Luke 1:67-80
And Zechariah his father was being filled with the Holy
Spirit and he prophesied while saying, “The Lord God of Israel is blessed,
because he was present to help and to make redemption for His people and He
raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant, just as
it was spoken through the mouth of His holy prophets in ages past: to do mercy
with our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, an oath that He affirmed with
our father Abraham, to give to us without fear after being delivered out of the
hand of the enemies to serve Him in holiness and righteousness in His presence
for all of our days. And you, child,
will be called a prophet of the Most High.
For you will live before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge
of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the
compassion in mercy of our God – in which a dawn out of the high place will be
present to help us, to give light to the ones who sit in darkness and the shadow
of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace. And the child grew and became strong in the
Spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his revelation to Israel.
Thoughts for Today
First Thought:
I feel like I am beginning to sound like I am beating the
same drum over and over, but once more we can take note of Zechariah’s response
to the event. A son is born to him when
he thought that his wife was barren. But
rather than focus on his own success, he focuses upon God. God gets the glory. God gets the praise. God’s name is lifted up. Zechariah takes his moment in the spotlight
and directs the spotlight upon God instead.
That is what faithful people do.
How can you develop skill at removing yourself from the
center of attention and putting God into the spotlight instead? What does this story reveal to us about
Zechariah’s character?
Second Thought:
What is Zechariah’s message about God? About what does Zechariah want to remind the
people? God can be trusted. God promised salvation to Abraham, and the
time has come for the promise to be delivered.
God promised forgiveness. That
promise will be delivered. God promised
mercy. That promise will be
delivered. God promised to shine a light
upon the people who sit in darkness.
That promise will be delivered.
God promised to come to those who sit in the shadow of darkness. That promise will be delivered. God is a God who remembers and delivers. He is capable of doing what He says that He
will do.
Do you trust God? How
does hope help us trust? What can make
it difficult to remember to trust God?
Third Thought:
There is an interesting dynamic of
humanity that if we really pay attention we can see in the birth narratives of
both john and Jesus. The world has an
incredibly short memory. Think about the
public nature of the community around Elizabeth and Zechariah when John was
born. I spent a whole blog post
yesterday talking about how public the witness was. Looking ahead in the story, think about the
public nature of Jesus’ birth with the shepherds and the angels and the
magi. But what is true in both
stories? Both Jesus and John are quickly
forgotten. They grow up. The world stops taking notice of them until
they become popular in the world again.
After these incredible birth narratives, both John and Jesus experience
roughly thirty years of ordinary life.
The world around John and Jesus saw how these young men came into the
world. But the world’s memory is short
and focused on the moment. That’s part
of the human problem.
Do you ever suffer from a bad memory
with respect to how God’s hand is at work in the world? Why is it easy for human beings to lose sight
of what God has done in the past?
Passage for Tomorrow: Luke 2:1-7
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