Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Luke
1:68-79)
Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people.
Prayer: Heavenly
Father, send us the Holy Spirit so that by your grace we may believe your holy
word and live godly lives here in time and there in eternity, through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
Tonight, for our second midweek Advent service, the focus of
our meditation will be on the Song of Zechariah.
The Song of Zechariah has a special place in the life of
the church, just like the Song of Mary. The Song of Mary was always sung at
Vespers, the evening service of the church, and the Song of Zechariah was
always sung at Matins, the morning service of the church. Especially in times
when Matins was used every day, the Song of Zechariah would have been firmly
imprinted in the minds of Christians. Today we don’t know it so well, but it
makes a wonderful song for the morning, especially when it says: “Because of
the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall 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.”
Zechariah opened his mouth and spoke these words at a time
when a new bright light was dawning on the earth. And also, at the same time,
every day with Jesus is new day of great light—the light that streams forth and
shines from baptism into our hearts and lives.
Just think about how Jesus says: “I am the light of the
world! Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of
life.”
Also, at the beginning of John’s gospel, it saw about
Jesus: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
One of the earliest Christian hymns is a Greek hymn called
Phos Hilarion, which says: “O Gladsome Light, eternal joy of the Father, holy
and blessed Lord Jesus Christ!” Do you hear what it calls Jesus? Gladsome
light! Light that brings gladness, and is the eternal joy of the Father.
In our hymnbook we have a morning hymn by St Ambrose,
which calls Jesus: “O Splendour of God’s glory bright, that bringest forth the
Light from Light. O Light of Light, the fountain spring, O Day, our days
illumining!”
These thoughts are sparked off here by Zechariah even
before Jesus is born, and looks forward to the day when the great sunrise, the
brilliant morning star, will come and dawn upon the world.
+++
Zechariah speaks these words at the time when his son John
the Baptist was born and it came time for him to name the child, eight days
after he was born when he was circumcised. Up until now, Zechariah’s mouth had
been shut for the entire time of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Maybe Zechariah was
also there to watch and hear the event when Mary came and greeted Elizabeth. It
says, Mary “entered the house of Zechariah”, but there is no other mention of
him, since he couldn’t hear or speak. But now that it comes time for him to
name the child, his mouth is opened when he writes on the writing tablet, “His
name is John.” We read: “And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue
loosed, and he spoke, blessing God.”
At the beginning of the Song of Zechariah, it says: “And
his Father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.’” This song is a prophecy and is inspired
by the Holy Spirit. This is very important for us. St Paul says in Ephesians 5:
“Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.” It
is not simply singing that fills us with the Holy Spirit, but singing the
Lord’s praises. We don’t know Zechariah’s tune, if he sung these words at all.
But he was filled with the Holy Spirit and said, “Blessed be the Lord God of
Israel.”
The 19th century German Lutheran pastor,
Wilhelm Löhe, says to people who are suffering with depression: “When you feel
as if your courage were at an end, begin to sing Psalm and hymns of confession.
This is very offensive to Satan and exerts a wonderful power upon troubled
souls. Especially to be recommended are the Hymns of Praise. The prayer of
praise will often attain what no pleading petition may gain. At times these
prayer may immediately draw you out of distress. If you are not able to sing,
let others sing for you.”
+++
And so we come to Zechariah’s words:
“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 of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and
from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and
to remember his holy covenant, the oath that 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 our days.
This song is only made up of two very long sentences. This
is the first one.
Zechariah says: Blessed
be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.
In our LCA version in the Supplement, it says: “he has
come and redeemed”, but actually it says, “he has visited and redeemed.”
There’s something very special about this word: visited. In Greek, the word is very
closely connected with the word “bishop”. The word “bishop” in the New
Testament is used to describe the office of a pastor. Today, we normally think
of a bishop as being a particularly senior pastor, but in the New Testament
there is no divinely instituted hierarchy of pastors. Today, people often
translate the word “bishop” as “overseer”. This is a correct translation, but I
don’t like it so much—in the 21st century, an “overseer” sounds like
a CEO of a company, someone who watches down upon everything like a hawk from
an ivory tower. But literally, and much more concretely, a bishop is a
“visitor”, “someone who visits”. In the early Lutheran Church, right from the
1520s, the Lutheran bishops (or “presidents” as we might call them in the LCA)
were called “visitors”. They “oversaw” by “visiting.”
And in the song of Zechariah, we have this same word
twice. It says that the Lord God has visited and redeemed his people. And also,
towards the end, “the sunrise shall visit us from on high.”
When Jesus raises the widow’s son at Nain, we also read
that the crowd said, “God has visited his people!”
God rules his people, he oversees us, by visiting us. In
the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is called “Immanuel”: God with us. At the end of
the same gospel, Jesus says: “I will be with you always.” When the Son of God
took on flesh from the Virgin Mary, this was a special “visiting” of the human
race, in such a way that had never happened before. Never before had there been
a man who was true man and true God in one person.
But also, God had visited Zechariah in his suffering. God
has visited Zechariah by locking his mouth shut, and had also visited him to
open it again. God visits with suffering, only to visit again with greater joy.
As it says in Job 5: “Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves; therefore
despise not the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he binds up; he shatters,
but his hands heal.”
Also, it says that God has visited and redeemed his people. Literally, it says, he made redemption for
his people. “Making redemption” means “paying a ransom”. When Jesus is finally
born, and grows up and goes to the cross, we see him pay our ransom for our
lives with his own blood. And now, Zechariah talks as if the ransom has already
been paid. But the fact that the Son of God has taken on human flesh means that
the ransom has already begun. God the Son has already taken on blood and flesh,
which is the means by which he is going to pay the ransom, and make redemption.
And so Zechariah talks about this redemption as if it has already happened. It
has already started, but the prophecy is so strong that it is only a matter of
time now before Jesus says: “It is finished.”
The same goes for us, where we are still waiting for our
redemption, but also Jesus has already redeemed us. He is already our Redeemer,
and we know that our Redeemer lives, but also our redemption is drawing near,
and we are waiting for us.
Zechariah says: He
has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
We have three things together here: God visits, he redeems
and he raises up a horn of salvation for us. He visits us, he redeems us
because he wants to save us. We know that Jesus is not just our Saviour, but
also the “horn of our salvation”, we look to him for strength and salvation, we
trust in him, we take our confidence and our hope from him. And where is this
horn of salvation from? From the house of his servant David.
All throughout Advent and Christmas, we often hear about
David, and we often pass him by. But it is such an important part of who Jesus
is that he should be descended from the house of David. He is descended from
the great king, even though he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey like a beggar.
At the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is called the son of David, and the
son of Abraham. So Jesus has been raised up from the family of David—the stump
of Jesse.
Zechariah says: 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 show the mercy
promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that 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 our days.
Notice here that Zechariah says talks about being saved
from our enemies, being delivered from the hand of our enemies. Who are our
enemies? First of all, our own flesh is our enemy because we are always
battling with sin. Secondly, the world is our enemy, which means people who are
not battling with sin, and instead are battling with us. And thirdly, the devil
himself. The devil is using our flesh and the world to run us down and to take
us away from serving God. And so St Paul says: We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rules,
against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness,
against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Sometimes when we read certain psalms, we find them pretty
violent, for example, Psalm 3: “strike all my enemies on the cheek, break the
teeth of the wicked.” But we have to recognise that every day, every week of a
Christian’s life is a fight—a fight to keep the faith and endure to the end, a
fight against false teaching and against unholy living. Every day is a day when
we need to wake up and fight and dress ourselves in for battle. As St Paul says:
“Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand
in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.” We don’t go looking for a
fight, but we are called to stand firm, and withstand in the evil day. The
devil may fire his arrows, but Jesus Christ is shield for us. If it were up to
us, we wouldn’t have enough strength to stand up to the devil’s little finger.
But the devil can’t stand up to the finger of one of Christ’s holy angels who
fight for us.
The devil, then, always wants to take the word of God away
from us, because he knows it’s powerful. He wants to twist it, so that we won’t
trust in it any more. And so, when Jesus appears on the scene, with his words,
with his words become flesh, the devil melts away for fear and is crushed,
defeated, stamped on, and smashed. And so, Zechariah says, that God shows us
great mercy in doing this. This is
the mercy which was promised to our fathers, God remembers 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 our
days.
You see, with Jesus’ blood, there is no fear when we
worship God—there is only the forgiveness of sin, so that we can worship God in
spirit and in truth. We can serve him in holiness and righteousness before him
all our days—not our own holiness and righteousness, but the holiness and
righteousness that comes from Jesus Christ himself which he gives to us freely,
apart from our own works. When we come to pray, we pray together with Jesus,
and we pray in his name, with all our imperfect prayers covered up by his
blood. The devil wants to make us fearful of speaking to God, but Jesus brings
it about that we can serve him without
fear.
Now Zechariah says some things about John the Baptist:
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, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall 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.”
John is the prophet of the Most High, and he goes before
the Lord to prepare his way. John prepares the way for Jesus in the wilderness,
and calls people to repentance so that the King of Glory may enter in. This is
the task also of every pastor. We baptise with water, but Jesus himself comes
at the same time and baptises with the Holy Spirit and the fire of the
purifying presence of the living God.
But he also gives people the knowledge of salvation.
And what is this knowledge? It’s the forgiveness of our
sins. It says: “to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness
of their sins.” The forgiveness of sins is not a kind of intellectual
knowledge, but it is something that is given to you and spoken to you by God
himself, and John is sent to speak this forgiveness. Remember he says: “Repent
and believe the gospel”. Listen to God’s crushing law, and trust in his
life-giving gospel.
Zechariah says: Because
of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall 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.”
Once again, we are back to where we started tonight, where
Zechariah speaks about God’s tender mercy, his sunrise, his light, his
guidance. What happened in Zechariah’s lifetime would change the world forever.
Jesus’ incarnation, as we call it, the fact that he took on human flesh while
still remaining true God, means that now is the time of God’s great mercy, his
tender mercy. It is a time of great sunrise, where we worship Jesus Christ, who
is the Light of the world, or as the Nicene Creed calls him, God of God, Light
of Light, true God of true God.
And this evening, we have only barely touched the surface
of Zechariah’s great prophecy. But would you expect such a great prophecy given
by the Holy Spirit to be able to be explained in its entirety in such a small
time? So I leave you now with the words themselves for you to meditate on in
your own devotions, and to learn these words of the Holy Spirit yourself with
his own help.
The Lord God of Israel has visited and redeemed his
people. May Jesus Christ also give light to us in all of our darkness, and also
guide our feet into the way of peace. Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep
your hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
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