Visits From an Angel (Luke 1:5-45)

Sermon

Key Passage

Luke 1:5–45 NIV

In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old. Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak. When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Introduction

I know that we said we are navigating through the book of Matthew for this series, but our calendar almost perfectly lines up with our journey through this book, so we are going to bring a little bit of depth surrounding the birth of Jesus by drawing some parallel passages from the book of Luke

Luke is also a gospel account of the life of Jesus.

Last week, Christian did a great job of communicating the lineage of Jesus.

In that lineage, we find Jesus ancestry.com from Abraham through David to Jesus.

Two weeks ago, we highlighted that the book of Matthew (as well as Luke) are both biographical accounts of the life of Jesus.

Only Matthew and Luke look at the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus.

We don’t often take a very deep journey into the circumstances of the birth of Jesus. We usually just focus on the fact that He was born in Bethlehem, laid in a manger and there were wise men eventually.

It is my hope by taking the path we are taking through these passages, that we will have a clear picture of Biblical truth and understanding as we step into this Christmas season.

Also, it is my hope that we find some application from these stories as well. I know that application may seem odd, because very few of us (if any) will have an angel appear to us and say, “Hey, you gonna have a baby.”

For the rest of us, the application is there, it is real, but it is a little less direct than in many other Biblical passages.

For our text today, we will break our reading down into three sections.

First, we will look at the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth

Second, we will look at the story of Mary

Last, we will look at the story of Mary going to see Elizabeth

All three have tremendous truth and value and when we mine deeply into the story, we can see the heart and the plan of God at work in these people.

Preaching

Passage 1— Zechariah and Elizabeth

In order to start into the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, I want to go back in time to Malachi 4:4-6

Malachi 4:5–6 NIV

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

These were the last words from God for the people of Israel in the OT.

The last word was the word, “Destruction”.

I imagine the people lived in some sense of fear, maybe confusion (about who this “Elijah” would be and what that means) and a glimmer of optimism because of the promise of the Messiah.

As we just read from our opening text, the first words out of Elizabeth’s mouth when she meets Mary is “Blessed are you...”

We can see the tone of God’s re-introduction to the nation of Israel and to the rest of the world in this text.

Luke 1:5 NIV

In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.

This story opens up with Herod as the King of Judea

History says a lot about Herod. If we were to look in our History books, we would find that this is Herod the Great

Not Herod the Great, because he was such a great guy.

This is Herod the Great, because he built a lot of stuff. But he wasn’t that great of a guy.

He was so prideful and power-hungry that he even had some of his own kids killed so they wouldn’t be a threat to his kingdom.

This was a hard time in the lives of the people of the nation of Israel.

We see that Zechariah was a priest and his wife was also from a line of priests

If you are new to any of this:

The nation of Israel was broken down into 12 tribes.

One of the 12 tribes was the tribe of Levi, who later had a priest named Aaron which was a further line of status in the priesthood.

They had been conquered by the Roman empire

However, the Roman empire allowed them to still worship at the temple

One of Herod the Great’s architectural accomplishments was rebuilding the temple in Israel.

The temple was where the presence of God resided and people would go to the temple with a sacrifice to pay for the penalty of their sin.

Even in the temple sacrificial system, the wages of sin was death.

Luke 1:6 NIV

Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.

I want you to see this about these two people

They were both righteous. How righteous were they?

They were not just righteous in the eyes of the people around them or the priests.

They were not comparatively righteous. They were righteous in the sight of God.

They were righteous by the only standard that matters.

The third bit of contextual information that we learn is this:

They were a priestly family

They were righteous

Luke 1:7 NIV

But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

In the book of Psalms, we see that children are a blessing from God.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were childless, and they were blessingless (if that’s a word).

People believed during that time that when you had ailments, it was the result of your sin or your families sin.

There was a reason that you have the ailment you do. It is because there is sin in your life or the life of your family.

But we saw earlier that they were righteous.

The people around them likely didn’t see it that way.

I want to pause here for a moment:

Stand in Zechariah and Elizabeth’s shoes for a moment.

They have been doing the right thing, but God has not been following through with their idea of what God should be doing.

I believe this is why the author Luke takes the time to highlight that they were righteous in the eyes of God. Likely their reputation and the opinion of the world around them said otherwise.

So God had been silent for 400 years. And the story of God working in humanity opens up with a childless, righteous old priest and his wife.

Luke 1:8–10 NIV

Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

Context on temple practice.

One time a year on the Day of Atonement, the priest would go into the Holy of Holies, where God’s presence was.

He would go into that place on behalf of the nation of Israel and stand in the gap between sinful humanity and a holy God.

He would present the sacrifices of the nation to God and God would forgive.

He would then come out and announce a blessing on the nation of Israel.

This had been done for generations in the same way.

Luke 1:11–13 NIV

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.

He goes into this holy room to put incense on the altar of God and someone is in there. No one should be in there.

It is an angel

I have to go here because I think we don’t have a good picture about what angels are.

How we picture angels really depends on what season we are in.

During Valentine’s day, angels are fat little flying babies with bows and arrows.

The rest of the year, we see them as inspirational beings that are very gentle and kind looking.

This is not the description of a Biblical angel at all. I’ll let you look that up.

But Zechariah saw a Biblical angel and it scared him to death.

Nearly every time someone sees an angel in the Bible, they fall flat on their faces in fear.

This is why the opening words of an angel are almost always, “Do not be afraid”

This is the case with Zechariah.

The angel says, “Do not be afraid. (too late)” “Your prayer has been heard. Your wife is going to get pregnant.”

The author Luke has already told us that Zechariah and Elizabeth were VERY old.

How old? I don’t know but when the Bible says they were “very old”, we can conclude that they were “very old”

Too old for getting pregnant and having babies.

Consider this: How long did Zechariah and Elizabeth pray for a child?

Probably for decades. But the time for having children had come and gone and God had clearly given them His answer.

I imagine that they had stopped praying for children decades before.

How old is “very old”? I don’t want to offend anyone here, but culturally, they were probably in their 70’s or 80’s.

People didn’t live much longer than that in those times.

They had likely accepted God’s answer was no 30-40 years before.

What do we see about God here?

Does God answer prayer? Yes.

God had told them “no” to this point

Did Zechariah and Elizabeth remain faithful? yes.

They were still faithful and blameless in the eyes of God.

How many of us could say the same thing?

When our circumstances don’t line up with what we want God to do, we reject God, or we become disappointed with God, or we begin to go through the motions of answering our own prayer if God won’t do it for us.

When God answers prayer, He does so in a way that He receives the glory.

Have you ever thought God had said no to a prayer request and now it is too late?

It is never too late for God to glorify Himself in your life.

What you feel is failure or loss, God can bring to His glory in ways that you can never imagine.

Luke 1:14–17 NIV

He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Here is the promise of the child that the angel is talking about:

He will be a joy and a delight to his parents

He will be great in the sight of the Lord

He will be filled with the Holy Spirit

This was before the book of Acts when God “Poured His spirit on all Flesh”

When someone was filled with the HS, that means the HS had a task for that person and they needed God’s power to accomplish that task.

Gideon was filled with the Spirit when he led Israel to battle

Moses was filled with the Spirit when he led Israel out of slavery

He will bring back many people in Israel to God

He will go on before the Messiah in the spirit and power of Elijah

Remember Malachi 4:5-6?

He will make ready a people for the Messiah

Now if a big scary angel was talking to yo and saying this would happen, not “might happen”, but that it WOULD happen.

Here is what Zechariah had to say...

Luke 1:18–22 NIV

Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.” The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.” Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

V 18- Zechariah was so convinced God had said “no” to his decades old prayer that he couldn’t wrap his mind around what was happening.

V 19-20- The angel puts Zechariah in his place.

Zechariah, you will spend one moment in the presence of God in your life. I stand in the presence of God every day.

The Almighty God that I stand in the presence of, told me to tell this to you.

I don’t have time for your doubt and questions. If you knew what I knew and saw what I saw, you would never have a question in your mind or heart.

V 21-22- The people outside were waiting for Zechariah to come out and pronounce the blessing on them.

Maybe God didn’t accept their sacrifice. Maybe Zechariah WAS sinful and God had struck him dead.

Eventually, Zechariah came out and opened his mouth to give the blessing and nothing came out!

For 400 years, the people had not heard from God.

Finally, someone hears from God and when he tries to tell the people what God said, He couldn’t because he was unable to speak.

Donovan said in our sermon prep group that God has never blessed a man as much as Zechariah, because he was unable to speak during the entire pregnancy.

Luke 1:23–24 NIV

When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion.

Here is what we learn about Zechariah and Elizabeth from this passage

They were righteous before God. It was not transactional.

They were righteous in spite of what appeared to be silence from God.

God’s plan is higher than our plan

God’s plan did not involve Zechariah and Elizabeth having a clear picture and an easy life

They likely spent lives of confusion and mourning, but still trusted God.

God showed His faithfulness. He is a faithful God.

The next story picks up during the 6th month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy

Passage 2— Mary

Luke 1:26–29 NIV

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

God sent the same angel (remember, an angel is a messenger from God) that He had sent to Zechariah to Mary.

The same big scary angel shows up to this young girl and says, “God really likes you”.

Think about this. She is likely a teenage girl in a blue-collar town. There isn’t anything special or favored as any part of her life.

Some people like to speculate about how old she was, but in reality, we have no idea. Do you know why? Because the Bible doesn’t say how old she was. So, if you hear people speculate, just understand, that is their guess.

The angel says that Mary is highly favored by God. What does this mean? This was likely confusing to Mary

We can go back into the Bible before Jesus came and we see that there was a guy named Moses who was highly favored in the eyes of God and God appeared to him in a burning bush.

Later a guy named Nehemiah was highly favored in the eyes of God and God used him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, which had been torn down.

Mary, being a Jewish girl would have understood this. Finding favor in God’s eyes meant that God’s purposes would be accomplished through you! Good! But also with that joy, comes the reality that the life you know is over. It is SACRIFICE.

Both Moses and Nehemiah had to leave their lives, their jobs, their comfort zone and follow God for his purposes.

We like to think that finding favor with God means that we have a life that will be simple, easy and comfortable.

We feel that those who are the closest to God are the ones with the deepest devotional thoughts and the most well defined and argued theology.

In reality, the ones who are truly favored by God are the ones who have to give up their lives of comfort and ease at the expense of others.

The picture of maturity in the church is how much a person pours into and loves others. Not how much they know and how many classes they can teach.

Luke 1:30–35 NIV

But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

Gabriel explains to Mary that she would become pregnant. She rightly says, “How can I get pregnant?

There is only one way to get pregnant, and Mary knew that she was excluded from that outcome because she was a virgin.

The virgin birth is something that we often gloss over as Christians.

But I want to talk about it for a couple of minutes.

How important is it that Mary was a virgin?

How important is this story?

Here is the basic story of salvation

Jesus came to the earth and died for our sins. 

He was resurrected on the third day and ascended into heaven.

Since He was resurrected, He served as a “firstfruits” of the harvest of resurrected people that will go to Heaven.

That means that since He resurrected, we too will resurrect to be with Him.

That is great.

But we don’t often talk about the justice of God

We love “God is love”

But we don’t have “God is just” on our bumper stickers.

If Jesus was only God, He wouldn’t have been able to die on the cross

God is eternal. You cannot kill an eternal being. He is God.

But if Jesus was only human, he theoretically could have lived a sinless life, much like you and I could have theoretically lived a sinless life. But we didn’t.

Here is where the justice of God comes in.

If Jesus were human, how many lives would be a fair trade for one sinless human?

One.

That is fair. One life for one life.

You don’t see people holding a room full of people hostage trade 5 hostages for one person.

Fair is one for one.

Here is where the virgin birth comes in.

There was no question, no doubt, in any way, shape or form that Mary could not have had a child in any other way.

There is only one way to have a child and she hadn’t gone down that road.

Jesus was fully human because his mother was Mary.

He was flesh and blood.

Jesus was fully God because his dad was God

He was by nature God.

I encourage you to read Ephesians 2:6-11

Without a belief in the virgin birth, there is not a clear understanding of salvation.

It is crazier than winning the lottery if Jesus can only save one person.

But that isn’t the case.

This is such an important teaching, that we cannot gloss over it.

We must celebrate it and remember what it is.

If you still have trouble with the science behind it, let me tell you this

Our God is not a natural god.

He created this world, not through a scientific process, but out of his voice came all that we know to exist.

Our God is above our ways, and if you don’t buy this, then your understanding of God is too small.

He is a super-natural God, not a natural god.

Luke 1:36–38 NIV

Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

The angel gave his message to Mary and I want you to see the heart of this young lady:

God could have chosen a strong woman

God could have chosen a wiser woman

God could have chosen a warrior

But God chose a humble, quiet teenage girl in a small town in Northern Israel

How does she respond to the prospect of losing everything in her life?

Being pregnant will dynamically change anyone’s life in an instant. But being unmarried and a virgin adds some complexity to the journey.

She will be teased, gossiped and maybe even harrassed in her own town.

No one will believe her story. Her fiancée will likely dump her. She has her whole life in front of her and she is on the verge of losing it all.

She makes one of the greatest statements of faith in the entire Bible:

“May your word to me be fulfilled.”

She knew very little.

But she had faith.

Faith in a God who could cause an old lady to become pregnant

Faith in a God who could cause a virgin to become pregnant.

I think all too often, we want to learn more and know more before we take a step of faith.

Mary knew very little, but had big faith

She knew God and that was enough.

Passage 3— Mary and Elizabeth

Luke 1:39–45 NIV

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

Elizabeth knew the scope of what was happening here. She exclaimed “Blessed are you and blessed is your child!”

Then Elizabeth recognized her place in the story and her favor before God by saying, “Why am I so favored?”

She identified Jesus as her Lord, before He was even born.

I want to walk this out a little bit.

Shame had been removed from Elizabeth because she was now pregnant.

But shame had been placed upon Mary because she was pregnant.

No one would question Elizabeth, but everyone would question Mary.

How do you think this made Mary feel?

Alone, hurt, scared? As Mary struggled in her world, I want to ask you this question, “What do you think it meant to Mary that Elizabeth would greet her this way?

She wasn’t greeted in her shame. She was greeted by identifying what God had done in her.

What an encouragement. What hope. What a relief.

How many of us look at the world around us saying, “Well if only they would do this” “Or they are where they are because of their own decisions” or even worse, don’t even notice that there are people around them.

So many of us sit in our small groups or in our sphere of comfort and there is a lonely person nearby that desperately needs the embrace of an mature saint.

A saint that says, “Why am I so blessed that you would be near me?”

A saint that says, “I celebrate what God is doing in you!”

I think all of us want that in our lives. But maybe we are so focused on wanting it in our lives that we never give it to anyone else.

Identifying and celebrating what God has done must become a part of our daily lives.

We serve a Good God who has blessed us beyond measure.

Conclusion

What a great re-entrance to God’s work in the world. It started with the word “Destruction” and ends with faith and favor.

We now get the sense of hope that comes from the opening of the New Testament.

We see that in the faithfulness and trust of Zechariah and Elizabeth

We see that in the humility of Mary

We see this in the celebration of Elizabeth over Mary

The arrival of Jesus into our world is a cause for celebration.

As we preach Jesus, there is one verse that we skipped over, but it was on purpose:

Luke 1:37 NIV

For no word from God will ever fail.”

This was the statement from the angel speaking to Elizabeth.

I would like us to remember that statement today.

God has a purpose for humanity and that is a relationship with them.

He sent His Son so we would have forgiveness of sin through His life, but also that we would know Him and be a part of His church.

As we step back from these stories—Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary, and their miraculous meeting—we are witnessing the moment God broke His silence and re-entered the world’s story in power, grace, and compassion. The Old Testament ended with the word “destruction,” but the New Testament opens with faith, favor, and the dawning of hope.

We see that hope in the steady righteousness of Zechariah and Elizabeth—ordinary people who lived faithfully even when their prayers felt unanswered and their lives felt overlooked. We see it in the humble surrender of Mary—a young girl with little status but enormous faith, who said, “May Your word to me be fulfilled,” even though she knew obedience would cost her dearly. And we see it in Elizabeth’s Spirit-filled celebration—calling out the work of God in Mary before anyone else could see it, lifting her shame, and offering the kind of encouragement the church is meant to embody.

And threaded through every part of this story is a single truth, spoken by Gabriel himself: “For no word from God will ever fail.” This was true for Zechariah and Elizabeth. It was true for Mary. It was true for Israel. And church—it is true for us.

The birth of Jesus is not just a holiday moment—it is a divine declaration that God keeps His promises, that His timing is perfect, and that His purposes are unstoppable. He does not forget His people. He does not overlook faithfulness. He does not abandon His plans. The God who broke 400 years of silence still speaks, still saves, and still steps into the lives of ordinary people who trust Him.

As we move into this Christmas season, may we be a church that reflects these truths:

May we be faithful like Zechariah and Elizabeth—trusting God even when we don’t understand His timing. May we be surrendered like Mary—willing to say “yes” even when obedience is costly. May we be encouraging like Elizabeth—quick to celebrate what God is doing in others and slow to judge what we can’t fully see. And above all, may we remember that the arrival of Jesus is God’s unstoppable invitation into relationship, redemption, and eternal hope.

Church, the same God who began this story has not finished writing ours. And His word—every promise, every truth, every hope—will never fail.

Amen.

Gospel

Directed Prayer