Zechariah’s Song: A Song For When You (At Last) Believe
Luke 1:57-79
The message will begin with a video testimony of Su Jiang and her life-transforming experience of Jesus breaking unexpectedly into her life at a party. After it is shown, I will ask, “Do you believe Su’s testimony?” Does God really break in such personal ways into people’s lives? We read that God did it in the days of the Bible. And, we have testimonies from our brothers and sisters in Christ in history that God has broken into lives in ways like Su has talked about
I have heard similar testimonies from very credible brothers and sisters in China, Cambodia, and from many countries in Africa. In a church like ours, we rarely deny that these testimonies from other times and other places have happened. But, we seem to be inclined to think that God doesn’t invade lives miraculously here in our country. Then, Jesus meets Su at a birthday party in 2015 in Southern California. She gives her life to him. She comes to LAC and becomes a part of our church family. She tells us her story. Do you believe her? If you and I believe that God is actually present in our world, and that he is present in our lives each moment as the Bible says he is, then this same God is here now – in this service. And he is with you every moment of your life. If you believe that, it will change every moment of your life. It will mean that you believe that there is no God-forsaken place in this world – no place in this terror-filled, darkness-pervaded world where our omnipotent God is not. I ask again: Do you believe Su’s testimony?
On this 2nd Advent Sunday, we gather to open God’s Word to hear a story of God breaking into a person’s life in a way not wholly unlike what Su has given witness to. The man’s name was Zechariah. In Lk 1:5, we learn that he is a priest near Jerusalem who had married Elizabeth, the daughter of a priest. We learn of their personal pain in v. 7 as the Bible tells us that they were unable to have children. And both of them were well along in years. There was incredible cultural and family pressure to have children in their society. If you've ever longed for something with all your heart, then you know the kind of self-examination and prayers that Zechariah and Elizabeth must have made. You know how their disappointment turned into sorrow, and their sorrow to despair, and, finally their despair into resignation. By Luke 1, with the passing of the years, they had long-since packed away their hopes.
One day, Zechariah had the once-in-a-lifetime honor of being appointed to go into the Temple to burn incense when Gabriel, the angel of the Lord, came to him. Can you imagine this old man standing there with a censer in his hand and his mouth open as he heard the words of v.13? "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.”
As we saw with young Mary on the first Advent Sunday, we will see that this encounter with God’s angel eventually led the priest to break out into song. But, what I want us to do today is to learn something from Zechariah’s story about living by faith and not by sight. You may be surprised at the first lesson:
#1: You can’t live the faith if you haven’t learned it (The value of knowing God’s Word).
Elizabeth and Zechariah were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord (1:6).
This is what Su said she had a need for when, after having her vision of Jesus, she went to church to learn about the God who had made himself known to her. In my view, that was a very wise move. Our human experiences and feelings ebb and flow and, therefore, are quite untrustworthy. But, when we look at our experiences through the lens of Scripture, we will find a worldview in which to understand our experience.
In the stories that led to songs in Luke, what we discover that at least three of the songwriters, i.e., young Mary, Priest Zechariah and Prophet Simeon all knew the Scriptures very, very well. As they struggled to sort out what their experience with God meant, they applied Scripture to their situations and eventually came to a deeper understanding of what God was doing. For example, in the opening verses of Zechariah’s song, he drew together verses from throughout the Scriptures to remember that for centuries God’s people had faced many enemies and many dark times. And he knew that the consistent message in Scripture is that God is not distant or absent from us even in difficult times. He knew that God is always at work with a promise ultimately to bring about something that is better than we ever could imagine.
Zechariah knew that, when people most needed it, God throughout history had broken into someone’s life in among his people to say, “I am with you. I am still at work. Trust me. Walk with me in faith. Tell my people that I have not forgotten them.” Zechariah knew all this. It took 9 months of silence that God forced on him to apply God’s Word to his situation. But, once he did that, he regained hope and sang praise to God.
All this is to say that one of the most important roles for your church is to teach you God’s Word and to call you to read and study God’s Word. You can make sense out of our world only when you let God’s Word provide the worldview into which to place both the pain and the joy that is a part of this world.
#2. You Can Learn the Faith But Not Live It (The Necessity of Faith and Spirit Filled Surrender).
The angel said, “Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son…” Zechariah asked, “How can I experience this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent… to tell you this good news.”
I had breakfast with Pastor Steve Morgan last week and he reminded me of how Pastor E.V. Hill of LA’s Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church used to tell his people, “The problem with church people is that our ‘I do’ doesn’t live up to our IQ!” In other words, we can go to church every week of our lives, read Christian books, listen to Christian radio and even attend Christian school and thereby learn a lot about God’s Word – but still not live in keeping with it. That was certainly true of Zechariah. God broke into his life and said some things fully in keeping with God’s Word but Priest Zechariah, who taught this Word so often, refused point blank to believe the angel.
There is a difference in Zechariah’s response and young Mary’s response to the angel’s message. Mary asked an honest question – which God’s Word indicates God wants us to ask. And it led her to obedience. Zechariah said it couldn’t happen and asked for a sign of proof. His answer in so many words was, "Senior adults don't have babies. God can’t do that." With power-filled clarity, Gabriel said, in effect, "I just came from God! I’m telling you he can do that – and will." As a result of Zechariah’s unbelief, God takes away his ability to hear and speak.
So, here we are at LAC today. We profess that we believe that our God made heaven and earth simply by speaking them into being. The only thing God cannot do is to be untrue to himself. He cannot be unjust for he is a God of justice. He cannot be a liar for he is the God of truth. But, being consistent to who he is, God can do anything. God can give Mary a child while she is a virgin. God can give Elizabeth a child while she is old. And God can meet Su on a projected screen in the middle of a birthday party!
It is so easy for us to be “practical agnostics”, i.e., in our heads to say we believe certain things but in our practice to live as if God is not with us and not in control. Why? 1) Maybe, for some, it’s because you don’t want to surrender the control of your life fully to God. If the God you profess to believe in really is the way he says he is, then he must be God each moment of your life. He wants you to surrender your business decisions to him – your relationships to him – your thought life to him.
2) Maybe, for others, you’ve had so many years of church-attending that you’ve learned to think you can figure out everything without needing to lean on him, to wait for him or to trust his way rather than your own. Or, 3) maybe you’ve come to think that learning about God is the same thing as experiencing the reality of God. For some churchgoers, the main thing you may be concerned about in your walk with God is what we call “being fed”, i.e., learning new and fresh things from God’s Word. But, you might be fooled into thinking that if God’s Word is in your brain then God must necessarily be in your heart.
In Clergyman Zechariah’s case, he had figured out things that he thought God couldn’t do. The first time I met missionaries Randy and Edie Nelson was at the Bangkok Airport in Thailand. Randy was a relatively new believer when he married Edie and the two of them received their first missionary assignment. The mission agency gave them two options. One of them, the mission representative told them, was probably hard for new missionaries. It involved going to nomadic stone age people, to people completely unreceptive to outsiders, people that other seasoned missionaries had tried to reach but could not, etc. etc. Edie told me, “That’s the assignment Randy wanted. He wanted to show the world that God is who he says he is – that no person is outside the reach of our God of grace.” I joked, “Randy hadn’t learned yet what God can’t do.” And, as you may know, God used the Nelsons to bring about the conversion of a huge percentage of that people group. And Randy and Edie still haven’t learned what God can’t do. Have you? Zechariah had somehow learned that – and had to unlearn it. All things are possible with God.
I am praying today that you will rededicate yourself wholly to God – to knowing God and his Word as well as possible and then to living according to that Word in his power. I pray you will find him present in your daily life and thereby find new hope for whatever challenges you may be facing. Whatever you face is not greater than God is.
#3: You Can Be Made Low and Still Be Lifted Up Again (The Power of God’s Grace).
Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God (1:64).
In vv. 57-66, these old parents bring their new son to the circumcision, dedication and naming event that was so much a part of their faith community. Remember that the people there had already witnessed the miracle of an old woman giving birth to a son. I am sure they knew all about the angelic visit Zechariah had experienced. Still, they seemed to think that things should continue on as usual. “As usual” meant this child should be named Zack, Jr.
When Elizabeth said that the son was to be named John, (lit., gift of the Lord), the people thought this was a scandal. See vv.61-62: They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.” Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child… They were saying, “You can’t do that! That’s not how we do things here!”
But, Zechariah, took a writing tablet and definitively wrote, “His name is John.” In that instant, in v.64, another miracle happened. Zechariah’s mouth was opened and he was able to speak and bless God.
Here is some good news for us all. The man who had been faithless was given another chance. The one God had made silent because of his unbelief, was able to speak again. Zechariah’s story is one of many stories in the Bible about the God who gives repentant people a new beginning. This is the God of grace whom we worship here today. If you confess that you have failed and today you return to God, let me tell you this: God is ready to welcome you and use you again. To anyone here today who suffers from the scars of past sins, remember this: If you return in repentance and faith to God, he will turn your marks of sin into memorials of his grace. As Paul wrote, “Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more (Rom 5:20).”
Note this: In vv. 65-66, with that act of seeing God open Zechariah’s mouth, the whole community found their faith being made more real. They came alive to the fact that God was at work in their world. Not everyone in the entire community experienced a visit from an angel – and we do not hear about Zechariah having any more visits either. But, sharing testimonies and sharing life with God within their community changed everyone. All knew that the God they had heard of their whole lives – whom the Bible says is both all-powerful and present in our lives – really is both of those things.
Today, we heard about a part of our church family, Su Jiang, who experienced a special visitation from God. The implication of this is that, even though many of us may never have that kind of undeniable vision of Jesus, by faith we know he is here – he is here now – and he calls us to live each day “practicing his presence.” As Su said, she needs us to teach her, to worship with her and to show her God’s love. But, we need her too – to remind us that what we believe, and what I preach to you today, is real. God is with us!
And that experience of grace led Zechariah to sing.
The Song – About His World:
Zechariah wove together the promises God had made in the books of Moses (v.73), in accounts of David (v.69), and in the promises through the prophets (v. 70) and applied it all to his situation. His song reminds us that things in the history of Israel had been hard.
But, now, he knows for sure that God is here and at work and so he sings about it. He sings of a promise of a Messiah who will bring light into this dark world. God’s people had waited a long time for Messiah. And now Zechariah had grasped that God’s new work was beginning, that the Messiah was at hand and that his son would be the one who came just before the Messiah. He sings in v.76: “You, my son, will be a prophet of the Most High. You will prepare the way for the Lord.”
As it should be, most of Zechariah’s song is not about his John but about Jesus. Listen to him sing:
- The Price to Free Us Will Be Paid – v.68 -- "He has come and redeemed His people.”
- Sufficient Power to Save Us Has Come -- v. 69 -- "He has raised up a horn of salvation for us." The horn of an animal is the symbol of its strength, its sheer brute power. Zechariah sings that, in Jesus, you meet a Mighty Savior who has the power to finish what He starts in you.
- Forgiveness of Sins Will Be Made Available – v.77 -- "To give His people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins." God did not visit this planet simply to see how we are doing. He knew how we are doing. That's why he came! We are in trouble without him -- and he came to save us. That's what Christmas is about.
Zechariah ends his song with one final burst of praise. It’s about the light that Jesus brings into this darkened world. Listen to some of the most beautiful words in the entire Bible that we hear in the concluding words of Zechariah’s song. In vv.78-79, through Jesus:
The Lord will give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,by which the rising sun 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.”
The Song – About Our World
Zechariah and the people of his day asked often, “Why is there so much darkness in our world. Things have been bad in the past and they seem to be getting worse! How long must we wait until things change?”
All this past week, since the senseless killings at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino last Wednesday, I have heard the same questions that people were asking in the first century. “Why are there so many enemies? When will the evil stop? How long until things change?” The Washington Post and New York Times reports there have been 204 shootings leaving at least 4 people wounded or dead in the USA in 2015. Things in our world do not seem to be getting better.”
And we gather here at LAC to worship, as Zechariah did 2,000 years ago, with a promise that Christ will return and, when he does, he will make everything right. He will bring to completion the kingdom of justice and peace that he was born to bring. Do you believe him? He gives us a role to play: 1) to wait in faith, 2) to pray for those who are in distress and for those in authority and 3) to work as his agents of reconciliation and peace in this dark world until he returns. The Light of the World sends us as his children of light into our world to tell people that death is not the end of this – that we are never lest without hope for the eternal God is with us and at work in our world.
And sometimes, he sends someone into our church family whom he has met in a very personal way – as he met Zechariah that day. I see such testimonies as reminders to us that God still is at work – working all things together for good even when we do not see the good. He reminds us that, in spite of the darkness still pervading our world, he is still the God of “tender mercy by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and to guide our feet into the path of peace.”