Songs of Christmas Zechariah s Song Kevin Haah Luke 1: December 14, 2014

Transcription

1 [Slide 1] We are in the middle of a Christmas sermon series called, Songs of Christmas. We are going to look at the first Christmas carols from the Book of Luke. [Slide 2] Today, we will look at: Zechariah s Song. He is the father of John the Baptist, the prophet who prepared the way of Jesus. The story of Zechariah and his prophetic song has much to teach us about what Christmas is really about. I think as kids, Christmas was about getting presents. And that can get a little annoying for parents. One little boy kept going on to his parents about a watch for Christmas, and eventually they got fed up with it and said, Look, if you mention the watch again, you re not going to get a watch, you re not going to get anything for Christmas. At a meal, he said, Can I pray? They said, Well, if you want to pray, that s fine. Before I pray, I d like to read a verse. Okay. He said, I d like to read Mark 13, verse 37. I told you once, and I tell you again, watch. Then, as adults, we get caught in the noise of the holiday season shopping, going to holiday parties, visiting family; and for some of us, we get depressed during the season. In fact, suicide rate increases during the holidays. But, either way, the noise of our lives has drowned out the true beauty of Christmas. I want to share with you the story of Zechariah and the Christmas song that he wrote. He came to discover the true beauty of Christmas. The experience he had, the 9 months of waiting in silence, and the ecstasy of realizing what God was really up to. All of these things culminated in him singing this song: [Slide 3] Let s read Luke 1: His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: 68 Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. 69 He has raised up a horn[c] of salvation for us in the house of his servant David 70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), [Slide 4] 71 salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us 1

2 72 to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, 73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham: 74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear [Slide 5] 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, 77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, [Slide 6] 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven 79 to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace. Let s talk about what led to this song and what the song is about. What led to the singing? Zechariah was the father of John the Baptist. He was a priest married to a woman named Elizabeth. We don t know exactly how old they were but were probably at least 60 years old. She was past her menopause. She was barren and never had a child. In their community, it was considered a curse from God to not to be able to conceive. This was particularly tough on women. It was considered a disgrace. It is without any question that they lived in shame. They probably cried out to God many times asking for the blessing of a child but God never answered; and as they aged, they gave up trying. They gave up asking. Grace and I couldn t conceive for the first 6 years of our marriage. It was a difficult time for us. We cried out to God constantly. This was our biggest prayer request. We had so many people pray for us. Grace experienced a few miscarriages. 2

3 The doctor kept on saying that there was nothing wrong. We kept on trying but nothing happened for 6 years. It became so hard that it was difficult for us to go to birthday parties for kids or go to church events where there were a lot of kids. I know some of you are going through infertility issues and I know it s not easy. That s what Zechariah and Elizabeth were experiencing except it was a lot worse for two reasons: (1) the religious community they were a part of believed that it was a sign of God s curse. (2) For women of that culture, and in many traditional cultures, the thing that made them somebody was bearing children and becoming a mother. If you couldn t bear children, you were considered a failure by that society. When Zechariah and Elizabeth were very old, he was assigned to serve in the temple. He was chosen by lot to actually enter the Place of Holy in the Sanctuary and burn the incense. This was a great privilege. When he entered, he saw the angel of the Lord. Of course, he was gripped with fear. [Slide 7] Luke 1:13 says, But, the angel said to him: Do not be afraid Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John (this is John the Baptist). He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth. And the angel goes on to tell him that John will be like Elijah and prepare the way of the Lord. In verse 18, Zechariah said to the angel, How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years. He couldn t believe. He had questions. And in response to this, the angel proclaimed that he would not be able to speak until the child is born. I am not sure if this was a punishment. I think it might have initially felt like a punishment, but through silence, I think the Lord was trying to do something in the heart of Zechariah. God was going to BE present to Zechariah in silence in a way God could not break through to Zechariah in words. This is the strange gift of silence. Imagine for a moment what Zechariah s life was like. Because he came out the Place of Holy without being able to speak, people knew he experienced something. And he knew he experienced something. When he went home, he slept with Elizabeth and she conceived as the Lord promised. Elizabeth is able to speak, so she said [Slide 8] (in verse 25): The Lord has done this for me, she said. In these days he ahs shown his 3

4 favor and taken away my disgrace among the people. If I were Zechariah, I would want to tell everyone about what God is going to do. Tell all the people who looked down on them because they didn t have a child, and give it to them on their face and tell them about the experience he had in the temple. I would be tempted to make this all about me, and God s blessing upon me, and my wife. But, because Zechariah couldn t speak, he couldn t boast. He couldn t talk about God s blessings on him and his wife. He had to live in silence. I am not sure if he just couldn t speak or whether he also couldn t hear. If you look at verse 62, it says that people made signs to him, meaning that he couldn t hear either. Zechariah lived in silence for 9 months. The hustle and bustle of life became silent. I am not sure if I could handle being silent for 9 months. I have a hard time being silent for a few hours. I am an extrovert. So, it is doubly hard on me. Often times, when I seek silent and try to listen to the Lord, I feel like there are monkeys that jump around in my brain. Things I got to do. People I forget to talk to. s that I tagged but forgot to respond to. I pick up my phone and start reading my s. Check Facebook. But, there is something about silence that, over time, quiets even the monkeys that jump around in our brains. Somewhere along the line, we find quietness. The to-do list and distraction of what we have to do start to fade away. The focus we have on our success starts to fade away. Even all the things that we want from God start to fade away. Silence forces us to come to a place of just listening, thinking and reading. That s all we can do. And that s probably what Zechariah did. He was a priest; so, he was educated and can read the Scriptures. He can read the Prophets. He started to listen to God. He started to see what God is doing. And as he did so, he started to see what was happening no longer in the context of God s blessing for him and his wife, taking away their bitter shame, but more in the context of what God is doing. One of the clearest things you should notice about Zechariah s song is that it is not about Zechariah and Elizabeth at all. It is not even about John, although he is mentioned. The whole song is about God and Jesus, the Messiah to 4

5 come, and fulfillment of God s promise to the people. [Slide 9] He started to see himself in the context of God s story, not see God in the context of his story. That s what silence did for Zechariah. Are we so crowded by what s going on in the world, and even when we have our relationship with God, it is all about God and me, how God is going to bless me, how God is going to take away my shame, and how God is going to change my life. The fact is that these are really important things. God has blessed us individually. God has saved us. God has free us. But, we often limit God to our blessings alone. God does that, but when we enter into his presence, deep into his presence, we began to see that God s plan is so much bigger! It is way bigger than our individual blessings. That s what Zechariah realized. That s why Zechariah did not sing about himself and his blessings, but God s plan and how he gets to be a part of God s plan. And he rejoiced. He praised God. We need to remind ourselves to look into the right end of the telescope. We often look through the wrong end of the telescope and say: Lord, look at me. It s all about me. Look at my needs. We don t say this explicitly, but we are essentially saying: The world revolves around me. God is out there to serve me. God is out there to answer my prayers. God is out there to bless me with a good job, a good husband or a wife, and a good life. We live in a me-centric world. i.e., everything revolves around ME my happiness my wants my needs ME! Let me ask you something: How many times a day do you think about God? What he wants. What he thinks. And how many times a day do you think about yourself? Your needs, your desires, your wants. Then, sometimes, something happens in our lives where it doesn t make sense anymore. God, are you out there? Why aren t you answering my prayers? Why aren t you giving me the stuff that I want? Why is this happening to me? Some of us start getting angry at God. We get bitter at God. That s the reason some of us walked away from God. God stopped making sense to us. 5

6 Life works better if you look at the telescope from the right side. It all makes better sense if we look at it from the right side and look at the GLORY of GOD, what He is all about. When we look up, we begin to see his glory. o begin to see beauty that we can hardly even fathom. o We begin to see love that utterly destroys our sense of love love that was willing to come down here in the person of Jesus and live for a while among us so that we can behold his glory. o We begin to see his wisdom. The things that God has been saying to us no longer become one of the options, but the weight of his word, the glory of his word, begins to overwhelm other thoughts and opinions. o We begin to see his power. o We begin to see his mysteries. o We begin to see how huge he really is and how small we really are. When we spend time in the presence of God, especially in silence, just listening and seeing what he is up to, we turn the telescope in the right direction, and say, God, you are amazing! [Slide 10] And like Zechariah, cry out, Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. Let s go a little deeper in the song. As we talked about, Zechariah completely bypassed praise for his personal blessing, and went right to what God is doing: He has come to his people to redeem him. He has raise up a horn of salvation. Horn refers to strength. He is fulfilling the promises of God that the prophets prophesized about. He will save us from our enemies. He shows mercy. He remembers his holy covenant that he made to Abraham. He is rescuing us. From the beginning of the song in verse 68 to verse 75, there is no I or me or my. There is no singular first person. Everything is about Him. What he is doing. He sees what is going on in the context of history. God is doing something in history. God has promised 6

7 to save us and rescue us and redeem us, and now, he is doing it! Praise God. That is what he is ecstatic about. When we read the Bible, we have such a tendency to individualize everything. What does this passage mean for me? What is God s blessing for me? What is God s promise for me today? I think these questions are important but we just stop there. I think this is a product of our Western individualistic culture. But, what if we started to see what God is doing in history and put ourselves in the context of that history? The biblical history starts out with God creating the universe, and creating humanity in his image. Then, humanity decides to walk away from fellowship with the Creator, we began to face the consequences of that. But, God continues to reach out to us. The Old Testament Scripture is the story of God s love for us, and how he repeatedly chose and reached out to sinful humanity. He demonstrates grace to them over and over again. At one point, he chose Abraham and said that he will bless him so that he can be a blessing to all people. And we see God walking with his people. Even when they sin, he walks with them. But, he keeps on promising over and over again that some day, he will send an anointed one. In fact, at one point, he said that the anointed one will be the Lord himself. Look at the prophecy of Malachi that is repeated by Zechariah when he said that John would prepare the way of the LORD (that s the word Yahweh in the original language). He promised over and over again that the anointed one, the LORD himself, will come and save Israel and become a blessing to all nations. But for 400 hundred years, there was silence. There was no prophecy for 400 years. Then, Zechariah hears God in silence and he is filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesizes. 400 years of silence is broken. Zechariah is singing because in his silence, he heard God, and silence of God is broken! After John, Jesus is born and, as Zechariah prophesized, Jesus shined his light into the darkness and started to lead our feet to peace. He willingly died for us on the cross, to reconcile us to a relationship with God. And he resurrected, and ascended and he told us that he will come back to restore all things. In the mean time, he poured out his Spirit upon us and told us that he is with us, and gave us our marching orders: go make 7

8 disciples of all nation. And, he told us that he is coming back. Everything will be restored. He called us to come together in community he called the church, his bride, and told us to become a body that reflects the beauty of the upside down kingdom he came to inaugurate. He told us to live in the Spirit and bear the fruit of the Spirit. He told us to live as people of God, citizens of the Kingdom of God to come, and not as citizens of this world. He called us to love one another, build one another up, encourage one another, and become a radial community of love towards the world. He called us to work to bring to earth the Kingdom that is to come. And he reminded to us keep at it until he comes back to restore all things. That s the story of God as revealed the Scriptures. Our blessing and our life have to line up with the story of God. That s exactly what Zechariah is doing. He puts his son in the context of the work God is doing. [Slide 11] In verses 76-78, he says, And you, my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins, because of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun (he is referring to Jesus) will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace. During the advent, as we wait for Christmas, and as we wait for the second coming of the Lord, are we getting caught in hustle and bustle of the season? The noise of the season? Are we getting caught in the personal blessing of God and making this all about God blessing us? Or are we seeing the beauty of what he is doing? Do we see his beauty? Are we astonished by the good news? For all of us, I think we might need to spend some time in silent to listen to what God is doing, so that we don t lose the beauty of Christmas in the midst of all of the things that distracts us. 8