1.1.1 12.3.2023 Natal Hesitation Luke 1.5-25, 57-79
Certain of His Coming • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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SERIES PREFACE:
SERIES PREFACE:
It is not uncommon for us to read familiar stories in familiar ways. Maybe in reading to your kids you read a familiar story in a different way. What happened? They corrected you! Maybe even scolded you! The strategies we use when reading to children and grandchildren hardly suit mature Christians.
During this Christmas season, we will enjoy Luke’s Christmas story together. The material will be the same. How I tell it will be somewhat different.
Why would anyone tell a story differently from what everyone is used to?
Why? Boredom? Yes, I’ve preached these texts a lot and they are familiar but it’s not just because I want to spice things up a bit.
Also, not for the sake of sheer novelty. There is only so much bend in the stories. They say what they say.
My goal is to help us see what we may have missed and to look at these stories with fresh eyes.
In that way perhaps our faith can be strengthened.
Entice: For the moment we will leave aside the preface to Luke’s Gospel and get on right with the baby stories. Luke begins his story of Jesus with the intertwined stories of two remarkable births. Two sets of parents. One set seemed resolved to let God do as He willed. For a time at least, one of the parents involved in the
first story displayed what I would call “natal hesitation.” Zechariah of course was the hesitant priest who became the father of John the Baptist.
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.”
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.”
Engage: Now, if you were a first century Christian who knew Gospel-- the story of the death of Jesus—His passion and resurrection—but this is the first story you’ve heard about His life, this might seem a little odd. Minimally, Gabriel seems petulant and short with the old guy.
Yet the 9 months of Zechariah’s silence led to an eventual celebration.
Another question you might have if you are hearing Luke’s story of Jesus for the first time is why start here in the first place?
We haven’t even mentioned Jesus yet.
God’s plan is more than just simple stories. They are interconnected.
Expand: What happens between Zechariah’s questioning of Gabriel and the joy experienced in the next text I will read tells us a lot about God’s unfolding plan of.
salvation.
Elizabeth and Zechariah are not the only aged, barren parents blessed with a Child in their own age. This story echoes both the story of Hanna and Elkanah the parents of Samuel, and Sarah and Abraham parents of Isaac. With John’s birth God closes that story-arc of scripture.
The episode takes place in the temple, the Holy of Holies. The child, known to us as John the Baptist, will be the son of a priest who begins to explain that that sacrificial system will be replaced, and that John’s role is to prepare the way.
In the Spirit of Elijah, John will be the final messenger of the Old Covenant, paving the way for Jesus to inaugurate the New Covenant.
No wonder Zechariah was hesitant and skeptical! God had been seemingly silent for generations and now it seems most of the central themes of the OT are beginning to find fulfillment.
Excite: It is easier for God to explain the plan than it is for us to understand it. Yet we must try. For much of the time many of us are like Zechariah—stuck in a natal hesitation wondering if God can and will do what He promises. Other times we are overwhelmed with joy at what He does. It is when Zachariah finally speaks—and sings that we begin to understand the full impact of the story.
57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.
58 And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
59 And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father,
60 but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.”
61 And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.”
62 And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called.
63 And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered.
Explore:
It may be an odd story, but it is a part of God’s story—and a part of our story.
It may be an odd story, but it is a part of God’s story—and a part of our story.
Expand: In Zechariah’s song of praise he sounds some themes that will be heard over and over again in Luke’s Gospel.
Body of Sermon: The first theme is
1 Redemption.
1 Redemption.
Luke 1:68–69 (ESV)
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,
2 Revelation.
2 Revelation.
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,
3 Righteousness.
3 Righteousness.
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.
4 Restoration.
4 Restoration.
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.”
Shut Down
We sometimes forget that God’s story is more important than our story. Even worse, we sometimes think that God’s story is in some way subservient to our story.
Christmas—whether the mute silence of Zechariah or his joyful celebration when John was born—Christmas is the story of God acting to bring all our stories into alignment with His story of love and redemption.