Tell God's People

First Presbyterian Church – Willmar

December 9, 2012

Sermon

Luke 1: 68-79

“Tell God’s People”

Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible.  It has 176 verses.  In the New Testament, Luke 1 is the longest chapter.  It has 80 verses.

In Matthew 1 we get the very long genealogy of Jesus followed by a small Christmas story.  In Mark we immediately jump into the ministry of John the Baptist followed by Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  In John we get the wonderful poetic theology of the first 18 verses followed by an overview of John’s ministry, which leads to the baptism of Jesus and the call of Jesus’ disciples.    

Luke brings us the most frequently quoted “Christmas” story.  That’s in Luke 2.  That also means that it is the most frequently misquoted Christmas story.  Let me know if you find a donkey mentioned anywhere in Luke! Luke 1 is the only real Advent story in the Gospels.

As I’ve mentioned before, I read old sermons just to see what others had to say about scripture.  Sermons are usually more down to earth than tomes of theology.  There are a lot of sermons on Luke 1, but as I said it’s a very large chapter.  It starts with the announcement to Zechariah by the angel Gabriel that Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth will have a son, a very important son – John.  Zechariah doubts that the angel knows what he’s talking about, so Zechariah is literally dumbstruck – he is completely unable to speak – until the son is born.  Then we hear about Gabriel coming to Mary and announcing that she will have a son.  Mary isn’t much more convinced than Zechariah was, but Mary’s response is to simply place herself in the hands of the Lord.  If God wants her to have a son, then it shall be so.

Then Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who is now clearly pregnant with John, and Elizabeth greets Mary with those wonderful words: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”  Then Mary responds with the words of what we call the Magnificat, which begins: “My soul magnifies the Lord….” But we’re still not through with chapter 1.

Elizabeth delivers her son and then takes the important step in Jewish tradition 10 days after his birth by naming him.  Elizabeth and Zechariah both said he should be named John, a name that played no role in the family tradition of Zechariah, but that is the name that Gabriel told them the child should be called.  And as soon as that obligation was fulfilled, Zechariah’s “tongue was loosed” and then finally we come to today’s reading called “The Song of Zechariah.”

I found lots of sermons on most of this first chapter of Luke, but I couldn’t find any on the Song of Zechariah.  Perhaps that reflects our own anxiety about this period of expectant waiting called Advent.  We really want to get on to the birthday!

I saw an interesting picture on Facebook the other day.  It was a play on the old image of a person walking around with a sandwich board declaring “The End Is Near!”  This flipped that into an Advent message which said, “The beginning is near!”  After all, that’s what we are waiting for:  the beginning of a new creation.

I am very dependent on the internet.  I read my newspapers on-line, some magazines, lot’s of newsletters, and I use email, and Facebook and my blog to communicate with people literally all around the world.  Some of us have a similar reliance on radio and television.  Some people would be lost without pundits and commentators telling us how and what to think.  If all of that went away tomorrow, how would you occupy your mind all day? 

You don’t have to go very far back in history to find generations who lived without our electronic media.  And 2000 years ago, the time of Zechariah and Jesus, they didn’t even have printing presses.  If you add to that Zechariah’s inability to speak, you may wonder what he did every day.  How did Zechariah occupy his mind during 9 months of silence?

Zechariah was a priest.  He was an educated person who passed his days praying and teaching in his home community, and several times a year he would carry out certain prescribed rituals at the Temple in Jerusalem.  It was during one of these Temple chores that Gabriel came to speak with him. 

The angel describes something that should be familiar to this priest.  Like Abraham and Sarah, Rachel and Jacob, and the parents of Samson and Samuel, the angel was announcing that this couple who seemed incapable of having a baby would give birth to a very important child.  Their child would be the one who was promised in the prophets who would prepare the people of Israel for their long-awaited Messiah.  This was the one who would tell God’s people.

Perhaps like Sarah he laughed when the angel told him that he would have a son.  Zechariah made it clear that he found the angel’s message impossible to believe.  Zechariah wanted a sign to reassure himself, and the angel decided to give him a negative sign:  he took away from him his ability to speak.  Zechariah would remain silent until the birth of John.

So Zechariah sat through 9 months of imposed silence.  He was a teacher, a leader in his community.  He was fully aware of the injustices and suffering of his people both at the hands of the Romans and the hands of some of their own Jewish leaders.  In his heart and his mind he held the hope of the promises of the prophets who said that one day his people would be delivered, but first the people would have to be prepared.

It would be his son who would prepare the people.  It would be his son who would tell God’s people that their long awaited deliverance was at hand.  He would call them to repentance and announce the coming of the fulfillment of all of God’s promises.  It would happen in a very unexpected way – the way God always acts in history – and people would have to be prepared. 

After nine months of silence Zechariah’s voice is heard once again as John is named.  In these 11 verses that make up the Song of Zechariah, he places the life of his son and the anticipated life of Jesus into the context of the whole of Jewish history.  What was about to happen is a part of the centuries old history of his people.  The light of God’s presence was about to shine brightly in the presence of their lives.  Jesus will be the fulfillment of all the promises made by God over centuries to His people.  The long desired hope of Israel would come to fruition at last.

Zechariah knew this because he knew that his newborn son had been chosen as the one to prepare the way.  Preparation was very important because God’s promises would be fulfilled in a way that wasn’t expected. 

Preparation is still very important for us today because we sometimes have a hard time looking at the world and accepting the notion that God’s promises of justice and righteousness, forgiveness and redemption have been realized. 

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us….

Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”

We have been rescued – God has come among us – so that we might serve God without fear through lives of holiness and righteousness for all our days.

This is the final message of the first chapter of Luke.  This is what we must expect and accept before we come to celebrate the birth of the one promised to Abraham.  The author of Luke wants to make certain that before you get to celebrating that pretty story about the birth of a child, you have prepared your heart and your life to respond to this new thing that God is about to do. 

God’s kingdom is like a mustard seed that carries within it the life of an enormous tree.  God’s kingdom is like yeast that when only a little is placed in a lot of flour can change the whole purpose of that flour.  God’s kingdom is like a rose bush that must be severely pruned to survive the winter but bursts into new life and announces the arrival of spring.  God’s kingdom is like a little baby, born in humble surroundings to people like you and like me.

That baby grew up to tell us that the Kingdom of God is near.  Are you prepared to live in it?  Are you too prepared to tell God’s people that the kingdom is at hand?  Then you are truly prepared to celebrate the birth of that child and to joyfully expect once again the fulfillment of God’s promise one day when Christ returns to be here among us.

Amen.