God Remembers
the Covenant
Advent 4 – December 19/22, 2019
“Zechariah’s Song”
I wonder if Zechariah woke up that fateful
day with some sense that anything new, exciting, life-changing was about to
happen
· Like Tony in West Side Story – Something’s comin’, I
don’t know what it is, but it is gonna be great!
I’m guessing that he
probably didn’t sense anything out of the ordinary going to happen when he went
to the temple to perform his duties as a priest, which he did two weeks out of
every year.
· Zechariah is getting on in years, and it’s kind of
been the same old, same old for a while
o Under occupation by the Roman empire
o Still childless, and now past the point of hoping to
have children
o Life is just ordinary, perhaps past the point of even
wishing for anything like the excitement of something new
o May have seemed to Zechariah and to the Jewish people
that they had reached kind of a dead end.
I think Tom Petty said it best – The waiting is
the hardest part
· And we know waiting
o Waiting for the phone to ring with test results
o Waiting for help to arrive
· Waiting can feel like we are sitting in the darkness,
sometimes even the shadow of death when we just don’t know what’s coming and
how it will all turn out
· This time of year especially, as the periods of
darkness have been getting longer and longer, minute by minute
· All of the waiting and hoping and wondering and not
knowing and perhaps getting discouraged, disappointed,
God remembers God’s covenant – and things begin to
change!
· And then all of a sudden, things start to change, like
dominos, a chain reaction, one after the other
o Chosen by lot to go into the inner sanctuary and offer
incense to the Lord – literally once in a lifetime – once you did it, your name
came off the list
o So that’s new – and then once he’s in there – all of a
sudden what did appear? This mysterious, mystic creature, the angel Gabriel
standing by the altar of incense
§ Who introduces himself and brings this impossible,
mind-blowing message that Elizabeth will have a child – and you shall name him
John (which means God has shown favor)
§ And this amazing description of the role John is to
play in the new thing that God is about to do – to make a people prepared for
the Lord
· This was hardly something he could have anticipated or
predicted; an old man living under foreign rule, part of a nation that has been
waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled for a LONG time, a people who are
longing for God to fulfill God’s covenant with them
· Gabriel’s prophecy comes true – 9ish months later
Elizabeth has a son – and when they bring him to have him circumcised and they
ask Elizabeth what they will name him (since Zechariah was struck speechless
for questioning Gabriel)
o And she and then Zechariah name him John – and
Zechariah’s mouth is opened and praise flows forth in this amazing song
o (the first few chapters of Luke are like a musical –
people keep bursting into fully-formed song!)
· And oh, this song, people of God!
o 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 in the house of his servant David
o As he spoke
through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old – that we would be saved
from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us
o Thus he has shown
the mercy promised to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued
from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear
· And words for John, this much longed-for son –
o You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways
o To give knowledge of salvation to his people by the
forgiveness of their sins
o By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high
will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death – to guide our feet into the way of peace
· What seemed like a dead-end turns out to be only a
detour – for Zechariah and Elizabeth, but more so for the people of God –
because with God, there are no dead ends!
· God has not forgotten the covenant – because God is
the keeper of the covenant – all the way back to Abraham and Sarah and down the
line through Jacob and Joseph and David and all of God’s people
· God fulfills promises! And God chooses to work out
this plan for deliverance and salvation through human beings – through Zechariah
and Elizabeth; through Joseph and Mary
· Through John and Jesus (not an ordinary human being,
of course!)
· Zechariah is seeing the fulfillment of these promises
spring forth before his very eyes, and he cannot help but burst into song in
praise and thanksgiving –
o To have received this promise of new life is to then
become a proclaimer of new life to others, to point to the light peeking over
the horizon, the new dawn breaking into the darkness
What words of hope and promise for us, as we sit
here millennia later, Advent people who have heard the promise of God’s coming
kingdom in and through Jesus and who are waiting for it to come to pass
completely
· As we wait and wonder and hope and get discouraged and
disbelieving, this word comes to us
o Calling us to be prepared – and to be preparers of the
way of the Lord for others
o To be on the watch for the dawning light
o To hear and experience and know God’s word of
liberation and salvation in Zechariah’s song, and know that the promise is for
us and for all people
· And then, having seen the signs of the One who is on
the way, the covenant-keeper, the promise-fulfiller – to proclaim the new life
God offers in Jesus to those who sit in darkness and wait in the shadow of
death that life and love and freedom are at hand!
· This is good news – may its truth fill us up and
overflow so that we burst forth in songs of praise and thanksgiving and hope!
· Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment