The Lord Is Come
Luke 1:5-24; 57-80
This Christmas season, maybe more than any Christmas season that any of us can remember, our neighbors are feeling a deep sense of anticipation; a sense of hope for change. The sense that, just around the bend or just over the next hill is something fresh, something bright to bring us out of the fog. To many, Christmas and the New Year promise a break from the monotony of the previous 11 months and a fresh start just on the other side of the candy canes, ornaments, and string lights. If there’s ever been a year that we can agree as a nation that we need a break, it’s probably this one.
This season is an overlapping of time. The old is wrapping up and the new is preparing to begin.
For hundreds of years, the Christian Church has celebrated four Sundays of the season of Advent. Advent means an arrival that has been awaited. These weeks are a time of intentional meditation on Jesus’ coming - both in his Incarnation and in his promised return. Christians, too, find themselves in this overlapping of time. But it's not simply the previous year wrapping up and the next beginning, it is an overlapping of time on a much more grand scale. It’s not the freshness of a New Year that gives Christians hope, it is the Light that pierced the darkness and which the darkness could not overcome (John 1:1-5).
In Luke chapter 1, Zechariah the priest receives a message from the angel Gabriel that his prayers have been heard and that he and his wife Elizabeth would have a son. Luke’s account tells us that Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God but well beyond their natural child-bearing stage of life. It is likely that Zechariah and Elizabeth had prayed for a child for years and years. It is also probable that Zechariah the devout and faithful priest had prayed for the Messiah to come for those years as well. Upon receiving this news from the angel, Zechariah, dumbfounded by the prospect that his beloved wife would become pregnant in her advanced age, requested a sign to confirm this promise.
What the aged priest received was of double significance. Zechariah was made unable to speak. In part this was as a rebuke for his unbelief (it is possible that he was also unable to hear for this period) but a rebuke that carried with it a promise of its own - that he would only be afflicted until the day that the angel’s words were fulfilled.
Months later, Elizabeth gave birth to a child and named him John. At that moment, the Word says, Zechariah’s affliction ended and he, filled by the Holy Spirit, blessed God with his voice.
The aged priest having just become a father stood at the very turning point of time. The last of the prophets had just been born in his son John who would later be identified as the Baptist. More significantly even than he was the One for whom he would prepare the way. The Messiah, the Redeemer, was coming into the world. The old was coming to a conclusion and the new was beginning. Zechariah’s prophetic expression of praise was proclaimed at the grand overlap of history’s great ages.
The priest’s prophetic exclamation expressed exuberant joy in the present, unwavering trust as he remembered the past, and glorious hope for the future. Zechariah’s prophecy is one long sentence in the original language. We’ll focus on a few key verses.
Joy and Praise
Blessed is the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and provided redemption for his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, Luke 1:68-69 (CSB)
The first words out of the priest’s mouth are words of praise for God’s presence among and redeeming work for His people. The priest who has just become a father according to a miracle of the Lord does not say, After years of tears and pleading, at last, I am a Father! he says, blessed be the God who has visited and redeemed His people. Zechariah’s prayers for the Deliverer have been answered. The Lord is come. (This statement expresses more than a singular event but a changing of the age. This is the age wherein the Lord is present among His people first in Jesus the Messiah and, upon His resurrection and ascension, by His Spirit indwelling the Church.)
Unwavering Trust
He has dealt mercifully with our ancestors and remembered his holy covenant Luke 1:72 (CSB)
The priest recounts God’s promises to His people across Israel’s history. God has remembered His covenant, He has kept up His end. Every promise He made He is fulfilling right before Zechariah’s eyes. God is faithful to His every promise.
Glorious Hope
Because of our God’s merciful compassion, the dawn from on high will visit us to shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1:78-79 (CSB)
God has been faithful to His promises. He is come. As Zechariah considers both God’s faithfulness to His promises in the past and the miracles unfolding before his own eyes - including his months of inability to speak that ended when his promised son was born - he declares with unshakeable assurance that God will deliver us from death and lead us in the way of peace.
You and I may not have received news that we are miraculously to become the parent of a prophet of the Lord. We do, however, find ourselves in a place similar to Zechariah and we have reason to rejoice as he did.
Especially in the Advent season we look back with awe, wonder, and gratitude that Jesus is come. He came in the flesh. He walked the earth and endured the trials and temptations of humanity. He came according to the promise first uttered in Genesis chapter 3. We have reason for Unwavering Trust.
The Spirit of God dwells with and among us now. Whatever trial we’re facing, whatever affliction we’re enduring, we can rest assured that it will only last as long as God intends according to His perfect plan (Romans 8). Zechariah endured day after day for months without the ability to communicate with those around him. These were undoubtedly troubling days. All the while, the Lord sustained him and he endured up until his tongue was loosed and he shouted praises to God. We have reason for joy and praise.
Christian, He is coming again. He faithful to His promises, He dwells among those He has redeemed now by His Spirit, He will ultimately deliver us and lead us in the way of peace. We have reason for hope. And just like Zechariah, we have reason to open our mouths this Advent season.
Joy to the world, the Lord is come.