Luke 1:67-79
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[a] 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.”
INTRODUCTION
This is the third Sunday of Advent, a season thick with anticipation. Advent is an extended time of savoring the story and meditating on the meaning of Christ’s first coming. We are looking to stir our affections for Christ, heightening the sense of anticipation, in the hope that when we reach Christmas, our soul magnifies the Lord and we rejoice in God our Savior as we ought.
One biblically-endorsed and reliable way to provoke godly affections is through song. That’s why we sing in corporate worship. True, there is a certain kind of affection-stirring that happens when we recite the Apostles Creed during our communion liturgy. But both our hearts and our minds can be deeply moved when melodies are joined together with truth, with words carefully crafted and ordered.
When words follow a rhythmic meter and are arranged for beauty, we call it poetry. The aim of poetry is different from that of daily speech. The goal of most of our speech is thorough and precise information transmission. (True, prose can be delightfully articulate.) But, as Dave said in his sermon on Elizabeth’s song two weeks ago, “[P]oetry is designed by God with a unique ability to drive truth deep into our hearts. Poems are often meant to be narrower in scope, but greater in impact” (David VanAcker, Elizabeth’s Song: The Baby In My Womb Leapt for Joy).
To that end, we have been unpacking the songs of Luke’s gospel for three weeks now. Elizabeth’s song was first, then Mary’s, called the Magnificat because of the Latin translation of “magnifies”, the first word in her song. Our text for today, Zechariah’s song, is traditionally called the Benedictus, or “blessed”, for a similar reason.
The big idea of this sermon is that the God who can be trusted to fulfill age-old promises can also be trusted with the grand hopes and the minute details of our lives. The main takeaway, therefore, is to rejoice that God has remembered his people in the advent of our King and relish all that means for us.
Let’s pray. Father, sustain us in this hour, to attend to your Word. Nourish our souls, strengthen our faith, unite our hearts and our minds, and increase our savor of this season. Amen
Background
In his opening chapters, Luke, in no uncertain terms, presents his gospel as a manifesto that Jesus is the Christ, that offspring of David through whom God promised to bring peace and an everlasting kingdom. He presents Jesus to us as the One through whom the loose threads of Scripture’s grand promises tie together. Thereby he overwhelms us with rich, densely packed biblical theology in these early passages, of which there is no more intense example than Zechariah’s song. Just as surely as Elizabeth and Mary were pregnant with God’s promise-fulfillers, so Zechariah’s heart would be pregnant with wonder at the anticipation of the promises about to be fulfilled.
But before we dig into Zechariah’s song we need to ask: Where did it come from? A song like this doesn’t just spring up from thin air. To understand the inspiration for his exuberant reaction, we need to consider how he arrived at this day: Who is he, where does he come from, and how does that inform his response to the birth of his son? To answer these, let’s flip back a page and consider chapter 1:5-25.
Meet Zechariah and Elizabeth
Beginning in verses 5-7, we meet Zechariah and Elizabeth and Luke gives us three distinguishing features of the couple.
First, he tells us both are from the bloodline of Moses’ brother Aaron the priest. Luke tells us generically that Elizabeth is “from the daughters of Aaron”. Her name is a Greek translation of the Hebrew name Elisheba, Aaron’s wife. Of Zechariah, he tells us that he is a priest of the division of Abijah, which we’ll look at more in a minute.
Second, he says that they were both “righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (v. 6). (Walking blamelessly doesn’t mean that they were without sin, but that they were above reproach. Like the prophet Daniel, no one would be able to “find any ground for complaint against [them] unless [they found] it in connection with the law of [their] God” (Daniel 6:5). They kept the law, and if they sinned, they made it right according to the law.) By calling them righteous and blameless, Luke is making clear that there’s no fault in them that anyone could point to as a reason for this next distinguishing feature.
Third, and finally, Luke says Zechariah and Elizabeth “had no child”. Why? “[B]ecause Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years” (v. 7). The adjective barren is a synonym for emptiness and desolation – a painful and insensitive way to describe childlessness. That Elizabeth is barren means that they had tried for years to conceive without success. Further, Elizabeth is post-menopausal. She’s no longer ovulating. That she is barren and they are too old anyway is a double-whammy reason why, humanly speaking, conception is impossible.
What do you think that felt like? Some of you know what infertility is like. Alena and I have been there. It’s painful seeing everyone else around you with their happy, full home and their busy schedule of activities. You feel your powerlessness. What’s more, you depended on children to care for you in your old age. How much more then, when there was no pension, no social security, no Medicaid? They might have wondered what they’d done to deserve it. Elizabeth called it her “reproach among people” in verse 25. When talking with Mary, the angel Gabriel referred to Elizabeth as she who was “called barren” (v. 36).
People likely assumed they deserved it. Think about the book of Job – wasn’t that assumption behind his three friends’ accusations the very heart of the dialogue? Luke later recounts a conversation where Jesus rebuked his disciples for assuming bad things happen only to bad people. Jesus’ response was essentially, “there are no good people” (Luke 13:3, 5). No one deserves the good that they get, nor should we assume bad things happen only because people deserve it. (Maybe you’ve noticed, there are plenty of bad people who have kids!) But as Luke has already assured us, there’s nothing in who they are or how they’ve lived that explains why they have no child.
The background Luke includes here is not arbitrary. And the language he uses signals something else that would raise flags for anyone comfortable with the Old Testament. First, with reference to conception, being “advanced in years” was only applied elsewhere to Abraham and Sarah. Further, as one commentator says, “Whenever Scripture pronounced a woman ‘barren’, God later gave her the holy son for whom she longed” (J. Edwards, The Gospel According to Luke, p. 34, Eerdmans).
Seeing the label of “barren” in Scripture should cue you in that grand moments in the history of redemption are about to unfold. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s wives were all once called barren, only to conceive by the conspicuous intervention of God. Later Samson was conceived after an angel appeared to his mother. Then Hannah, of whom it was said that “the LORD closed her womb”, conceived in answer to her prayer. Luke is cueing us in here that this is more than just a story about Zechariah and Elizabeth.
The Hour of Incense
In verses 8-10, Luke then relates about a very special day that had come for Zechariah. The division of Abijah was one of 24 priestly divisions that took turns in Temple service. There were upwards of 18-24,000 priests. Huge numbers were needed at times, such as during the Passover slaughter of tens of thousands of lambs. But generally speaking, their division served in the Temple routinely twice a year. And with maybe a thousand priests in his division, it would have been entirely possible for Zechariah to finish out his years of service and never once enter the Temple.
But, he was chosen by lot. By chance, so to speak. So Zechariah entered the Holy Place, the room outside the curtain before the Holy of Holies. There stood the Lampstand, the Table of the Showbread, and the Altar where he would offer incense. This incense was prescribed to be offered morning and evening in Exodus chapter 30. Later in Scripture (Psalm 141:2; Daniel 9 v. 21; Revelation 5:8 and 8:3-4) incense is closely associated with the prayers of the saints, mingling together as a sweet aroma to arise before God.
What do you suppose the multitude of the people outside were praying while Zechariah was in the Temple? Maybe the next verses will give us some clues.
Encountering Gabriel
While the people were outside praying and Zechariah was inside offering the incense, something extraordinary happened.
[11] … an angel of the Lord [appeared] standing on the right side of the altar… [12] And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him… [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. [14] And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, [15] for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. [16] And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, [17] and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
The angel’s appearance was a dramatic moment. After 400 years, the famine of hearing God’s words had finally broken (Amos 8:11). Interestingly, the last person to actually see an angel was also named Zechariah, one of the Minor Prophets. Zechariah responds with a dread of the uncanny characteristic of many in Scripture. But the angel reassures him, saying his prayers have been heard (Cf. Daniel 10:21). Then he foretells that their son John will fulfill Malachi’s prophecy as the one who prepares the way for the Lord to come to His people. John would be the forerunner of the long-expected Anointed One.
The name Zechariah means Yahweh has Remembered. When the angel told Zechariah, “your prayer has been heard”, he was telling him, “Yahweh has remembered you”. Consider some other examples: “But God remembered Noah…and the waters receded” (Genesis 8:1); “God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow” (Genesis 19:29); “Then God remembered Rachel, and God listened to her and opened her womb” (Genesis 30:22). When Scripture talks about God remembering, it doesn’t mean that he had forgotten. It means he is keeping his promise of mercy.
Yahweh has remembered not only this elderly couple but the whole nation. So what do I think the people outside were praying? I imagine it was something like what Moses tells us Exodus 2:
[23] … the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. [24] And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. [25] God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. (Exodus 2:23–25)
Just as the incense and the prayers of the saints mingled together and rose before God, so the answer to the prayer of the elderly couple and the multitude gathered outside were intertwined in the providence of God.
But Zechariah was not prepared to receive this.
[18] [he] said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” [19] And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. [20] And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” [21] And… when he came out, he was unable to speak to [the people], and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. He kept making signs to them and remained mute. [23] And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.
Things had been going great. The opportunity of a lifetime came. But in the finest hour his life, Zechariah muffed it. He fumbled the ball. He doubted not only the miraculous conception God had promised him, but thereby he doubted God’s power to keep his covenant with Abraham and David. He came out deaf (so it seems) and dumb. It was over, so he went home. One commentator called this “a rather anticlimactic conclusion to what had been a phenomenal week” (John MacArthur, MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Luke 1-5, p. 30).
But would it be the end of the story?
Luke writes,
[24] After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived
A Severe Mercy
What happened in Zechariah’s heart during the nine months of silence between Gabriel’s appearance and John’s birth? Clearly, the Zechariah who met Gabriel in the temple was a different man from the Zechariah who burst into song. What heart work happened between his statement of unbelief and his overflow of praise?
It seems he went from eyes focused on his navel (i.e., unmet expectations of fatherhood), to gladness in the grander purposes of God without regard to his own station. Gabriel’s visit occasioned the revelation of long-entrenched, perhaps unconscious attitudes regarding their barrenness. It seems he was convicted by this after he was made dumb, and then processed it in the coming months. Regarding all of these things we can only speculate.
But we do know he went home, he knew Elizabeth, and she conceived (v. 24). Later Mary showed up at their door when Elizabeth was six months pregnant, the baby leapt in her womb at Mary’s greeting, and his wife was filled with the Spirit and with song. Then he heard Mary’s song. And lastly of course, John was born (vs. 57-66).
Zechariah had been sentenced to silence because of his unbelief. But it wasn’t merely punishment. One author says:
“The purpose of Gabriel’s judgment is not to annul the choice of Zechariah, nor does it… halt the fulfillment of God’s promise. It is a remedial work of the Spirit – a severe mercy – that will enable faith” (Edwards, p. 39).
Have you experienced that kind of mercy? Last week Dave said that “kids… seem to be continually moving from anticipation to anticipation”. But how often we adults tend instead to move from vexation to vexation, from anxiety to anxiety. Before he was struck dumb, Zechariah was like that. Despite our religious devotion or a profound depth of biblical knowledge, we sometimes respond to God’s mysterious providence with unbelief. Thus, like Zechariah, we reveal our own need for heart work.
Listen! In Christ, all severity is mercy. I came down with a cold this week. Blessed be God, because it gave me a sick day from work or this sermon might not have gotten done. Do I think you all got sick too just so I could have an extra day to work on the sermon? Probably not. The minute details and grand hopes of our lives are weaved together to work the ultimate good for God’s purposes. Our lives may be just a few passes or knots or however needlework or tapestry works, but they do fit together perfectly with the grandest moments of redemption that God is also weaving – just like they did for Zechariah.
God’s hand of discipline was upon him during those silent months that followed. Under that severe mercy, he went from not believing God was capable of managing a single conception, to recognizing that God was capable of fulfilling hundreds- and thousands-year-old promises to a nation, that the bloodline of the patriarchs had been built on so-called barren couples. “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
Like new wine, faith began to ferment and grow, bubbling within Zechariah, ready to burst forth at John’s birth.
The Benedictus
It was an odd assignment to preach on Zechariah’s song, because though his story began before the songs that were preached over the last two weeks (Elizabeth’s Song and Mary’s Song, Luke 1:39-56), his own song comes after. Aside from the grand moment of Mary’s visit, the narrative of Zechariah’s life has been in suspended animation since Gabriel’s final words were left ringing in his ears, “these things… will be fulfilled in their time” (v. 20).
But in v. 57 Luke picks the story back up with the words, “Now the time came…”. The promised forerunner was born. At his circumcision, Zechariah’s statement, “His name is John” (v. 63) is his unequivocal declaration of faith – his former unbelief has dissolved. “Immediately his tongue was loosed” (v. 64) and the mute man poured forth a flood of Scripture-saturated lyric in praise to God.
And so, finally, the song. I won’t elaborate on the poetic form of Zechariah’s song, because I don’t know how. And I’m not sure dissecting the poem like a biology project will help you appreciate its beauty. But I do want to help you see its Old Testament roots and unpack what it celebrates.
Zechariah’s song seamlessly weaves together a treasury of Old Testament narrative, psalm, and prophecy. The language of the song cues us into what God is doing through the arrival of John, the Preparer, and Jesus, the Promise-Fulfiller, who will usher in the ultimate moment in History.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel (v. 68)
The song begins, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel” (v. 68), a phrase uniquely coined by David and carried forward only by his son Solomon. It’s David’s response when his future wife Abigail keeps him from bloodguilt with regard to that fool Nabal (1 Samuel 25:32). And it’s David’s response at the end of his life when he knows that his son will inherit his throne (1 Kings 1:48). Solomon echoes back this blessing at the dedication of the Temple, saying, “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, who with his hand has fulfilled what he promised to David my father” (1 Kings 8:15).
In all these responses, David and Solomon rejoice not in immediate personal deliverance, but in Yahweh’s intervention to secure His promise to David and to his offspring, guaranteeing the persistence and inevitable dominion of the Kingdom of God.
For he has visited and redeemed his people (v. 68)
In the Bible, visiting means more than stopping in for a chat or for a holiday. It even means more than Mary coming to stay with Zechariah and Elizabeth for three months.
Visitation can be bad. More often than not, in Scripture God is visiting people’s iniquities on their heads or upon their offspring – meting out justice.
Visitation can be good for some and bad for others. Zechariah’s enthusiasm would not be celebrated by all. Thus, Luke later recounts (19:44) how Jesus wept over Jerusalem and pronounced her destruction because she “did not know the day of [her] visitation”.
But in places where it is used in a desirable sense, God is coming to save his people. Those instances where God visits his people are significant waypoints in the road to redemption, God preserving Abraham’s line at critical moments. For example, he visited Sarah and she conceived Isaac (Genesis 21:1). He also visited Hannah and she conceived and bore Samuel (1 Samuel 2:21). In Egypt he promised through Joseph to visit Israel in 400 years and bring them home to Abraham’s inheritance. And during the Babylonian exile he promised through the prophet Jeremiah to visit them after 70 years and bring them back home (Jeremiah 29:10). We see in Luke’s gospel sequel, the book of Acts, that Peter “recounted how God visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name” (15:14). And Peter himself refers to that Day when Christ will return as “the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).
However, Zechariah poetically describes God’s visitation not primarily as an event, but a person. He points us to Malachi 4 (vs. 1-2) – “the day is breaking [and] the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings”. The arrival of Jesus Christ is the sunrise, Christ himself being the Sun, or “The Dawning One” in vs. 78 (translation per Edwards, p. 64) who shall visit us. As Balaam prophesied long before, “A Star shall arise out of Jacob” (Numbers 24:17), so Jesus would later declare in John’s Revelation, “I am… the descendant of David, the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16).
He it is who “gives light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death”, “salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins”, and “[guidance of] their feet into the pathway of peace” (vs. 77, 79).
To Remember His Holy Covenant
“[T]o remember His holy covenant” (v. 72) is the reason for His visitation. Most fundamentally Zachariah has in view God’s promise to Abraham (v. 73), that his offspring would be God’s heir, bringing His blessing to all the peoples (Genesis 22:16-18). But what of His covenant with David to set an heir on his throne, forever over an everlasting kingdom (2 Samuel 7:8-13)? God’s covenant with David both rests within His covenant with Abraham and is the guarantee of its fulfillment.
In fact, the promises of both are realized through the person of Jesus Christ. God’s raising up of “a horn of salvation from the house of David” (v. 69) is the decisive act of faithfulness to His covenant with Abraham. Paul made this connection quite clearly in Galatians chapter 3 (7-9, 29), saying, all who are Christ’s by faith are heirs of all that God promised Abraham.
Because of the Tender Mercy of Our God
What motivates Yahweh to do all this for us? Zechariah says he is showing “the mercy promised to our fathers” (v. 72). The same word translated “mercy” here is elsewhere translated “compassion” and “steadfast love”. More than a feeling, it’s covenant love in action. God is viscerally moved with compassion for his people. As Zechariah says in verse 78, it is “the tender mercy of our God” that moves Him. The Greek word for tender (splágchna) is where we get the name for the splanchnic nerve, which innervates our visceral organs and acts on them whenever our emotions are deeply moved. Numerous places in Scripture use it to compare the depth of feeling God has for his people to that which a father has for his children. For example,
- Psalm 103:13 – “As a father shows compassion to his children, so Yahweh shows compassion to those who fear him.”
- Hosea 11 – “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (v. 1); “It was I who taught Ephraim how to walk” (v. 3); “I bent down to them and fed them” (v. 4); “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?… My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender” (v. 8).
- Jeremiah 31:20 – “Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my bowels yearn for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares Yahweh”.
That We Might Serve Him
To what end does God save us? Once light dawns upon us, the sins are forgiven, we are delivered from our enemies, and we enter the pathway of peace – what then? Zechariah says we will “serve him without fear” (vs. 74). Here serving means “priestly service in worship” (Edwards, p. 63). The goal of redemption is that God’s people would be freed to worship him “in holiness and righteousness” forever (v. 75). Wasn’t that God’s repeated command to Pharaoh through Moses and Aaron? “Let my people go, that they may serve me”? And God promised that the redeemed would be his “treasured possession… a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Peter applies this passage to the New Testament church, saying you and I are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession”, saved so that we “might proclaim the excellencies of Him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Israel’s enslavement in Egypt, God’s visitation on them, and the resulting exodus image forth the visitation of Christ on we who are enslaved to sin. Luke later tells us (9:31) that at his transfiguration, Jesus discussed with Moses and Elijah the “exodus that he was about to accomplish”. Through Jesus, God has visited us and redeemed us out of our bondage to sin, to bring us home that we may serve him. True freedom, as I recently heard said (Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Tedd Tripp), is not found in autonomy, but in obedience.
Listen to the Apostle Paul, “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness… [since] having been set free from sin [you] have become slaves of righteousness… [no longer to] present your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness… [Instead,] present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification… now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God” (Romans 6:13, 18, 19, 22).
Mary’s Magnificat, apart from her statement that “from now on all generations will call me blessed”, is an expression of joy in who God is and what he has done. Zechariah’s song though is more than poetry. As we see in verse 67, Luke says Zechariah “prophesied”. True, there is still a cross to be borne and much battling remains to be done, but the Champion has arrived, and the decisive victory in the war for our very souls was at hand. He has come to rescue His Bride. And that is cause for celebrating all that the coming of Messiah will mean for us.
Conclusion
Remembered by Yahweh
As I said at the outset of my sermon, Luke set forth from the first pages of his Gospel a treatise on the Old Testament roots of the Advent. While they fit handily in the pocket, those who live only by Gideon’s New Testament are missing much of the story – like having the answer without knowing the question. John’s birth narrative is not the birth of God’s “Plan B”. It’s been said that, “The incarnation of Jesus Christ is not a random and unprecedented innovation of God, but the fulfillment of a purposeful chain of saving events in Israel, of which the birth of John is the penultimate link” (Edwards, p. 63).
God is not caught off guard. Yahweh doesn’t realize; Yahweh remembers.
He remembers nations and he remembers barren couples. Our God is not capable only of managing the big moments in redemptive history. He is working in the minutest details of your daily life, aware of your hopes and dreams, and seeking your best good. His intervention on your behalf is inevitable. So, when severe mercy comes, lean into it. May your faith in the first advent of Christ and his return be matched by your faith in the benevolence interest of Yahweh for you, his child.
Closing prayer:
(Isaiah 9:2–7)
Father, we who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
On us who dwelt in a land of deep darkness has the Dawning One shone.
You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
we rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Amen