Sermons from First Presbyterian Church of San Antonio. MESSENGERS OF THE COVENANT: MEET ELIZABETH AND ZECHARIAH Luke 1:5-17

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1 Sermons from First Presbyterian Church of San Antonio MESSENGERS OF THE COVENANT: MEET ELIZABETH AND ZECHARIAH Luke 1:5-17 REV. LOUIS H. ZBINDEN December 09, 2001

2 First Presbyterian Church is pleased to offer you transcripts of our sermons free of charge. However, if you would like to help underwrite this ministry, we would appreciate your assistance. Please make your gift payable to the Sermon Distribution Fund, c/o First Presbyterian Church, 404 North Alamo, San Antonio, Texas Thank you for your support. 2

3 Messengers of the Covenant: Meet Elizabeth and Zechariah Luke 1:5-17 Rev. Louis H. Zbinden December 09, 2001 Hear now the word of God as it is found recorded for us in the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke, the 1 st chapter, and beginning to read at the 5 th verse. Hear now the word of God: In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advance in years. Now while Zechariah was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth; for he will be great before the Lord, and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother s womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared. The reading ended at the 17 th verse of the 1 st chapter. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand forever. The message at the beginning of your Advent Book declares the theme of our messages during these Sundays. The quote from Jeremiah six hundred years before the birth of Christ, God proclaims through the mouth of Jeremiah, behold the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with my people. Not a covenant written on stone, one which they broke, one which will be written on their hearts, and I will be their God and they will be my people. God declared through Jeremiah, that there would be a new covenant to be established. Following Jeremiah, there were other prophets Ezekiel, Daniel and Haggai eight of them in number, covering a period of two hundred years. These prophets, like the other prophets before them, gave a word of rebuke and reproof because they had been disobedient. They gave a word of hope that one day there would be justice and peace established; but also gave a word about a deliverer a messiah a time of redemption. The last in that line of prophets was the last book in the Old Testament, Malachi, a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, he was there as the walls of Jerusalem were being rebuilt, and in the third chapter, Malachi says, See, I send my messenger who will prepare the way. Suddenly, the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant whom you desire will come. There was hope, and there was anticipation, and there was silence, four hundred years of silence. Not a word from the prophet, no word about this messenger who would talk about a new covenant. There was no word from the Lord 3

4 Hebrews tells us in various ways God spoke through the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us through a son. We know that day of the new covenant began when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. We know that the new covenant began when on that night Jesus said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. We know that the new covenant began as Jesus died on the cross, shedding his blood for my sin and your sin. We know that new covenant came into existence, when on the third day he got up and, with life in him, said because I live you shall live also. Just as there were prophets of old, who talked about an old covenant, so the Son is the one who establishes the new covenant, but just as prophets were messengers of that old covenant, so God prepared messengers of a new covenant; That s what we re doing during these Sundays of Advent. We re meeting these messengers. Today we meet the first in that group: Elizabeth and Zechariah. My favorite story is about Zechariah, a seminarian, who is in his last year. The seminary he attended required that they stand in the pulpit to prove that they could speak extemporaneously. On the pulpit there was a box, and in the box there were cards, and on the cards were either themes from the Bible or names, and he reached in and he pulled out the card, and on the card was the word Zechariah. His heart sank. He looked at the card, and he looked at the congregation, and he looked at all those professors, and he said, Zechariah was in worship in church, and so am I. Zechariah was married to a woman named Elizabeth, and so am I. Zechariah had nothing to say, and neither do I. Then he pronounced the benediction, the shortest worship service in the seminary s history. So today we meet Elizabeth and Zechariah, messengers of the covenant. Now let me explain to you today what we read in those verses. Luke tells us that Zechariah was a priest. He also tells us that his wife Elizabeth was from a priestly family from the line of Aaron, Moses brother, the first of the priests. He tells us that they were righteous before God. He tells us that they were blameless, according to the ordinances. They have been looking for the deliverance of Israel. He tells us also that they re old, beyond childbearing years, and they have no children, so the anticipation of having children is not theirs. Now we know that at this time there were twenty thousand priests in the land. The place they went to perform their priestly duties was, of course, Jerusalem and the temple. So these 20,000 were divided into twenty-four groups or twenty-four divisions. They perform the duties that they were equipped and trained to do for a two-week period of time. For the rest of year they were in their villages, reading the Scriptures, praying but not sacrificing. The goal for every priest, the high point for every priest, was to be able to take the incense after the sacrifice, into the Holy of Holies, and there the incense would be burned, symbolic of the prayers going to God, and being heard by God. But the only way you could become the priest of the incense was as they cast lots. So the odds were not very good that you would in your lifetime be able to reach that pinnacle. But this year, on this day, the lot falls to Zechariah. He is going to be able to go into the Holy of Holies, and pray, and offer the incense. The Old Testament tells us that the priest of incense wears a white robe and his feet are bare; he has an assistant on his right hand with a golden vessel with a half-pound of incense; an assistant on the left side with a golden vessel with burning cones. As they go up the steps and approach the Holy of Holies, those vessels are given to the priest of incense. He enters alone, laying the coals on the altar and then the incense on top, of the coals after voicing the prayers of deliverance and redemption. As he s doing this, as the incense is permeating the air and wafting outside, symbolic to all of those who have gathered, that the prayers are rising to God and being heard. Suddenly, Luke tells us that the angel Gabriel appears on the right side of the altar, and he says to Zechariah, Do 4

5 not be afraid Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard, and Elizabeth will give birth to a son, and you shall give him the name John. Now what I want you to understand is that the message contained three different things, all of which are important, not only for the messenger, but for the message that he received. First, your prayer has been heard. Zechariah would not have been praying for the birth of a child. They had given up a long time ago. Zechariah was there, as the intercessor for the entire nation, lifting a prayer for the deliverance of the nation; lifting a prayer for the redemption of the nation; lifting a prayer that Malachi s prophecy that the Lord would appear in his temple, and the messenger of the covenant would come. This is the prayer that he is raising, and Gabriel says, This prayer of deliverance has been heard. Secondly, Elizabeth miraculously is going to bear a son. Something that both of them had put in the background long, long ago. Gabriel goes on and lets Zechariah know what this son is going to be. He will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord, their God. He will go before him, in the Spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. Suddenly, Zechariah is made aware of the fact that he and his wife, and the son to be born John who is John the Baptist will be an instrument of God s deliverance. That redemption will be a reality, the 400 years of not hearing a word from God has suddenly come to an end. And the third part of the message is that you will name him, John. John that means Jehovah or God is gracious. John that means God is saving; God is fulfilling his promise. There was no one in John s family or in Zechariah s family named John. Luke s going to tell us later that, but by giving to this child to be born the name John, we have the promise of a new beginning. We have the promise of a blessing for all of humankind. God gave to Zechariah so much more than he had ever anticipated. After all of these years, a child would come to be the instrument of God s redemption. After all of these years, the reality of a new beginning and a new hope. After all of these years, the redemption they had been looking for is on the horizon. Now Luke continues the story by telling us that Zechariah wants to know how can he be sure of this. The Angel Gabriel said, "Ah ah, because you didn t believe you will be silent the remainder of the time until the child is born". And right at the end of the chapter, after the child is born, and Zechariah is holding John, and they say, What is the child to be named? The father names the child. Zechariah can t speak. He writes on a tablet his name shall be John, and God gives at that moment Zechariah a marvelous song that we call the Benedictus which is at the end of the first chapter. In those words we read, You child will be called prophet of the most high, where you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins through the tender mercy of God. After all of these years, Zechariah not only is able to be a messenger of what is to come, but is given a message about salvation and forgiveness of sin. Not only a messenger, but given a message. It is at this point that I want to pause and ask what would it be like if you were this day to hear what Zechariah heard. Your prayer has been heard. How many Advents has it been for you? Twenty? Forty? Sixty? Have your prayers been heard? Or better yet, have you heard the message that Zechariah heard in the message of Advent, that God who made you has come to be with you to save you because he loves you. What is your prayer this Advent? Have you, like Zechariah, given up thinking God can bring it about? Have you given up thinking God can mend that relationship, or break that habit? Have you given up thinking God can forgive that hurt, that heal, or that brokenness? Have you given up thinking that he can drive out that fear or absolve that guilt? Have you given up thinking that God can touch and heal that memory? After all these years, have you given up thinking that he ll never be able to straighten out the mess that you ve made of your life? The Angel Gabriel told Zechariah that his prayer had been heard. There was communication and understanding. 5

6 Remember the story that I told about the couple who had settled into a routine, sort of taking each other for granted. One of their weekly rituals was as the week came to an end and as the loaf of bread came to the end, the man always put two pieces of bread in the toaster. But year, after year, after year, as they came to the end, he would put the next to the last piece and then the heel in the toaster, and he always gave her the heel. One day she simply flew into a rage, and she said, After all of these years you have never given to me the next to the last piece the piece that toasts on both sides; you ve given me the heel. And he looked at her in shock and dismay and hurt, because the heel was his favorite piece. And he said, Didn t you know that the heel was my favorite piece; I have been sacrificing all these years to give it to you. He had never told her; she had never heard that. The angel said, Zechariah your prayer has been heard. Could this be the Advent when there is communication and understanding, when you know that you have been heard? Could this be the Advent when you hear the message that the God who made you has come to be with you to save you because he loves you? Year after year, Zechariah went to Jerusalem. Finally his time came, and as he entered the holy place and offered the incense and prayed for redemption, his prayer was heard. Through the providence of God, you have been brought to this special holy place today. May Gabriel s word to Zechariah come to you, that your prayers be heard, and may it also include the assurance that came to Zechariah of salvation and forgiveness through the tender mercy of God. But most of all will you hear and understand the God who made you has come to be with you to save you, because he loves you, after all these years. Pray with me. To you O God, the power and might and glory because you have sent not only messengers, but given a message; may we know that our prayers have been heard, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Call for more information on sermons. 6

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