Friday, 8 March
Luke 1:57-80
Written by Dr Graham Leo. ©2019.
Zechariah didn't need to be told twice. He’d questioned Gabriel’s trustworthiness once, but he wasn't about to do it again.
After the gossip columnists of his day had finished talking about the most popular baby names suitable for Elizabeth’s child, he wrote a simple message. ‘His name is John.’ Thus he went a step further than his wife, who had said that his name was ‘to be called John’.
Zechariah had learned his lesson well. The angel had already given the name, on behalf of God himself. It was decided. The name ‘John’ means, simply: ‘Jehovah has been gracious’.
Zechariah’s song was full of confident expressions of faith in the reliability of God’s Word. His words show what he’s been reading in his nine months of speechlessness. (Not bad advice, come to think of it, for all of us: Stop talking and start reading scripture.) Here’s a partial list from his song to show its deep reliance on scripture:
v68: ‘He has come and redeemed his people’. Compare:‘He provided redemption for his people.’ Ps. 111:9.
v69: ‘He has raised up a horn of salvation for us’. Compare:‘He is my shield and the horn of my salvation.’ Ps 18:2
v70: ‘As he said through his holy prophets from long ago’. Compare:‘“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days…”’ Jer. 23:5-6
v72: ‘to show mercy to our fathers’. Compare:‘You will show mercy to Abraham…’ Micah 7:20.
v72: ‘to remember his holy covenant’. Compare:‘He remembers his covenant for ever… the covenant he made with Abraham…’ Ps 105:8-9 (See also Ps 106:45), and especially Ezek. 16:60 ‘Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.’
Well, there’s more, but this is a good start. Do you see the pattern?
God had been making promises to Israel for thousands of years. Zechariah now realises that God’s word is utterly reliable. His prophecy, although inspired by the Holy Spirit, no doubt reflects the learning and reading that he has undergone in his time of trial. The Holy Spirit will bring to mind when we need it, scripture that we have actually read; He probably won't drop it into our minds if we haven't bothered to read it in the first place.
When we are tempted to doubt God, to consider that this whole Christian faith thing is not as good as we used to think it was, it’s perhaps time to shut our mouths for a period of gestation, and go back and read scripture. Quietly, meditatively, trustingly.
If Luke is giving us any message, in these first pages of his Gospel, it is surely this: the Word and promises of God are utterly reliable. Doubt them at your peril. We may not always understand his ways, but his character is faithful and true. (Rev. 19:11-13.)
Zechariah was the father of John the Baptist, not the Messiah. John was the forerunner to the Messiah. He will turn up again in Chapter 3, when Jesus comes to him to be baptised.
The name Zechariah means Yahweh remembers, or remembering Yahweh. Yahweh, of course, is the name of God too holy to be uttered in speech, and is always rendered in English as ‘G-d’ in Jewish writings to this day. Zechariah’s parents, no doubt inspired by God, gave him a name that would describe his unique role in history: to be the father of the forerunner to the Messiah. God can always be trusted to remember his people.
So perhaps we should end today’s meditation with the reminder that Zechariah gives us at the end of his song.
In v78, we read, ‘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’. In the very last chapter of the Old Testament, you can read: ‘But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.’ (Malachi 4:2)
These last words were written to a nation that was demoralised from their exile into Babylon. By the time Malachi was born, the Persians had defeated the Babylonians and had allowed the Jews to return to their homeland. But Jerusalem was in ruins; there was no temple, the land was destroyed; they were a broken people.
When Malachi wrote these words, it must have seemed like mere wishful thinking. Surely God would never visit them again in glory as he had done to their forefathers!
But when you're dealing with the promises of God, you're not engaging with wishful thinking, but rather with thoughtful wishing. You could call that, ‘Hope’.
Do you wish for a joyful and triumphant church? Do you wish for goodness and truth in high places? Do you wish for justice and righteous judgement to be evident for all people, regardless of their social status, their ethnicity, or their address and socio-economic status?
The message of the Gospel, of the Redeemer who is, in the Gospel we are reading, about to be born, you are engaged in thoughtful wishing. These things are precisely what he has promised to establish. Christian Hope is the sure and certain expectation of what has been promised.
Don't believe just because an angel tells you, or much less because I told you! But believe because these promises are holy scripture. It is reliable.
Prayer: Thank you Almighty Father, for your care of Israel down through the centuries. Thank you for your promises to your people. Thank you that I have been included in your family because I have trusted in your son, Jesus Christ. Thank you for being faithful and true to every promise you ever made.
I have heard your promise that you will return, to finally establish your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. I look forward to that day. Amen.
