December 8, 2024

Sermon title:  “Zechariah’s Song”

Scripture:  Luke 1:68-79

(Other lectionary suggestions include Malachi 3:1-4, Philippians 1:3-11, and Luke 3:1-6.)

Luke 1:68-79

68“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. 69He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, 70as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. 72Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, 73the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us 74that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. 78By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, 79to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

          The sermon title is “Zechariah’s Song,” and it refers to when the father of John the Baptist praised God for the birth of his son. (Read Luke 1:57-67 – 57Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. 60But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” 61They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” 62Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. 63He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. 64Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. 66All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him. 67Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:) Remember that when Zechariah first heard that his wife Elizabeth was going to conceive and bear a son, he didn’t believe it, and he was struck dumb until the child arrived. A little interjection here! Did you ever notice how God treats people who don’t believe right away DIFFERENTLY? In Genesis, Abraham was old and so was his wife, and he LAUGHED. In fact, they BOTH laughed, and the name of their only biological son ISAAC means “he laughed” or “I laughed.”. But God didn’t strike either one of them with an infirmity. Look at Mary, the mother of Jesus. She says, “How can this be since I have no husband?” Nothing bad happened to her, either! Does God play favorites? I’m not going to go that far, but more important than anything else is the sovereignty of Yahweh. God does what God wants to do when God wants to do it! Well, that doesn’t seem fair, does it? Harlane said, “I thought God was a loving God.” God IS a loving God, but more than anything else, God is sovereign. God loves us, but God is also sovereign. And we need to let God be God and not try to assume we know how God will act. Jesus realized that it was GOD’s will that was important, not his. We need to do the same.

          We are in the second Sunday of Advent, and we hear of the birth of John the Baptist. His father Zechariah looks at this birth as a sign that God is keeping his promises. What he says is “a poem about God acting at last, finally doing what he promised many centuries ago, and doing it at a time when his people had had their fill of hatred and oppression.” The nation of Israel had been oppressed from generation to generation by one empire after another. Right now, Rome was weighing them down.

          But God had made a covenant with Israel through Abraham, and “God had spoken of a prophet who would go ahead to prepare the way.” Zechariah believed that that prophet was his son John the Baptist.

          Was he right? Christians like to believe so, but the question I find myself asking is, “Was Zechariah still alive when his son was beheaded?” Oh, I hope not. We know that Jesus was aware that his cousin was arrested and eventually executed, and that had to have been hard enough to endure. I only hope Zechariah and Elizabeth had lived their lives before they saw their son arrested. And we really don’t know - the Bible doesn’t say.

          I almost got depressed writing this sermon! We’re in the midst of two wars today, and it’s Christmastime. But maybe we should keep in mind that when God sent John the Baptist and then his Son Jesus to the world, things weren’t great then, either! One minister, Sara Pearson of a Lutheran church in a small Wisconsin town, says this:  “Where is the dawn from on high? How is it that a little baby can help prepare the way of the Lord....?” She says, “Perhaps, like Zechariah, we need to silence our questions for a time and learn to trust God. Perhaps we need to return to the words of Psalm 46:10: ‘Be still and know that I am God.’”

          Once again, the Rev. Sara Pearson:  “Advent is a time for clearing the slate, for preparing for the coming Christ child. And on this second Sunday of Advent, we begin our preparations with the story of an infant who holds so much promise and hope. Born of an inconsequential set of parents in a small town in the middle of nowhere comes a man who, for a brief time in his life, lived in the wilderness and called people to repent and turn again to God. It is a simple yet profound idea, to repent and re-turn to God.” Lots of religious communities do this, including the Jewish community and those in the Muslim community.

          One of the things we need to do is practice forgiveness, and that’s not always fun or easy! Our parents and grandparents forced us to do those things (i.e., forgive others) when we were kids. We need to do that as adults, too. As Rev. Sara says, “when we do this, we are opening our hearts to the ways that God is waiting for us, waiting to give us the peace that passes all understanding....” Psalm 23 mentions this in the verses that say “Thou hast prepared a table for me in the presence of mine enemies....” Think of that! Smiling while your enemies are all around you! We need to trust that even with darkness all around, “God’s light will break from on high. And it may just be that God is gently and surprisingly working God’s ways in the people around us, quire often, as Zechariah experienced, in unlikely places and unlikely people.” Amen.

Pastor Skip