This sermon was influenced by a sermon by Rico Tice. I’ve always admire Tice’s ability to preach gospel narratives with insight and I’ve been trying to imitate him as I improve in my own preaching of narrative.
FOCUS ON JESUS
An Orderly Account: Encountering Jesus in the Gospel of Luke
Luke 1:57-80
GRAB THEIR ATTENTION
Where is your focus this Christmas? It’s a question likely being asked in many pulpits this morning, and for good reason. Every year, Christmas presents us with an opportunity reassess our focus, to step back and ask, “Are my thoughts, my habits, my words, my days finding their focus on the salvation of God in Christ?”
And every year, to some degree, if feels as if I’m failing miserably in that focus. Things get busy as the year winds down. There are deadlines to meet, extra family gatherings to attend, and festivities to prepare for. And then the preacher stands in front of you, maybe even scolding you for not slowing down, limiting distractions, and meditating more on the reason for the season.
Well, I want you to know that this idea that Christmas ought to focus our attention is not some sadistic plot by pastors to make you feel guilty every December. In fact, that Christmas ought to be a time of waiting, anticipation, and meditation on God’s promises goes all the way back to the first chapter of Luke’s gospel.
RAISE THE NEED, SIGNPOSTS, STATE THE DESTINATION
You see, just like us, there was a man named Zechariah who loved God, who served God, and yet he had fallen into perfunctory performance of his religious duties. He had become a man of routine obedience but had lost the wonder of faith. And it was to Zechariah that God came, and shook him out of his unthinking, mechanical, and careless routines.
Our passage today is Luke 1:57-80. And in order to understand how God shook him, let’s consider his story in three movements. First, we’ll see A Family Celebration. Then, A Shocking Conversion. Finally, A Sermon for the Ages.
THE TEXT:
57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, 60 but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” 61 And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” 62 And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. 63 And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. 64 And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. 65 And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, 66 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.
67 And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people
69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
71 that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
- A FAMILY CELEBRATION
You get out the champagne. Blow up a bunch of balloons. Make some punch, and invite all the family and friends. There’s a celebration because Elizabeth has given birth. That’s the setting for the story about Zechariah in verses 57-66.
And what a celebration it was going to be, for Zechariah and Elizabeth had given up years ago on the hope of having children. They were beyond the years in which women conceive and bear children. But now the son had arrived and the day for naming the child had come. The house is buzzing with people. Everyone is trying to get a glimpse of this sight: the woman who should be a grandmother is a first-time mother holding her baby boy.
Imagine the pre-natal classes they attended. We did that for our first child and I don’t know a single man who is comfortable in that class. But here is Zechariah, the geezer, surrounded by younger men. He can’t speak, because he had been struck mute by the angel Gabriel. So, he’s just looking around like a helpless chump. Here is 70-year-old granny doing her breathing exercises. It’s a miracle.
Everyone in the neighborhood knew about it. Word had spread, and everyone has turned out. And they’ve already decided the name of the child. He’s going to be Zech, or Zech Jr. You know, that’s his father’s name. It’s kind of like that situation when the mother-in-law begins to take over everything, making declarations, and Elizabeth stops all the chit-chat when she announces that actually his name will be John.
And they say, “No, you can’t name him John. There isn’t a John in your family. You have to name him after his father. You only have one son anyway.” And so they look over to Zechariah knowing that he will certainly correct his mistaken wife. They make a sign to Zechariah who signals for a writing tablet and writes the words, “His name is John.” Verse 63 says they all wondered. Their astonished. They can’t figure out what this all means. It makes no sense.
But consider what’s happened. Zechariah doesn’t write, “We will call him John,” or “We will name him John.” He writes, “His name is John.” It’s already been decided, and as you know it wasn’t decided by Elizabeth and Zechariah before the party began. No, the child wasn’t named by his parents at all was he? Something else is happening. God is at work, because God is the one who named the child.
And everyone would have heard about this by now. 9 months earlier, Zechariah had the most amazing day of his life. He was going into the Temple in Jerusalem to serve on duty as a priest and offer incense. And in the Temple an angel appeared to him and said (1:13)
13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
So John reminds everyone that there is more going on here. This is no ordinary child. This is no ordinary birth. God is on the move, and this baby is going to prepare the way for the coming Lord. This child is to be the forerunner of God’s salvation.
And it’s at this point that Luke shifts gears because this is more than a family celebration. This is more than one of those 90 second bits at the end of the local news when they share a heartfelt community story. This is more than, “Zechariah had his wonderful time serving in the Temple and Elizabeth gave birth to a baby, and doesn’t that feel so nice.
There is more going on here. His name is John. It was chosen by God. He’s going to prepare the way of the Lord. God is on the move. And what you see here in Zechariah is not just a family celebration, there’s also a shocking conversion.
- A SHOCKING CONVERSION
Why do I say this is a shocking conversion? It’s shocking because Zechariah is the last person you and I would imagine to need conversion. He’s a priest. He’s serving in the Temple. He’s spent his entire life reading the Scriptures. And Luke is absolutely clear: in matters of religious duty, Zechariah is blameless. Luke 1:6, Zechariah is righteous before God walking blamelessly in all the commands and statues.
Here is someone we expect to have great faith, an ability to trust God in every circumstance, who is head and shoulders above us, yet when he is given the promise of a child by the angel, Zechariah falls flat on his face in unbelief.
The angel says, “You’re going to have a child. You’ll be filled with gladness, and what’s more, this child is going to return many in Israel to God. He’s going to prepare the way for God’s great salvation which Israel has longed for for centuries. This,” says the angel, “Is the Elijah who will come before the Lord himself comes. This isn’t just a baby.”
In other words, the angel says to Zechariah, “Listen, this is big news. It’s Messiah time, and your child will have a part in it.”
And look at what Zechariah says. Here’s the response of the Bible teacher, who has been a priest for 40 years. Verse 18. “How shall I be sure of this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”
This isn’t humility. It’s disbelief. Zechariah is saying, “It can’t be done.” Verse 20, the reason Zechariah is struck mute is because he did not believe. He did not consider the angel’s testimony worthy of his trust.
Do you see the seriousness of what Zechariah has said. He’s ruling out that God could intervene. He’s saying God cannot intervene in my life this way.
Essentially he’s denying everything he’s ever taught about God’s power to save, rescue, restore, and redeem. He’s denying everything he’s every taught as a priest for the last 40 years.
As a priest of Israel, he would have taught the story of Abraham being childless and God intervening to turn him into a nation. He would have taught Israel being in enslaved and God intervening to deliver them from Egypt. He would have taught of Israel being disobedient and God giving them a King like David to command their hearts.
Yet here, God is intervening and Zechariah doesn’t believe it can happen. And its important to see this: Zechariah isn’t just turning down good news for himself and his wife. He’s actually disbelieving THE good news.
David Gooding, put it this way, “Here was Zechariah refusing to believe this particular gospel message on grounds that would deny the very basis of the gospel in its entirety. If God could not restore the processes if nature in Elizabeth’s body, what hope is there that creation itself should ever be delivered from its bondage of corruption. If God could not revive Elizabeth’s aging and dying body, how could he ever raise from the tomb, the body of Jesus, already three days dead. If if that resurrection were impossible, no resurrection will ever be possible. The grounds which Zechariah gave for his disbelief were, without his knowing it, utterly subversive of the gospel”
Because this isn’t merely a bit of good news for an aging husband and wife, because this is the message of cosmic redemption, and because Zechariah is to be a messenger on God’s behalf of this news, and he does not believe, look at what’s going to happen. Verse 20: “You will be silent and unable to speak until the day in which this will be fulfilled.”
Zechariah disbelieved God’s ability to intervene, and this is what we all do day in and day out.
Friend, if you are not a Christian; you haven’t put your faith in Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord, the gospel message to you is that God has intervened in history for your forgiveness, your pardon, and your adoption into his family. And you are called to believe in that good news.
And no matter what sins you have committed, or what wrongs you have done, there is no sin as terrible as disbelieving the good news of God’s salvation. You are not here by accident. You are not here by chance. You are here, on this earth, in this room today because the Sovereign Creator of all things has purposed for you to hear of his love for you, and his offer of Christ to you. And you first duty to that message is to simply believe.
Christian, are you like Zechariah? You know all the stories of God’s deliverance. But are you doubting his ability to intervene in your own life? Are you doubting his ability to answer and regard your prayers? If you have put your faith in the power of God to raise Christ from the dead and forgive your sins, why will you doubt his power in your smaller needs? His arm has not grown weak since the resurrection. His power isn’t a commodity that is diminished as it is used.
Christian, God does not change. He is the eternal God who is infinitely boundless in power, wisdom, and beneficence.
Malachi 3:6 – “For I am the Lord. I do not change.”
If he is the one who raised Christ, then why can he not be the one who brings your unbelieving child to himself in mercy and grace? Which is more difficult to do for the Almighty? Neither. Then do not stop praying. Do not stop petitioning God.
If he delivered the children of Israel from Egypt, he can surely give you assurance of his love, a peaceful conscience, fortify you against Satan’s temptations, instruct you in his Word, keep you in the way of truth, bring his truth to your memory in your time of need, make you wise, sanctify your nature, make you more tender, grow your contentment and patience, give you hope, preserve you from sin, govern your tongue, make you honest, comfort you in sorrow, defeat your enemies, guide your nation and leaders, grow his church, redeem your children, care for you in your old age, and provide for all your material needs.
What can he not do? Tell me? In what circumstance is God impotent to intervene? Friend he can do all of this and more through Christ Jesus.
You see, this isn’t just a story about a simple family celebration. The Christmas story is about more than a few donkeys and oxen and sheep gathered around a cute baby. God is intervening in time and space to enact our salvation.
And, back to verse 63, Zechariah has finally got it right. 63 And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. 64 And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God.
Eight days after the baby’s birth, the penny drops for Zechariah. We aren’t told what he was thinking in that moment, but he gets it. He surrenders to God. He puts his faith in God, he confesses what God had promised, writes the words “His name is John,” and snap! Just like that he gets his voice back.
He’s had 9 months to think about that day in the Temple; 9 months plus 8 days to think about why he was struck mute. And we aren’t explicitly told what Zechariah was thinking about for those 9 months, but here’s what I think happened.
Zechariah is a priest. His job is to know the law and the prophets. His job is to understand and teach the Scriptures. And I believe that for 9 months he did the only thing a mute priest could do: he went back and read, and reread, and read, and reread the Old Testament.
And now, he fulfills the role of priest in verse 67. This is what he should have said to Gabriel in verse 18:
“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,
In verses 68-79, Zechariah gives a sermon for the ages. That’s our final point.
- A SERMON FOR THE AGES
What’s so striking about these 11 verses is this: Zechariah hardly mentions the baby. Remember, we’re at a family celebration. Aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces, friends… they’ve all gathered for one reason… the baby is here. It’s a celebration. They have to pick a name.
And Zechariah, who has been silent for 9 months gets his voice back… and has almost nothing to say about the baby. What’s going on? Why isn’t he gushing about baby John?
In the first 8 verses the baby doesn’t even get a mention. In verse 76 the baby John pops us, only to slip back out while Zechariah’s message speaks of someone else. Why isn’t Zechariah going ga-ga over the baby?
It’s because in his 9 months of silent pondering the Scriptures, someone besides the baby has increased in Zechariah’s mind and heart while even his own baby has decreased in relative importance. Someone else is utterly central. Something is going on that is more important than even a great prophet who will call many back to the Lord.
Zechariah’s prophecy… you know what it is? It’s really a summary of the entire Old Testament which Zechariah now understands is fulfilled by the coming of Jesus Christ.
It’s a summary of the entire Old Testament.
- Verse 73: Zechariah says God made promises to Abraham.
- Verse 68: Zechariah says God has visited us… that’s a quote from Genesis 50 when Joseph says God will visit his people and deliver them.
- Verse 69: God has raised up a horn… that’s 1 Samuel 2 when God sent a prophet named Samuel.
- Verse 69 again: God is raising up a king from the house of David.
- Verse 78: The sunrise of righteousness is visiting with healing… that’s Malachi 4:2
- Verse 79: to give light to those sitting in darkness… Isaiah 9:2
We could go on and on, but you see what’s happening? Zechariah says, “This isn’t just a sweet promise about my child. I’ve reread the entire Old Testament, and I now realize that every promise was a shadow of this promise. Every promise was a silhouette of which, the coming of Jesus Christ is the substance.
- Abraham was just a shadow. Jesus Christ is the true Abraham, who trusted God and left his home in order to become a great nation.
- The exodus was just a shadow. Jesus Christ is the true exodus of God who delivers his people, not from the physical bonds of slavery, but from the greater slavery of sin and death.
- Samuel the prophet was just a shadow. Christ is the true prophet who preaches salvation to God’s people.
- King David was only a shadow. Christ is the true David. He’s the true king sent by God to command the obedience and service of the people.
- He’s the true sunrise, the true light to those sitting in darkness.
This is amazing… do you see what happened to Zechariah? Over 9 months Zechariah learned the lesson that Christ would later teach on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 – that everything written in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed to all the nations.”
And over and over again Zechariah says that Christ is all of this because God intends to save people from their sins.
- Verse 68: God has redeemed his people.
- Verse 69: He’s raised a horn of salvation.
- Verse 71: that we should be saved from our enemies.
- Verse 72: to show mercy
- Verse 74: that we might be delivered.
And what is the baby John’s role in all of this? Verse 76:
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,
The baby John will be the last of the Old Testament prophets and will usher in the age of the fully revealed gospel—the salvation of God, and for that reason, his will be a ministry designed to do one thing: point to another.
For that reason, John himself will later say of Jesus: “He must increase, and I must decrease.” “I am not worthy to tie the laces of Jesus’ sandals.”
And even at his birth, his father says, “It’s not my boy who is important. He will point to the Redeemer.” For that’s what Jesus will do. He will redeem his people. He will buy them back to God at a great cost, his own life.”
And God has done this because of his great mercy. You don’t deserve it. You can’t earn it. God has shown you mercy in sending his Son.
This has become the focus of Zechariah’s attention. It’s the focus of his sermon. And even in and through the joy of a baby boy, his true attention and affection are ultimately on Jesus.
What about you? Is that where your focus is this Christmas? In and through everything else, is your true attention and ultimate joy set on Christ? For that is what it means to be a Christian.