THE PRAISE OF ZECHARIAH AND ELlZABETH
Series: To Make Ready A People Prepared For The Lord
by Doug Goins
King David, the sweet singer of Israel, wrote in Psalm 40, 'I waited patiently
for the Lord; He inclined to me and heard my cry...He put a new song in
my mouth, a song of praise to our God.' The apostle John described that
new song of redemption in Revelation, using the Greek word 'kainos,' which
is defined, 'unaccustomed or unused, not just new in time, but new as to
form or quality; of different nature from what is contrasted as old.'
That is an accurate description of the hymns from the dawning of the messianic
age that are recorded by Dr. Luke in his gospel, which we have been studying
these past few weeks. Last week we heard the 'new song' proclaimed by Elizabeth
and by Mary; worshipful adoration expressed in the context of patient waiting
and intimate friendship. Today, in Luke 1:57-80, we will see that a 'new
song' of worship comes from the lips of Zechariah, the first words he utters
following nine months of dumbness.
Zechariah's hymn of devotion is sung after he has waited on God, waited
as part of the people of Israel who were given up to exile, in words of
the prophet Micah, 'until the time when she who is in travail has brought
forth' (Micah 5:3). Zechariah had waited all his life for the seemingly
impossible birth of his own son, impossible because of his wife Elizabeth's
barrenness. Now he has waited through nine months of dumbness, resulting
from his disbelieving response to God's word given by the angel Gabriel.
Zechariah's hymn is sung in a setting of family celebration---the circumcision
and naming of his baby boy. This was an occasion of great joy, marked by
friends and family, with music, dance and feasting. Verses 57 through 66
describe that event. The first two verses describe the joy God gives Elizabeth
at the birth of her baby. Verses 57-58:
Now the time came for Elizabeth to be delivered, and she gave
birth to a son. And her neighbors and kinsfold heard that the Lord had shown
great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
In Israel, the birth of a child was an occasion of great joy. When the time
of birth was near at hand, the family, friends and local musicians gathered
near the home. I wonder how our local hospitals would feel about having
a band ready to play in the hallway outside the delivery room! Perhaps some
of you couples who have not yet had children would like to consider that.
With this particular birth, the joy of the family and neighbors of Zechariah
and Elizabeth grew out of a realization that a merciful God, a God who cares
about the helpless, had given the gift of new life to this faithful couple.
Next, Luke records the circumcision of John. Verse 59:
And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child;
It is important that we understand the significance of this rite. On the
eighth day following the birth of a son, the father would take a sharp knife
and cut away the loose skin surrounding the head of the male sex organ.
Thus the son would fall under the Abrahamic covenant and receive all the
blessings which God had promised Abraham if, as he grew up, he followed
in the faith of Abraham, a faith lived out by the patriarch even before
he was circumcised.
That covenant relationship initiated by God is described in Genesis 17:10,
11. Addressing Abraham, God said, 'This is my covenant which you will keep
between you and me, and your descendants after you. Every male among you
shall be circumcised. And it shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin
and it shall be the sign of the covenant between you and me.'
That sign was given for important reasons. Every time a Hebrew boy relieved
himself, he was reminded that he was a 'son of the covenant.' As an adult,
every time he had sexual intercourse with his wife, he would be reminded
of his relationship with the living God, who was faithfully fulfilling his
promises to Abraham through the birth of children. If the Jew went into
a prostitute, he would be reminded that he was a son of Abraham who had
made a covenant with a holy God. Thus he would be warned before he entered
into immorality. Every time he washed himself he would be reminded of the
God who cleansed his heart. Every day of his life he was reminded of the
covenant that God had made with Abraham. His life was not his own. God had
set him aside as a chosen vessel. Spiritually, circumcision was an outward
sign of an inner commitment to God, symbolizing God's desire for man to
have a circumcised, a pure heart.
The naming of the baby results in a heated family discussion. Verses 59b-64:
...and they would have named him Zechariah after his father,
but his mother said, 'Not 80; he shall be called John.' And they said to
her, 'None of your kindred is called by this name.' And they made signs
to his father, inquiring what he would have him called. And he asked for
a writing tablet, and wrote, 'His name is John' And they all marveled. And
immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing
God.
Zechariah comes to the moment in the ritual circumcision when his son's
name is to be snnounced. The family and friends assume the boy will be named
for his father (a common custom), and in his father's silence try to name
him Zechariah. Elizabeth rejects that. Her 'Not so' is very emphatic. But
the family brushes aside her desire to call the boy John. They try to rule
out that break with tradition. Not having the right to name the child themselves,
they enlist the help of Zechariah.
As a matter of fact, their efforts to get his help become humorous. Forgetting
that he is dumb, not deaf, they act out their question, making signs and
gestures to him. Zechariah, of course, could hear perfectly well; he just
couldn't talk. A friend who is a paraplegic told me that most people yell
at him when they speak to him. He has to tell them he's not deaf, just disabled.
Finally, when the family gives Zechariah a board covered with wax on which
to write, his response is very definite: 'His name is John.' He did not
say, as Elizabeth had, that the child would be called John (verse 60),
but, 'His name is John.' The matter was not open to discussion. The angel
Gabriel had named the child and Zechariah accepts that. He writes the name
as an accomplished fact.
The passage tells us that Zechariah startled his friends and family twice,
first with his decisiveness in writing John's name, and then by suddenly
regaining his voice following nine months of silence. In the words 'his
mouth was opened,' and, 'his tongue loosed' (verse 64), it is clear that
the God who had taken away his ability for speech had restored that faculty.
His writing of John's name was an eloquent confession of faith, in marked
contrast to his faithless questioning of Gabriel's authority nine month
earlier.
In a moment we will look at Zechariah's blessing of God (verses 68-70),
but we need first to look at the result of Zechariah's words of worship
and praise. Look at the community's response, verses 65, 66:
And fear came on all theiir neighbors. And all these things
were talked about through all the hill country of Judea; and all who heard
them laid them up in their hearts, saying, 'What then will this child be?'
For the hand of the Lord was with him.
In a word, they were awestruck. That is the meaning of the word 'fear',
deep reverence. Beyond that, however, the took to heart the truth, the facts
of the event, and the message of Zechariah's hymn which followed.
Verse 65 gives us a clue as to where Luke collected these stories which
are not recorded in the other gospels they circulated among the people in
the Judean hill communities. They told him of the question which was on
everyone's lips (verse 66), as William Barclay renders it, 'What will this
child turn out to be?' In light of this extraordinary sequence of events,
this is a very perceptive question.
My wife and I have had the joy of gathering in our home with family members
and Christian friends to dedicate each of our children to the Lord, very
much like Elizabeth and Zechariah did here. These were times for Candy and
me to commit ourselves to being God's instruments for good in raising our
children in a godly Christian home. Those were also times of committing
our children to the tender care and sovereign will of a loving Lord, trusting
his authority and purpose to fulfill his plans for each child. On each occasion,
the question asked of John was on my heart as well: what would God do with
this little one's life, with all its unfolding potential? Through the years
my children have enjoyed the Bill Gaither song,
'I am a promise, I am a possibility with a capital P. I am
a great big bundle of potentiality./And I am learning to hear God's voice,
and I am trying to make the right choice./Because I am a promise to be everything
God wants me to be.'
I hope my children sing that song with understanding, reflecting their hearts
toward the Lord Jesus. That expresses every Christian's prayer for his children.
In our story this morning the question about John's future life-course carries
an even greater portent in light of his promised miraculous birth and predicted
ministry.
I read this news item in a San Francisco newspaper a couple of weeks ago:
A pregnant woman, who had been buried with her two dead children
in waist-deep mud for almost three days after a volcanic eruption in Columbia
last week, gave birth to a girl minutes after volunteers pulled her free,
rescuers said yesterday. Doctors and volunteers worked for 60 hours to extricate
25-year-old Carmen de Moreno from the mud and collapsed walls that were
pinning her inside her wrecked home in Armero.
Throughout the rescue, Moreno, who was eight months pregnant, wore a surgical
mask to protect her from the fumes of the volcanic mud and the decomposing
bodies of her two children, whose bodies lay at her feet, relief workers
said. Finally, workers with shovels, saws and drills, pulled her from the
sludge. Moreno told doctors that she could not feel her child moving, so
doctors performed an emergency Cesarean section at the site to save the
child. Her husband had [already] been pulled from the mud. His sister said
officials had told him by telephone that his wife was dead. 'Now we see
in the paper that Carmen and the baby are alive,' she said, 'but he doesn't
know.'
In light of this extraordinary birth, I wonder what will this child turn
out to be? What special thing will God do with Consuelo Moreno?
Zechariah and Elizabeth name their son John, 'the grace of God.' The Bible
records his magnificent life and ministry, what this child turned out to
be.
In verses 67 through 79 we have Zechariah's hymn. First, its introduction.
Verse 67:
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit, and
prophesied, saying...
This is an expansion of Luke's introductory statement of verse 64, after
God loosed Zechariah's tongue, when he spoke, blessing God. Mary's hymn
of praise, the Magnificat, was a natural expression of her lifestyle of
worship before the Lord. Zechariah's hymn, or 'Benedictus' ('Blessed,' in
Latin), as it has been known through church history, must be understood
as the result of the Holy Spirit coming upon him. Like Elizabeth, when she
was in the presence of Mary, Zechariah was allowed to understand spiritual
realities. He was granted illumination to speak prophetically, a shining
forth of God's revealed truth. Verses 68-79:
'Blessed be the Lord Cod of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people,
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant
David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies,
and from the hand of all who hate us;
to perform the mercy promised to our fathers,
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath which he swore to our father Abraham to us,
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for 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
our God, whereby the dayspring will visit us from on high, to give light
to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet
into the way of peace.'
The theme of this hymn is established in the twice-used word 'visited.'
Verse 68 says, 'He has visited and redeemed his people,' while 78 says,
'Whereby the dayspring will visit us from on high.' Thus both the opening
and closing verses speak of the God who has visited his people, the God
who will visit his people.
This word (episkeptomai in Greek) is used only one other time in
the New Testament. This is where we get our English word 'episcopacy, episcopal,'
meaning oversight, guardianship, or government; the episcopacy of God that
expresses itself in redemption, in salvation. This song is a celebration
of God's government of grace, the visitation of God in the form of a Savior,
a Messiah.
Zechariah begins by expressing gratitude for the coming of the Messiah.
Verses 68-70:
'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed
his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of
his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from old...
He expresses thanksgiving for God's redemptive action. Redemption means
to be bought back at great cost. He uses a phrase used in temple worship
in giving thanks for the 'horn of salvation,' a phrase already applied to
the Messiah in the Old Testament Psalms: 'I will raise up a horn to David'
(32:16). This figure is taken from the horns of a bull, where the power
of the animal resides. Just as the strength of that animal is symbolically
concentrated in its horns, so all the delivering power granted to the family
of David for the help of the people Israel will be concentrated in the Messiah.
All of this is coming in fulfillment of Old Testament prophetic witness;
ancient promises of divine origin and purpose now to be realized in Jesus
the Messiah.
In verses 71 through 75, Zechariah expresses gratitude for the redemption
to be accomplished in the Messiah's coming; what that redemption will actually
mean:
'that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all who
hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his
holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without
fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.
Here Zechariah sings about the nature of God's ultimate action a great deliverance.
He describes from what we have been saved; and to what we are saved. We
are saved 'from our enemies,' 'from the hand of all who hate us,' and from
fear itself. Our greatest enemy is Satan, who hates the work and the people
of God. We are opposed by an evil world system which is controlled by dark
forces of destruction.
But through our 'horn of salvation' we are saved from bondage to sinful
adversaries even from the fears they can create in us. We are saved, or
delivered, to 'serve him...all the days of our life'; to live lives in grateful
submission to his saving grace. We are saved to serve 'in holiness,' in
wholeness, living lives of attractive wholeness in a fragmented world. We
are saved to serve 'in righteousness,' living in right relationship to God,
clothed in the righteousness of Messiah himself. All of this merciful saving
activity is based on the trustworthiness of God's Word, his 'promise,' his
'holy covenant,' the 'oath he swore to Abraham.'
In verses 76 and 77 we can imagine Zechariah's gaze being fixed on his baby
son. Here he reviews the promises of the angel Gabriel, and summarizes the
identity and mission of John, 'the forerunner.'
'And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of
salvation to his people, in the forgiveness of their sins.
These verses are, in a sense, a parenthesis in Zechariah's sweeping survey
of God's plan of redemption. We might have expected that, as a new father,
Zechariah's song would be all about John. But like Elizabeth, in her choice
to humble herself before Mary, Zechariah understands John's important but
subordinate role in salvation history.
John's ministry as a prophet would be a radical new presence because for
centuries Israel had heard no prophetic voice. He was called of God to prepare
the nation Israel for the coming of Jesus; to make them aware of their sinfulness;
to arouse in their hearts a sense of need for forgiveness of sin. Israel
had lost the understanding that Messiah was coming to bring a spiritual
and moral salvation. It had been replaced by a misguided nationalism that
looked to Messiah as a political deliverer. John's ministry was to restore
a biblical view of salvation.
Our narrative speaks of the fulfillment of Zechariah's prophetic vision
of John's life and ministry. The last phrase in verse 66 says, 'For the
hand of the Lord was with him.' Verse 80 completes that word,
And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in
the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel.
Both of these verses speak of the 30 years of preparation of John. I commend
to you the first 22 verses of Luke 3. There you have the account of how
wonderfully God used John in the life of Israel exactly as Gabriel, Zechariah,
and all the other Old Testament prophets said he would effectively minister.
In the final two verses of the hymn, Zechariah answers two questions: why
would God visit us, and how God would visit us. Verses 78-79:
'through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dayspring
will visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and
in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.'
Why did God visit us and deliver us? This verse says because of his 'tender
mercy.' 'His passionate empathy' is a better translation. 'Tender mercy'
is but one word in Greek. It is a strong word, meaning 'bowels, viscera.'
Have you ever been so affected by something that your insides churned? That
captures the description of God's compassionate response to our need for
a Savior. Isaac Watts has a hymn that sings of this emotional response of
God. It has been sanitized in our modern hymnals, but originally the words
said,
With joy we mediate the grace of our High Priest above .
His heart was filled with tenderness, His bowels yearned with love.
Grace was extended to the world because God cared so much. He could not
allow this to continue in the destructive lifestyle to which we were captive.
That is why he visited us.
How did he visit us? Through the entrance into the world of his Son, 'the
dayspring.'
A wonderful picture is painted in these closing verses. Here is an opportunity
for us to use our imaginations, to go back in time and imagine ourselves
to be part of an ancient Near Eastern caravan traveling through the desert.
Actually, this is a caravan of humanity of which we're all part. We are
lost in the desert. The black night descends. There is no moon or stars.
We huddle together for warmth, fearing for our safety. Thoughts of death
from exposure, wild animals, starvation, enter our minds and conversation.
We wait through a seeming eternity of darkness.
But just when things seem most desperate, suddenly a bright star, an unprecedented
astronomical visitation, appears on the horizon and lights up the desert.
Filled with new courage and hope, we arise. The brilliance of the star helps
us discover a main caravan route we had missed, a road that will take us
back to civilization, to life itself.
Jesus is that 'dayspring,' that life-giving star, the light that was promised
centuries earlier. Isaiah wrote, 'Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you' (Isa. 60:1). Malachi wrote,
'But for you who fear r~ my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise...'
(Mal. 4:2). And again, from Isaiah, 'The people who walked in darkness have
seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them
has light shined' (Isa. 9:2).
Do you know what are the real gifts of Christmas, the presents Jesus offers
that are listed in the last two verses of our text? He offers light where
there is darkness; life itself in the face of death; and peace in the midst
of turmoil and confusion. He can shine his saving light on our spiritual
ignorance, our alienation from God, the fear of death itself, our stumbling
in the dark, our exhaustion and despair. His saving light gives us knowledge
of God's grace; forgiveness for our sin; removes our fear of sin, death
and hell; provides reconciliation with our Father God; gives our life on
earth meaning, purpose and direction; and peace within ourselves, with God,
and with everyone around us.
This visitation, this episcopacy, this government of God is not just ancient
history. His salvation, his redemption is ours to enjoy now through the
forgiveness of our sins that only Jesus Christ, the Savior-Messiah, can
offer. Let us remember the words of David, 'I waited patiently for the Lord;
He inclined to me and heard my cry...He put a new song in my mouth, a song
of praise to our God.'
This Christmas season offers us the opportunity to sing that 'new song'
as never before, either as a believer new in the faith, or as one whose
'joy of salvation' has been restored through these refreshing narratives
of preparation, which inform our understanding of the Christmas event.
We can sing Wesley's great Christmas hymn with a renewed heart of thanksgiving:
Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Risen with healing in his wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die;
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.
Hark! the herald angels sing,
'Glory to the New-born King.'
Catalog No. 3899
Luke I :57-80
Fourth Message
Doug Goins
December 8, 1985
Copyright (C) 1995 Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church.
This data file is the sole property of Discovery Publishing, a ministry
of Peninsula Bible Church. It may be copied only in its entirety for circulation
freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above
copyright notice. This data file may not be copied in part, edited, revised,
copied for resale or incorporated in any commercial publications, recordings,
broadcasts, performances, displays or other products offered for sale, without
the written permission of Discovery Publishing. Requests for permission
should be made in writing and addressed to Discovery Publishing, 3505 Middlefield
Rd. Palo Alto, CA. 94306-3695.