Luke 1:5-25, 57-80
One of my favorite places to visit in Israel is the national museum, which is kind of like our Smithsonian—a repository of things that define the history and culture of the country. The Israel Museum has a number of magnificent exhibits, including a 1/50 scale model of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus (the Second Temple period) which is immensely helpful in orienting visitors to what they will see when they walk around the old city. You can also walk through the amazing archaeological exhibit, which contains artifacts from every period of Israel’s history, including the oldest artwork in the world—a female figurine from a quarter of a million years ago, inscriptions that mention the House of David, ancient coins, and a piece of the Second Temple that was destroyed by the Romans in 70—a stone marking the place where the trumpeter stood to blow the call to worship.
Israel’s history is grounded in the biblical story, and the centerpiece of the museum campus emphasizes that fact. The Shrine of the Book is where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed. On this last trip in October, we had just come up to Jerusalem from Qumran the day before, the site down by the Dead Sea where the scrolls were found in 1947, so this was an exciting opportunity for many of us to see the scrolls for ourselves.
You enter the Shrine of the Book through a dark, quiet passageway where there are displays showing some of the clay jars and artifacts found in the caves of Qumran, but then you enter the hallway to see the main attraction—the center of the shrine around which the greatest discoveries are kept—fragments of the scrolls and the large and virtually complete scroll of the book of the prophet Isaiah (a replica as the original is kept in the dark to preserve it). It’s a site that’s worth the journey in itself because here the Bible becomes real as you look at the careful writing of some ancient scribes who copied and preserved it.
I think about that sense of anticipation for the main attraction when I read this first chapter of Luke. We know that the real heart of the biblical story is the gospel about Jesus, and yet Luke doesn’t tell us about him right away. Jesus isn’t born until chapter two. Like a patient scribe, Luke wants to take us on a journey through biblical history before we get to the main attraction.
Luke starts with an old familiar biblical story—a faithful couple who are well past childbearing age. Zechariah is an old priest who travels to Jerusalem from his home several miles outside the city when it’s time for his division to perform the regular Temple liturgy. His wife, Elizabeth, has been barren all these years, which in those days was considered to her fault—a curse from God. Luke tells us, however, that Zechariah and Elizabeth were “righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord” (1:6).
Luke wants his readers to remember back to the story of Genesis 12 and the fact that Abraham and Sarah were the original old and childless couple from whom the family and nation of Israel arose. They were so old that Paul says they were “as good as dead,” but three strangers come to tell them that they will have a son. Abraham and Sarah laugh, but the impossible happens. In Judges 13, an man named Manoah and his wife are both old and childless, but God grants them a son, Samson, whom they dedicate to the Lord. And in I Samuel, a woman named Hannah is barren and pays to the Lord for a son, whom she promises to dedicate to the Lord. God hears her prayer and grants her and her husband Elkanah a son, who will become the prophet Samuel. What will happen to Zechariah and Elizabeth will not be a new thing. The birth of their son, a prophet dedicated to the Lord, will link the Old and New Testaments together—something worth waiting for.
Zechariah probably wasn’t thinking about any of this, however, when it was his turn to go into the Holy Place in the Temple to burn incense on the altar. That was a big deal for a priest, but as with many religious rituals you do them without really expecting anything unusual to happen. We come to church every Sunday, week in week out, we hear the Word, we sing the hymns, we have a good experience of worship. We’re lifting praise to God, but we don’t often come expecting anything unusual—like God himself showing up and standing in the chancel! Zechariah went into the holy place to do his regular job, just like priests do every week, but he didn’t expect God to show up.
And yet, Israel’s history tells us that God does show up. The prophet Isaiah was in the temple one day when he says, incredibly, “I saw the Lord, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the Temple” (Is. 6:1-8). The Lord spoke to Isaiah there and sent him on a mission as the seraphim flew about him and cleansed his lips with a coal from the altar.
In the midst of an ordinary day of worship, God shows up and speaks to Zechariah through the angel messenger Gabriel. Notice how Gabriel begins: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah.” The old man had to be quaking in his sandals. This wasn’t church as usual! But then he says this: “Your prayer has been heard.” Zechariah and Elizabeth had long been praying for a son, even as they prayed for the Messiah to come. Now their prayer was going to be answered. The angel tells the old priest that he and his wife will have a son, who will grow up in the mold of the prophet Elijah and prepare the way for God’s Messiah. Gabriel would later spread the news to a young girl in Nazareth named Mary, who would bear the Messiah into the world.
As we said last week, Mary said “yes” to the angel’s message. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.” When Zechariah gets the news, from an angel, in the temple, that his prayers have been answered, and that the thing he had hoped for his whole life was about to become a reality, he responds not with faith, but with doubt. “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man and my wife is getting on in years.” Instead of saying, “yes,” Zechariah wants a sign. And the angel gives him one. Because of his unbelief, he will not be able to speak until the baby, who is to be named John, is born. Zechariah’s sign was silence.
Part of the temple ritual was that after the priest lit the incense and came out of the holy place, he was supposed to give a blessing to the people. Here comes Zechariah out to the waiting crowd and…nothing. Imagine the kind of sign language he tried to use to tell them he’d seen an angel! But Zechariah’s silent frustration and fear no doubt turned to joy when, days after his return home, Elizabeth was actually pregnant. While Zechariah is quiet, she exclaims with joy: “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorably on me and too away the disgrace I have endured among my people!”
I think Luke begins with this story because it’s about ordinary people like you and me—people who are always caught up in a mixture of faith and doubt, hope and despair. We come to worship, but we don’t necessarily expect God to show up. We pray to God, but we only half expect God to answer. We have hope for the future, but present circumstances tend to distract us to despair. This story is our story, and it’s the biblical story.
In first century Israel, most people believed that God had been silent for a long time. After the amazing liberation from Egypt, the establishment of a kingdom in the promised land, Israel stopped listening to God. So God stopped speaking in pillar of cloud and fire and in smoke on the tops of mountains and, instead, spoke through the voices of the prophets. Israel managed to silence many of those prophets by ignoring them or killing them off. So God sent his people into exile, far away from home…and the silence continued.
But the silence didn’t mean God wasn’t with them. In only meant that the people had lean in in order to listen to God. Silence has a tendency to sharpen our focus, attune our hearing, help us to go deeper within ourselves and be aware of the world around us. It’s only when we are silent, when we stop pouring out words, that we can truly hear what God is saying to us.
Zechariah was silent for nine months. Imagine that. Nine months of simply listening, nine months of pondering the angel’s message, nine months of listening to God and discerning what God might be up to through the birth of his long-awaited son and even longer-awaited Messiah. The silence was both a sign and a gift—a chance to hear the depth of God’s saving mission that was coming to reality through his own impossible family.
It’s little wonder, then, that when Zechariah finally speaks, holding his son in his arms, his first words are a song of praise. “Blessed by the Lord God of Israel for he has looked favorably upon his people and redeemed them!”
He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”
Zechariah’s silence was broken, and so was the silence of Israel’s God, who would speak his ultimate Word in the form a savior—the Word become flesh, and the Gospel of John calls him. After a long time of silence and waiting, God was going to have the last word, and Zechariah joins in singing his carol of praise.
He looks at the child in his arms, and sings, “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 by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace.”
This baby, John, will grow to be a prophet in the manner of Elijah of old—a throwback to the Old Testament and a herald of the New. Like a watchman, he will announce the breaking of a new day, a new age, a light that pushes back the darkness of sin and death and illuminate the way of peace. The Messiah, Jesus, will lead his people on that way—the king leading his people to the kingdom.
Zechariah’s song is one of praise and promise, but it comes only after a time of silence.
Advent is a time of waiting silently. Like tourists in a museum, we have to walk through the corridors of the long history of Israel until we come to the climactic exhibit that puts everything into perspective. We can’t run through the museum haphazardly, or we’ll miss the context of the main attraction. We have to stop and read all of the placards and signs. Advent calls us to slow down, be observant, to listen, and to expect the unexpected.
Problem is, we’ve gotten so used to the same old same old that we miss the dynamite of the story. We’re too busy to be quiet—making sure that all the details are right for Christmas, breaking down the doors of stores at midnight and running through a plethora of holiday events and expectations. We’re really good at talking about God, but less good at actually hearing him.
Zechariah was struck speechless by an encounter with an angel. Perhaps we need to once again be struck speechless by the power of this story—to be silent and listen for what this God, who came in person in Jesus and continues to work through the Holy Spirit, is up to.
Every time I look at those scrolls in the Shrine of the Book, I think about the people who copied them, carefully, painstakingly forming each word. They did it because they believed those words would one day leap off the page and become a reality. Christmas tells us that they were right. Whether we’re priests or prophets or parents or people with problems, we can believe that God keeps his promises, hears our prayers, and saves the world.
I want to invite you this Advent season to take some time to be silent and listen to what God is saying to you, and how God is calling you to be a part of this great kingdom story. What chapter will God write with your life? When others look at your life, what does the exhibit tell them? What song will you sing?
