Zechariah (Luke 1:5-25; 67-80) | 11/28/2021
Luke 1:5-25; 67-80 | 11/28/21 | Thad Yessa
Advent means coming, we take the four Sundays leading up to Christmas to celebrate the coming of Christ. What is unique about the passages we are going to look at these next four weeks is the kind of characters that God chose to use are not the characters that perhaps you and I would choose if we were writing the story. In other words, if we are writing the story and picking the team, what we like to do is to pick what we feel are the best men and women to be on our team. We want to pick those that are going to excel at the task we want to assign for them. But we will see is that in God’s kingdom, or what we can think about as the upside-down kingdom, is God picks the opposite of who you would think you would want to be on your team. In fact, God does this all throughout Scripture and it’s what God is doing in this passage, which is why it’s appropriate for this series title, Unheralded Heralds. These are stories that we should resonate with because these are stories of people just like you and me
I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer gets it right when he describes Advent this way: “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.
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.”
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18 And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” 19 And 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. 20 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.” 21 And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple. 22 And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. 23 And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.
24 After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, 25 “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”
We meet a priest named Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. They are righteous, “walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.” They are “well advanced in years ' and child-less.
Popular religious thought went something like this: God blesses the righteous. God’s greatest blessing is children. If you are childless, there must be something wrong with you on levels God alone can see.
But our focus this week is on Zechariah who is a priest. Our thoughts about being in the ministry are shaped around the idea of an individual response to a call. I am a pastor because I felt God call me to the ministry when I was a teenager. That calling was then confirmed by the church, and being called to serve specifically here at West Hills.
Priesthood for Zechariah was a matter of heredity. He was a priest because his father and grandfather were priests. His wife’s relatives were priests, too. When they had a family reunion, every male was a priest. No one asked him if he wanted to be one. He was born into it.
There were maybe 20,000 priests in Israel at the time… and only one temple. To divide up the work, the priests were organized into twenty-four ancestral divisions that served in Jerusalem twice a year for a week at a time. Like military reservists, they would be called up to active duty on big feast days and their regular rotation of service. Zechariah and his relatives would travel to Jerusalem, consecrating themselves for their duties.
Once in Jerusalem, there were many jobs to be done… all overseen by the high priest and his political machine. Some jobs were quite lowly and mundane. One, however, carried with it a certain amount of prestige. A single priest was selected daily by lot to offer the incense at the hour of prayer. Incense was offered at 9 am when the gates of the temple were opened, but it was also offered at the prayer time of 3 pm. The faithful would gather at the time of prayer in the temple courts. The chosen priest, representing all the people, would enter the Holy Place and burn the fragrant blend of spices prescribed in the law of Moses. As the smoke of the incense rose to heaven, so did the prayers of the people. Once you had the opportunity to do this duty, your name was never included in the selection process again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Some priests went their whole lives without being selected.
The temple itself was designed to inspire awe. The “second temple” built after the exile had been standing for 500 years, but Herod the Great radically expanded and improved it. At the time, it was the largest man-made structure on earth. When Jesus’ disciples visited Jerusalem they oohed and aahed at the magnificent stones. Zechariah probably felt very small alone in this vast edifice.
As Zechariah prayed, Zechariah suddenly realized he was not alone. An angel appeared at the right side of the altar of incense. The old man was scared out of his wits. Angels must be a fearsome sight because the first words they always say is, “Do not be afraid.” The angel, later identified as Gabriel, announces to Zechariah that his prayer has been heard and goes on to provide Zechariah with quite a bit of information regarding the events that will follow:
Elizabeth will bear a son
He is to be named John
He will cause them joy and gladness
Many will rejoice at his birth
He will be great before the Lord
He is not to drink any wine or strong drink his whole life because he is to be consecrated to God
He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb
He will turn many in Israel back to God
He will go before the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah
He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children
He will turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just
He will make ready for the Lord a people prepared.
This is a lot of information. It is the pregnancy news, the gender reveal, the birth announcement, the naming, the upbringing, the career, and the results all rolled into one. This is exactly the type of run-down of future events that I wish God would give me but never does. He more often just says “Trust me.” Zechariah, however, gets more information about John the Baptist than Mary will get about Jesus.
Do you remember Mary’s response? I think she probably had a ton of very legitimate questions about the whole Virgin Birth/Holy Spirit conception thing. But she simply says: “I am the Lord’s servant. Be it unto me as you have said.”
Zechariah’s Response: “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.” Zechariah asks for a sign. He wants a sign from a sign (the angelic visitor).
In Jesus’ day, most Jews believed that for more than 400 years the Holy Spirit had not been active in Israel, because there had been no prophets since Malachi. Now God once again visits his people. Here is God speaking to the one, a priest who should have been waiting for news of the coming Messiah, he doubts, maybe due to confusion of seeing an angel, maybe due to the years of unanswered prayers, regardless, Gabriel responds.
The angel takes a deep breath and says, “I am Gabriel. (Maybe you have heard of me? I appear in such books at Daniel and Ezekiel. I am an archangel and the guardian spirit of Israel. In fact, I just came from the very presence of God. That shine you see on me is the residual shekinah glory from standing before God where I received instructions to visit you today.) Because you have not believed me, you shall be unable to speak until this word is fulfilled.”
Zechariah is literally dumbstruck. So God speaks for the first time in 400 years to Zechariah through the messenger Gabriel and instead of being able to declare the news that Zechariah and Elizebeth have been praying for years for the news of a son, but also that their son with act as a messenger for the Messiah whom Israel has been waiting for even longer is now coming!
From the perspective of those praying in the temple courts, the incense offering was taking longer than it was supposed to take. His relatives were thinking, “I hope he didn’t drop the incense. He is not as young as he used to be.” Zechariah eventually emerges, unable to speak and white as a sheet. They realize he had seen a vision.
Why does Luke start his Gospel with this story?
God is bigger than our circumstances. When our eyes are on our problems -- in Zechariah’s case, his old age -- we will not receive God’s word or trust God’s power. We can’t think our problems are great and God’s power is great at the same time. We will exalt one a little bit more than the other. Trying to exalt our problems and God’s power is like attempting to serve money and God at the same time. We cannot do it. We can be so focused on our problem we can’t hear God’s promises and we fail to believe God’s power.
When our eyes are on our problems, we will not remember God’s Word and how it applies to us. Why did Zechariah not remember Abraham in Genesis 17:17? Abraham was in the exact same situation -- wanting a child but he and his wife were far too old. God gave Abraham and Sarah a son when they were nearly a hundred years old! Zechariah should have remembered God’s word, but he was focused on his limitations instead of God’s power.
God is faithful to keep His promises even when we are not. The birth of Jesus was promised, planned and prepared by God out of his faithfulness to Israel. The faithful of Israel were made ready for the coming of their Messiah. It was people like Zechariah and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, and the people who came out to hear John the Baptist that were the ones to receive the Good News of Jesus.
This speaks to God’s character. He is a promise keeper. God is not abandoning his covenant with Israel. He is fulfilling his promises and using that nation to scatter his grace to all nations through them.
God hears our prayers:
“For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” - 1 PETER 3:12
And:
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. - JAMES 5:16
In Luke, Jesus teaches to be like a persistent widow that kept coming before a judge to get justice. Luke prefaces that story with these words:
“Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” - LUKE 18:1
God is a good God. This is demonstrated in the way God goes out of his way to bless Zechariah and Elizabeth. God could have brought John the Baptist into the world any way he wanted. But it pleased God to bless this faithful couple who had prayed for so long. He tells them, “You will have joy and gladness.” Them having joy and gladness was not essential to John’s mission. This is just an individual version of the goodwill that will be pronounced at the birth of Jesus: “Peace on earth… goodwill to man.” God is for us, not against us.
Prayer is most powerful when we marry our needs to God’s divine purpose. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
So weave your needs in with God’s kingdom as you pray. Always keep the Kingdom of God in mind. If you need finances, frame that in the context of the Kingdom. “God, I want to take care of my needs and also be a blessing to your Kingdom and to others.” Get a Kingdom vision.
If you are praying for health, weave that to God’s Kingdom. God, I am asking for new health and strength so that I can use that strength to glorify your name, to serve your people, and praise your name.
Jesus said when you put God’s kingdom first, God will take care of your needs. Just look at how God is meeting the needs of Zechariah and Elizabeth, even as he is preparing to bring salvation into the world.
Faithfulness in the ordinary matters. God sees Zechariah’s faithfulness in the ordinary. Zechariah may not have had the greatest faith (even in the face of an angelic visitation), but he was faithful. God meets us on the road to faithfulness. This vision came to Zechariah as he was doing what he was asked to do. It would have been easy for this couple to give up along the way through all the disappointments. But they kept being faithful.
Keep praying. Keep serving. Keep witnessing. Keep giving. I am not telling you that the Angel Gabriel is going to appear to you, but I am saying the road of faithfulness is where your answers are going to come.
There is so much in this story today of God’s perfect timing. It reminds me of what Paul says to us in Galatians:
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. - GALATIANS 6:9
If we do the ordinary stuff with an eye to God’s Kingdom and glory, God will do the extraordinary. Sometimes we feel like we need to produce the “wow factor.” That is God’s department. Our part is faithfulness.
So here’s my final question for you: What is your response to Christmas? I know, I know, busy and parties and presents and stressful and anxious, but nostalgia and tradition and all of that, really, the message of Christmas, the coming of the Messiah, the birth of the Christ child, the unfolding of the mystery of the trinity, the incarnation, Immanuel, God with us… What is your response to Christmas?
Zechariah's Prophecy
67 And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
68
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people
69
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
70
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
71
that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
72
to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
74
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
75
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78
because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.