Luke 1:57-80 - Zechariah’s Prophecy
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Luke Chapter 1, we will begin reading in verse 57 here in just a moment.
Last week in verses 39-55 we meditated upon the song of Mary.
But Mary’s story sits in the middle of two haves of another overlapping story happening simultaneously.
In Luke 1, the angel Gabriel appears to a man named Zechariah.
The angel announces that Zechariah’s elderly and barren wife, Elizabeth, will give birth to a prophet who will prepare the way for the coming of Jesus.
Zechariah, however, who was serving as a priest in the city of Jerusalem, did not initially believe the promise.
Look at Luke 1:19-20
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.”
AndZechariah’s unbelief, he was made mute, and unable to speak until the promise was fulfilled.
Now, I think Luke intentionally divides the two encounters in this way, with Zechariah’s story As the book ends, and Mary at the center.
I think he aims to make a theological point with the literary structure.
Zechariah is an older, distinguished, religiously righteous priest in the city of Jerusalem
Mary is an unknown, seemingly insignificant, impoverished teenager from Nazareth
Zechariah is told his elderly barren wife will give birth to a prophet like Elijah
Mary is told she, though she is a virgin, she will give birth to the Son of God, whose arrival that prophet is to announce.
Zechariah doesn’t believe.
Mary does believe.
There is a message in this.
It does not matter whether your an impoverished teenage girl from a little impoverished town with a bad reputation.
or whether your a distinguished priest serving in the holy of holies…,
The difference maker in this story is whether you will believe in God’s unfolding plan of salvation through Jesus.
And Zechariah was to learn this lesson the hard way.
His spiritual journey was not over at his initial disbelief,
rather God aimed to teach him something along the road of hard knocks.
This morning we enter the story in verse 57 and Zechariah has been mute for 9 months.
For 9 months he has been unable to articulate anything at all.
His communication has been reduced to messages scribbled down on writing tablets, but he has not been able to speak for 9 months.
So we pick up the story in verse 57.
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.
So thats the narrative portion,
The angel’s promise was fulfilled, the boy’s name is John, and Zechariah can finally speak.
But our focus this morning is more particularly on what Zechariah says.
What does one say having not been able to speak for 9 months?
Lets read and then I want us to pause to pray for understanding.
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.
Lets Pray
Lord do in us what you did in Zechariah 2000 years ago.
We pray this by your Grace and for your Glory, in Jesus’ name Amen.
With Zechariah’s new found freedom to speak.
He speaks blessing God.
He speaks praise to God.
He worships.
Now, there is a lot to see here, but we are going to primarily consider 3 truths that describe the nature of Zechariah’s worship here.
The first is not necessarily articulated by Zechariah, but its being modeled for us.
#1 Zechariah’s Worship was Spirit-Empowered
#1 Zechariah’s Worship was Spirit-Empowered
67 And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
The phrase “filled with the Holy Spirit” is a significant phrase for the story line of Scripture.
God is breaking into the world by the power of the Holy Spirit and he is filling a human being,
He is empowering this human being to now function as a Mouth piece For God.
It’s something that had not been happening for 400 years in Israel’s history....,
But now in the events surrounding Jesus’ birth, the Spirit of God is doing this kind of work all over the place.
As we saw last week, the Spirit, likewise, filled Elizabeth.
41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
Now the pattern has repeated .. Zechariah is filled with the Spirit.
In the next chapter, it will repeat once again with a man named Simeon.
The Birth of Jesus is marked by a whole lot of Holy Spirit activity in and through people.
And all of this is consistent with what the Prophets of old had said would happen in the coming of the Savior.
Over 700 years prior, Isaiah spoke of a coming salvation marked by a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God.
Consider Isaiah 32, in verse 14, Isaiah describes the state of God’s people as being in disrepair… until the coming of the Spirit.
14 For the palace is forsaken,
the populous city deserted;
the hill and the watchtower
will become dens forever,
a joy of wild donkeys,
a pasture of flocks;
15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace,
and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.
Listen again to Isaiah.
3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.
And once again from the prophet Joel:
28 “And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
29 Even on the male and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit.
These days, had come with the coming of Jesus.
The Spirit of God filled Zechariah,
This song or poem of , therefore, is the work of God in Zechariah and overflowing from Zechariah.
This is the kind of thing the Holy Spirit does.
He empowers God-pleasing heralding.
The words used here to praise God are words that God himself are putting in the heart and on the lips of Zechariah through Holy Spirit Filling.
True worship of God, is a worship that God empowers us to perform.
This passage is important because it marks the redemptive significance of Jesus’ coming, but its also important to us, because Jesus has promised to fill us with this same Holy Spirit.
The same Spirit that filled Zechariah is the same Spirit that now fills and empowers Christians to praise and proclaim.
Luke is the author of both the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts.
They function as a two part series… and Luke shows us that the filling of the Spirit in Zechariah is the kind of thing God promises to those who follow Jesus in faith.
Luke records Jesus’ final words to the disciples in Acts 1:8.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
And if you think this is just for the 12 disciples, listen this portion of Peter’s sermon to the thousands who would receive Christ.
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
The book of Acts is carried along by the people of God’s prayers and the subsequent fillings of the Spirit for their empowerment and proclamation Of the message of Jesus.
Check just one example…
31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Christian, be not discouraged.
When Christ came at the first Christmas, he came bearing gifts.
Through faith in Jesus, God draws near to you in the person and work of the holy Spirit in your heart, in your life, in your worship, in your ministry to others.
Zechariah says that he and God’s people had been visited by God.
68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people
Christian, God aims to visit you.
He aims to visit with you by His spirit for your comfort, for your joy, for your worship, for your witness to the world.
We are not alone.
We do not have to have hard conversations alone,
We do not have to have enough strength, or wisdom, or knowledge, in any given situation, alone.
We do not evangelize alone
We do not parent alone
We do not teach or preach or worship or pray alone.
What we need is God.
And Praise be to God what we need is exactly what God is eager to give us… namely himself.
Do you pray for this?
Do you pray for Spirit-filledness?
How often do you fall on your knees and ask God for Spirit-empowerment?
Do you lean on the Lord’s Spirit in prayer before you march into conflict?
Do you pray for Spiritual empowerment before you make a big decision?
before you discipline your kids?
before you evangelize a lost person?
before you gather for worship?
Is there an awareness in your mind that you need the Spirit of God to empower your worship?
#1 Zechariah’s Worship Was Spirit-Empowered
But as we will see, the Spirit-filled him and then the Spirit drew out of him, what was already in him.
Zechariah was a priest, who no doubt, had spent years of his life meditating on the Scriptures. And it is those Scriptures that the Spirit drew out of him in this moment of praise.
#2 Zechariah’s Worship Was Scripture-Saturated
#2 Zechariah’s Worship Was Scripture-Saturated
In these 10 verses we find at least 16 allusions, parallels, or direct quotations from Old Testament Scripture.
Even just the language he uses and the way he speaks sort of drips with the language of the prophets and the Psalms.
He has the vernacular of the Bible.
A lifetime of Biblical study is now coming into full focus and its overflowing into proclamation and praise.
Luke says that Zechariah was prophesying, but interestingly, he is not revealing a secret future, he is reveling in the fulfillment of God’s revealed word.
He is not saying something new.
He is explaining and exalting in something very old which is now coming to its climactic moment.
And just like with Mary’s song, The Holy Spirit of God is taking all of that Biblical narrative and knowledge, and he is using it now to accomplish his purposes in Zechariah and through Zechariah.
Before we survey the quotations, I just want us to meditate on this way in which God works in us.
He speaks, he commands, we internalize those words, and then he uses those words in us for his purposes through us.
Paul articulates the process for the church so clearly in Colossians chapter 3.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Notice the pattern...
There is intake, and then there is an overflow.
You can’t overflow without the intake.
And if you never overflow then your not intaking correctly.
This is the Christian life.
We Inhale the word of God through every possible avenue so that our very thoughts are Scripture saturated...
And then we exhale the word of God in our relationships with one another and our ministry to the world.
Don’t expect Spirit-empowerment without Scripture-saturation.
Spirit and Truth sing together, and they never do solos one without the other.
So if you want Spiritually-empowered worship and ministry in the coming year…, make a plan for breathing in deeply what God has breathed out for us in the Scriptures.
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Now is the time to make a plan for the new year.
How will you breathe in the word of God more deeply,
so that its the word of the Lord that the Spirit of God brings out of you?
#2 Zechariah’s Worship was Scripture-Saturated
And it was appropriately so…
Because Zechariah is responding to the birth of the one who would announce the arrival of the one whom all the Scriptures are pointing to.
It is a remarkable thing, that this song of response to the birth of Zechariah’s son, is not primarily about Zechariah’s son, rather its primarily about the one whom his son will prepare the way for.... Jesus.
#3 Zechariah’s Worship Was Christ-Centered
#3 Zechariah’s Worship Was Christ-Centered
As Zechariah alludes to Old Testament Scripture, he asserts that this coming Jesus is the point of those Scriptures.
Let me give you a few sub-points here on how Zechariah understood Jesus to be the fulfillment of OT expectation.
68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people
That word redeemed comes most clearly from the Exodus story… the story of God’s gracious deliverance from slavery in Egypt.
God spoke this word through his servant Moses to the hurting and oppressed people of God
6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.
For Zechariah, the birth of Jesus meant that God’s people had been visited again, for a full and final redeeming from the cold and harsh slaveries of this world.
What does that mean for you?
It means Jesus offers you redemptive freedom…
The fullness won’t be felt till the day we see Jesus face to face…, but there is a lot of freedom to be experienced even now.
We are free from the power and penalty of sin.
Free from the shame,
free from the guilt,
free from the demands of our anxieties and depressions.
We do not have to live in them now nor forevermore.
Jesus is the Mosaic Redeemer Who Frees Us From Slavery
That old Exodus redemption story was pointing to this redemption story that Jesus had come to accomplish.
But thats not all. Zechariah continues.
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;
2. Jesus is the Davidic King Who Conquers Our Enemies
King David was the most victorious and virtuous King in Israel’s history.
He led Israel into prosperity, into safety, and into victory over their enemies time and time again…,
but God promised to King David and through the OT prophets that one day, an offspring of David would establish the Kingdom of God forever and ever.
One day there would be no more enemies to fight.
One day total victory would be one, and forever peace would be established.
And this promise left the people of God longing for a King from the Davidic line, who would be like David, but who would be even better then David.… a horn of salvation who would conquer every enemy.
The horn was a symbolic adjective for power and strength of a King who could not be defeated
and Zechariah draws the language from Psalms like Psalm 89 who speak of that coming king.
22 The enemy shall not outwit him;
the wicked shall not humble him.
23 I will crush his foes before him
and strike down those who hate him.
24 My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him,
and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
Zechariah is announcing that the powerful King who will establish the Kingdom of God forever is coming in the person of Jesus…,
the anticipation is over, and the actualization is here.
He comes to defeat our enemies, but not just political or military enemies, but rather every enemy of God that has infected our world.
Jesus comes to reverse our curse.
Its not just God’s promise to David, Jesus came to fulfill, its also God’s promise to Abraham.
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.
3. Jesus is the Abrahamic Blessing Who Turns Back the Curse
God swore an oath to Abraham.
The oath was one of blessing to all the nations of the earth through his offspring.
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Zechariah overcome by the Spirit of God says that this blessing is on his way.
The curse will be reversed, and the blessing of God will prevail over the evil of all the nations.
In verse 76, Zechariah finally turns to address what role his newborn son will play in all of this…
But even in the addressing of his son’s role, the central focus is Jesus whom his son will announce.
Zechariah now understands his son to be the fulfillment of a prophecy in Malachi which states that a prophet will come like Elijah to announce the coming of Christ.
Lets read what Zechariah says about it and then lets read the OT scripture from which he draws these implications.
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.”
John the Baptist will be called the prophet of the Most High
He will go before the Lord to prepare the way
He will give knowledge of salvation.
He will explain the path way to forgiveness of sin..
He will explain that the key to eternal life will be repentance and faith in this Jesus.
He will be the one to publicly baptize Jesus and thus inaugurating his public ministry.
But as good and precious as the messenger is…. It’s all to prepare for the one whom Zechariah calls the “sunrise” in verse 78.
let me say just a word about this
4. Jesus is the Sunrise to Our Darkness from Malachi
4. Jesus is the Sunrise to Our Darkness from Malachi
The word picture is beautiful.
the picture is of a world covered in darkness.
A world full of sin, and death, and ignorance to the things of God.
A world without color, a world without joy, a world without clarity.
But Jesus will be for the world like the rising of the sun… Darkness will flee from him,
Those who love the dark will be no more…,
and those who love the light will rejoice in full color in his light.
They will see his world, and they will see God as God desires to be seen and enjoyed.
Zechariah is drawing from this prophecy in Malachi.
1 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.
3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.
6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
Those are the last words of the Old Testament.
And Zechariah now understands his son to be that Elijah like prophet who will announce the awesome day of the Lord, the rise of the sun of righteousness, the light of the world.
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
And nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your rising.
For Zechariah, the significance of John the Baptist was to be his role in announcing the one whom the whole story is about.
And as we come to a close this morning.…
Let us remind ourselves.
Our significance in this story is tied to our role in announcing the one whom this story is all about.
The purposelessness that every human being feels, will not be resolved by any job, any income, any relationship, any feeling or pleasure this world has to offer.
No, that sense of purposelessness you feel can only be addressed, by participating in the eternal purposes of God…, the worship and proclamation of Christ our King.
Recap:
Zechariah’s Worship was Spirit-Empowered
Zechariah’s Worship was Scripture-Saturated
Zechariah’s Worship was Christ-Centered
May it be so in our worship.
If you plan on making some New Year’s resolutions this year…
How about resolutions that practically pursue this kind of Worship.
a life that is more spirit-empowered, scripture-saturated, and Christ-centered.
May it be so among us, even now.
Let’s pray and lets worship like this together.