as
something to be avoided. It goes out of
its way not to have them. Yet this is
not the way Scripture teaches us to view things. The Psalmist writes, “Behold, children are a heritage from the
LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a
warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his
quiver with them!”
A life filled with children is described as a blessing from
God. Psalm 128 says, “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your
children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall
the man be blessed who fears the LORD.” In
the first century Jewish world, to be a wife without children was a source of
sorrow and shame. To the outside
observer, it called into question whether a person really was walking in the
ways of the Lord. Childlessness placed a
woman in a category from which she needed rescue. Pslam 113 says that although God is seated on
high, “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash
heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives
the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise
the LORD!”
At the time of Jesus, the priesthood was divided into
groups of people. Each group would serve
in Jerusalem for a period of time before returning home. While there, the honor of burning the incense
in the Holy Place at the hour of prayer was chosen by lot. On this particular day, Zechariah was
chosen. This is not something that would
happen very often in a priest’s life, and so it was a great occasion for him.
Yet his great day took an unexpected turn, because an angel
appeared at the right side of the incense altar. Zechariah was frightened. 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. And you will have joy and gladness, and many
will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord.”
Zechariah had prayed for a child. It is a prayer that surely he had spoken
again and again during the years. The angel announced to him that this prayer
had been heard and that Elizabeth would give birth to a son, whom they would
call John. Now the birth of a child to the aged and barren Elizabeth was a
miraculous event. But the angel’s description went beyond this simple fact as
he stated that “he will be great before the Lord.”
The angel went on to tell Zechariah: “he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 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.” After hearing this past Sunday’s Old Testament lesson from Malachi, we immediately recognize that John is going to be the Elijah figure who prepares the people for the coming Day of the Lord.
This was an announcement that should have prompted
joy. Yet Zechariah responded: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is
advanced in years.” Now these are
basically the exact same words that Abraham spoke to God in Genesis chapter
fifteen when God told him that his very own son would be his heir. Yet there, God brought Abraham outside and
promised him that his offspring would be numerous like the stars of heaven. As
we heard last week, then Genesis tells us: “And he believed the LORD,
and he counted it to him as righteousness.”
Zechariah
says almost the same words, but gets a completely different reaction. Why is this so? The answer appears to be that
he asked the question in a very different spirit, and that he was not open to
believing God’s word. He answered the angel sent by God with a question that was
based on the assumption that what he was told was impossible.
And
so the angel answered him, “I
am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak
to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and
unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not
believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” Gabriel has been sent from God’s presence to
announce good news – good news that Elizabeth would have a son; and even
better news that God was sending the end times prophet that he had promised
in Malachi. But Zechariah had not believed it, and so now he would not be able
to share this good news until it was fulfilled in the birth of John.
When Zechariah emerged, he was unable to speak. He could only motion with his hands, and the
people finally understood that he had seen some kind of vision in the
temple. He remained unable to speak when
he returned home. Yet God kept his word. Elizabeth conceived, and for five
months she kept herself hidden, saying, “Thus the Lord has done for me in
the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”
In
Zechariah we see the challenge of believing God’s word when it contradicts our
normal experience. This is true about
the event we are preparing to celebrate – the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In our experience, virgins don’t have
children. This is true about the
Sacrament of the Altar. What we receive
in the Sacrament looks like bread and wine, and tastes like bread and
wine. This is true when God says that he
loves and cares for us, and yet we or a loved one have cancer, or chronic pain,
or suffer from mental illness.
Yet nothing is impossible for God, and so we need to trust in him and his power, rather than be limited by our perceptions. Zechariah learned this. Elizabeth became pregnant. Indeed, John was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. When the pregnant Elizabeth met Mary, pregnant with Jesus Chrit, Luke tells us that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
Zechariah saw God’s word fulfilled in Elizabeth, yet he was
unable to share this good news with others.
However, when John was born, and Zechariah obeyed Gabriel by indicating
in writing that his name would be John, his tongue was loosed. Then filled with the Holy Spirit he
prophesied, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation
for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of
his holy prophets from of old.”
Zechariah spoke
about how God was fulfilling his promise to send the Christ. And next he said
of John, “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 in the forgiveness of their sins.”
As we will hear the next two Sundays, John did prepare the
way for the Lord, Jesus Christ. Nothing
is impossible for God, and for that reason we have forgiveness for our every
sin. Jesus Christ was conceived by the
Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
He died on the cross as he received God’s judgment and damnation against
our sins. Dead and buried in a tomb, God showed yet again that nothing is
impossible for him. On the third day he
raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus
lives! And because he does, we know that
we have eternal life with God. We know that Christ will raise us up on the Last
Day. He will, because nothing is impossible for God.
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