Advent Week 1 – The Prophecy Candle of Hope: Zechariah
This week is an exegetical sermon looking at Luke 1:5-25,57-80 focusing on the character of Zechariah. The sermon is titled, “The Preparer of the Preparer of Jesus” and looks at the fall of Zechariah, his repentance, and his following prophecy regarding Jesus’ birth. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on November 29th, 2009 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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The Resolved Church
Pastor Duane Smets
November 22nd, 2009
ADVENT | The Christmas Story Descends
Week 1 – The Prophecy Candle of Hope: Zechariah
The Preparer of the Preparer of Jesus
Luke 1:5-25, 57-80
I. Zechariah’s Fall from Righteousness (v.5-25)
The Priest Who Fails to Present God to the People
II. Zechariah’s Faith in God’s Promise (v.57-66)
The Father Who Passes on The Faith to his Family
III. Zechariah’s Filling of the Holy Spirit (v.67-80)
The Prophet Who Points Everyone to Jesus
Introduction
Well today is the first Sunday of Advent this Christmas season. If you’ve never experienced Advent, the word itself means “arrival” or “appearing” and in the history of the Christian church it is the season when we remember and celebrate the appearing or the arrival of Jesus into the world.
There are four weeks to Advent, so each week we light one candle and I preach a sermon on the theme of that week. This year I’ve decided to do character studies on four different individuals from the Christmas story. This first week is the prophecy candle, which focuses on the theme of hope and we’re going to look at Zechariah. Erica Calvert already read our text for this morning, so I’ll just jump right in and refer to parts of it here and there.
I. Zechariah’s Fall from Righteousness (v.5-25)
The Priest Who Fails to Present God to the People
All right, so let’s check out this Zechariah character. The first thing about him we read in this story is that he was a priest. Verse 5 says he was a priest in the days of Herod and that he was part of the division of priests from Abijah.
Priests were basically the pastors in the Old Testament before Jesus came and started his church. A priest’s job included many of the things that are a pastor’s job now. They regularly taught the Bible to the people, they prayed for the people, were to set an example for the people in how they lived and loved God and they were to run the church services at the temple. A priest’s job is to present God to the people.
Now there were a lot of priests. Back in the days of King David, who wrote a bunch of the Psalms in the Bible, there were 24,000 of them (1 Chr 23:4). Probably about the same amount during Zechariah’s day if not more. There were a lot of priests because the idea in the Bible is that every person is supposed to have personally access to a pastor.
A pastor is not just the guy who stands up in front of the people preaching on Sunday. It is someone who is spiritually watching over your souls and knows the details of your life and you go to him for strength, support, counsel, wisdom and prayer. Every Christian ought to have a pastor in their lives.
Now one of the priest’s duties as verses 8-9 was to be available for service in the temple, in Jerusalem if needed. Jerusalem is like the capital of the state, sort of like Washington D.C. for us. In Jerusalem there are a couple important buildings…instead of the White House and the Pentagon you’ve got the king’s palace and you have the temple.
Now, Luke wasn’t a Jew, so a lot of this temple stuff was pretty foreign to him and he’s doing is best to sort of introduce us to it. The closest he ever got to the inside of the temple was the outer court, called the “court of the Gentiles.” Non-Jews were not allowed inside of the temple…but at least he had seen the outside of it and knew common knowledge stuff about it. We’re even more removed from that.
Most of us have never lived in a city or a country where a religious building is the central focus of the entire life of the people. The closest thing today is probably what we see with Mecca in the religion of Islam. Mecca is the capital city of Saudi Arabia and once a year every able-bodied Muslim takes a trip there to go worship at the temple. Usually around 3 million people end up going.
That’s pretty foreign to most of us probably. Even more foreign is the actual inside of the temple and what went on in there. Check out verse 8-9 with me. “Now when he was serving as priest when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.” This is a huge deal.
Let me explain. Basically the temple is the dwelling place of God. Now obviously God is everywhere present and doesn’t live in temples built by human hands. But in the Old Testament, God had a major concern to teach the people holiness…that everything that is right and true and good comes from God who is the totally pure author of all morality and righteousness. So God allowed a temple to be built to demonstrate this and to have a tangible, ongoing reminder of his existence and holiness.
Now the way the temple was set up is that there were six main areas of the temple. Think concentric circles…the outer area anyone could go into called the court of the Gentiles, then there was the court of the women, then the court of Israel, then the court of the priests were the sacrifices were made. Once you were in the court of the priests you stood before this giant building called the “Holy Place.” It was a structure about 15 stories high and 150 feet wide, so almost the length of a city block.
Inside the Holy of Place were two areas. There was the outer area which had a golden lamp stand, the table of consecrated bread, and the altar of incense, which was kept always burning…that’s what Zechariah got chosen to go do, offer new incense. And then inside the Holy Place there was a the inner area called the “Holy of Holies.” It was separated by a 3-foot thick veil made of several layers of cloth and behind it was the Ark of the Covenant, the footstool of God in heaven. The high priest would enter into the Holy of Holies only once a year on the Day of Atonement.
So back to Zechariah. He gets chosen by lot to go and offer incense in the Holy Place. Getting chosen by lot, is sort of like throwing dice or drawing straws. They used two different stones called the Urim and the Thummim they would toss to determine who would go. Now Zechariah’s division only went to the temple twice a year to serve there…there were so many priests that most would be lucky if they got to go inside the Holy Place and offer incense once in their entire life. I suppose maybe it’s like getting to go see the oval office or something.
The point is, this is a huge deal for Zechariah. I went into a lot of detail in all that temple stuff because it’s important for us to get a feel for this. God starts the Christmas story by announcing it to the top level of religious and spiritual authority by telling his plans first to the most Jewish Jewed up Judaism Jew guy you can get other than the high priest himself.
I mean Zechariah is a Jewish priest who serves in the temple, he married a chick whose dad was a priest. And on top of it he was a good priest. Look at verse 6, he and his wife “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord.”
What happens? Zechariah goes into the Holy Place, sees an angel, and this angels who tells him that his old wife who can’t get pregnant is going to have a son, and that his son is going to prepare the way for the arrival of the Lord in the world.
This is so huge. There has been no visions, no angelic appearances, no prophecies, no nothing for over 400 years…nothing. And Zechariah is the very first person God decided to tell he is about to send his son Jesus into the world and that Zechariah’s going to have a boy who will set things up for Jesus. This a big deal. Advent really begins with the story of Zechariah.
So how does Zechariah the righteous man who walked blamelessly in all the statues of the Lord respond to this news? Let’s check it out and re-read it. Verse 18, “And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”
Zechariah blows it. Hard. He just had an angel appear to him. The angel told him that the thing he and all the other priests and true followers of God had been longing for, the messiah, was about to come and that his own family would have a part in it. And Zechariah doesn’t believe it. He’s says, no. That can’t be true. That can’t happen. My wife and I are all old and saggy. There’s no way.
You just had an angel appear before you dude! It’s an important thing to note I think that having a supernatural encounter doesn’t grant faith. A lot of times I’ve heard people say things to me like, well if I ever saw Jesus or something supernatural with my own eyes then I’d believe.
The truth is that such a sentiment already reflects a hardness of heart that would explain away any thing that did happen…not to mention that it would demean the greatness and significance of Jesus coming into the world if he had to come in every generation just to re-convince us. So see, the supernatural doesn’t always help…it really is a heart and faith issue.
Notice that’s what the angel says. To me, it actually kind of sounds like he ticks Gabriel off, which isn’t too smart. In 2 Kings 19 an angel killed 185,000 soldiers single-handedly in one night. Check out how the angel responds. Verse 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. 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.”
The angel says Zechariah’s response was unbelief, a lack of faith, “you did not believe my words.” I think Luke wanted us to feel that. He was redundant about how good and righteous Zechariah was. He didn’t just say he was righteous…but that he walked blamelessly, in all the commandments, and statutes of the Lord. But here he falls. His righteousness, his blamelessness, his obedience all falls to the wayside.
And then God takes away his mouth. The one thing he was meant to do as a priest…minister to the people and now he can’t. Literally. After offering incense the priest was supposed to come out and stand on the steps and pray for the people. Now he can’t. All he could do was make signs and gestures. There are consequence for disobeying and not trusting and believing God’s word.
The story of Zechariah’s fall ought to remind us that none of us are ever too good that we cannot and have not fallen and failed. We must believe and trust the promises of God for us. Our goal and calling in life as followers of Jesus is to believe and to present him to the world.
Listen to 2 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
May God help us to be priests who are both like and unlike Zechariah…priests who seek and serve the Lord and obey him, but ones who are constantly driven not by a confidence in our own works but by a confidence of faith in the word of God.
II. Zechariah’s Faith in God’s Promise (v.57-66)
The Father Who Passes on The Faith to his Family
This is my favorite part of this whole story. Let’s re-read it and get it fresh in our heads. (re-read verse 57-66)
So here’s what’s going on. Elizabeth was barren. Her and Zechariah were never able to have children their whole lives long. This was embarrassing. Usually a sign of God’s curse in that day. Earlier in verse 25 when Elizabeth actually got pregnant as the angel said she would, she said, “The Lord has…(took) away my reproach among people.”
We need to get a feel for this because our culture is so freaking backwards on this. Here is the very very very first thing God ever says to mankind. Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply.” That is a command! God straight out says that the thing he wants us most to do, one of the primary ways that we will love him and glorify him, is to get a spouse and to have children.
And if you don’t have children, Elizabeth here is right, it’s a reproach. I want to hammer on this because we are bred in this self-serving self-centered self-planning self-determining spiritually masochistic culture that says marriage and children sucks. So everyone dorks around having sex outside of marriage…puts off marriage as long as possible and then wants to wait until the chances of getting pregnant are very slim to even start thinking about having kids. What they essentially do is make themselves barren by an abuse of birth control. That is wrong. And it is a violation of the first commandment of the Bible.
So let me say just a couple things. If you’re sexually active and you’re not married, you need to stop and repent and you need to get married. You need to repent because that’s against God’s design and it’s sin. And you need to get married because it’s not bad that you have sexual desire. God made you that way. It’s a good thing to have a strong libido. Every time you feel it that is God telling you to get a spouse and make some babies. I’m serious.
The other thing I want to say is to you couples who are married but don’t have kids. First, if you’re trying or have been and you’ve been having trouble…I know that has got to be extremely difficult and painful. The emotions involved are complex and not easy. Know this though, you are not alone. Several people throughout history have gone through what you’re going through and the Bible has stories of couples who were barren but God ministered to them and gave them children…not only do we have Elizabeth Zechariah, but also Hannah and Peninnah and Abraham and Sarah. Read their stories and find comfort and hope.
The second thing is to you couples who are married but not having kids. Be careful of the reasons you may be putting it off. Be careful of idolizing you’re marriage, where you just want it to be you and your spouse because you love it just being you two so much. That’s idolatry.
Also, be careful of thinking you can plan everything out just right. You will never be ready to have children if that’s what you’re waiting for, you learn in the process. You just get pregnant and God gives you nine months to force you to get ready and then you’re still not ready. It’s a great plan. Just trust God and do it. If you’re thinking of getting a dog or getting pregnant, forget the dog have a baby. Human babies are the kind of animals God designed you to parent.
All right. Enough of that. If you have kids, have had them or are having them. Good job. Keep up the good work. Christmas is a great time for baby-making.
Okay, back to the story. So Elizabeth has her baby and it comes time to name the baby. Zechariah has been mute for 9-10 months. Unable to speak. So he’s had a lot of time to mull over the angel’s words to him.
The angel said three main things. One, Zechariah’s wife Elizabeth would have a baby. Two, Zechariah was to name him John. Three, John would play a special role in the history of God’s intervention in the world to bring salvation…he would turn hearts back to God from disobedience and prepare the way for the Lord to come into the world.
The times comes for Zechariah to name the baby. His friends and family are urging him to name the baby after himself…which is usually done as a reminder of a child’s dad being a great man. And Zechariah was a great man. He was a priest. He saw an angel. And he his wife got pregnant when she was old. A genuine miracle.
But something changed in Zechariah’s heart during those 9 months. The text doesn’t say it straight out, though we get a feel for it in his song. But whatever had caused his initial unbelief and resistance to God and his work in his life had been broken. Repentance had taken place and Zechariah followed through with obedience and trust in the words of God from the angel and did as he was instructed, naming the baby John.
And immediately his mouth is opened and he follows through in faith and obedience he is able to speak and verse 64 says he begins “blessing God” right away. And then word spreads. Anticipation begins to build. Check out verse 65-66, “And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, 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.”
Advent. God sets up his arrival. Building anticipation. Making a big deal about it. It’s exactly what you would expect if God were to in fact come into the world.
Zechariah here naming his baby John is perhaps the greatest act of spiritual leadership in his entire life. More than all the privileges of teaching the Bible, praying for and counseling people, even more than getting to go into the Holy Place and offering incense. It’s great because in this act Zechariah both demonstrates his faith in the promise of God AND he passes the faith to his son.
When Zechariah names John John, he seals his destiny. When Zechariah named John John he determined to raise John up teaching him about his special calling in life to prepare the way for Jesus. The very end of the chapter actually even indicated that Zechariah may have even moved and taken his family away out of the city into the wilderness in order to prepare John to be John.
For fathers here today and future fathers let me tell you this. The greatest thing you can ever do for your family is to pass on the faith to your children. The greatest thing you can ever do for your family is to teach them to trust the Word of God and to look to the savior Jesus.
It’s interesting. Especially reading his prophecy that we’ll look at in a moment. But I think we see the same attitude here in Zechariah that we see later in his son John the Baptist…who said, Jesus must increase I must decrease (Jn 3:30). Zechariah was humble and was okay with his son just having a small part.
Sometimes there is so much pressure on us in our culture to be a success. To make a lot of money. To be able to buy a lot of things. To be esteemed, powerful, and influential. None of that matters. What matters most is following the Lord and having whatever part we can in preparing the way for him.
It’s why I titled my sermon, “The Preparer of the Preparer of Jesus.” Zechariah as old and he would spend the final years of his life preparing his son to be the preparer for Jesus.
All of us, whether or not we’re fathers need to be like Zechariah. We need to be repentful when we are wrong and sinful and lack faith and trust in God. And we all need to do everything we can to pass on the faith to your family.
I got one of the coolest calls this week. It was from the dad of one of our college students who is a part of our church. He called me because he wanted to tell me that one of his main goals to impart to his son during his college years was the importance of being a part of a church…even when he wasn’t there to make it happen. So he called me to ask me to do everything I can to make sure his son was in church.
I like that. That’s a good example of a good dad. The greatest thing we can give to our families is our faith in God who sends the savior for our sins.
III. Zechariah’s Filling of the Holy Spirit (v.67-80)
The Prophet Who Points Everyone to Jesus
In our last point for today we look Zechariah’s filling of the Holy Spirit in verses 67-80. In these verses God gives Zechariah a prophecy to be recorded for all time. Some think maybe it was a song…we’re not sure exactly when Zechariah said it or wrote it down. But it is not only beautiful in its arrangement but is superb in it’s depth and presentation of the gospel.
There are two main parts to the prophecy. The first part looks backward to past prophesies of a messiah who would come and the second part looks forward to the role that his son John will play in preparing the way for the Messiah.
Let’s just look a couple things from each part.
First looking at the past prophesies.
In verse 68, the Messiah who was to come was to redeem his people. Redemption is a buying back. We are God because he made us…but we have all turned and run away and not worshipped and served him as we ought. So the messiah would do something to buy back God’s people so that they would belong to him once again. Jesus is the Messiah who pays the price of death on a cross in our place so that we might be close to and belong to God.
We need redemption. To be bought back by Jesus.
In verse 69, the Messiah is to be a horn of salvation. A horn is the symbol of strength. Horned animals were strong. The Messiah would save by his great strength. It would take great strength by Jesus to mocked, misunderstood, and mistreated and go all the way to a cross to die for a people who had all abandoned and turned away from you.
We are not strong enough to save ourselves. We need Jesus to save us.
In verse 72, the Messiah comes to show mercy as a fulfillment of God’s covenant promise to save. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. We don’t deserve to be in God’s family but Jesus makes a transaction for us on the cross to receive it and be brought in and adopted into the family.
We don’t need or want what’s fair…that means hell for us. We need mercy from Jesus.
In verse 74-75, the Messiah frees us to serve God in righteousness and holiness. When the power of sin is broken in our lives we then live out of love for Jesus and God’s righteousness and holiness begins to be naturally fulfilled in our lives.
We need to be freed to enjoy loving and serving God.
Now looking at the role of John. After knowing the life and ministry of John the Baptist it’s amazing looking at what his dad wrote long before he did any of the things he did.
In verse 76, John is a prophet of the Most High. When Jesus came to be baptized by John, John saw him coming to where he was and he looked at most likely pointed at Jesus and called out, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn 1:29).”
The message of John is that we need Jesus to take away our sin.
In verse 76, John will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. When John was ministering to the people calling them to repentance he said these words, “He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry (Mt 3:11).”
The message of John is that everything is not about us, it’s about Jesus.
In verse 77, John will give knowledge of salvation about the forgiveness of sins. John didn’t mess around and call sins mistakes, he called them sins and said they need to be repented of and could be forgiven. In so doing, he churned up a lot of hard soil on hearts so that people would be prepared to receive Jesus, the one who would say, “your sins are forgiven (Lk 5:20; 7:48).”
The message of John is that we need salvation, we need our sin to be forgiven, wiped away and made clean by Jesus.
And lastly in verse 79, John would bring the light which will guide people into the way of peace. John the disciple of Jesus said this about John the Baptist, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world (Jn 1:6-9).”
The message of John is that Jesus is the light who calls us out of darkness and into him and gives us peace.
An amazing prophesy. The interesting thing about Zechariah’s prophecy is that it is really all about Jesus. Even the parts that are about his son John are really, all about Jesus. Jesus coming into the world, next to the cross and the resurrection is the single greatest event in all of history. In fact, the three events really all go together as one. Incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection. Each event is meaningless without the other parts.
Here is the point to take away from Zechariah’s prophecy. Every good and true prophecy points to Jesus. A true prophet, a true teacher, a true pastor…will be all about Jesus. Looking to him. Loving him. Trusting him. Everything is about Jesus.
The greatest thing we can ever do for anyone is to point them to Jesus. And Zechariah is a great example of that. He left a godly legacy, written down for all time, which does just that.
Conclusion
Well let’s wrap up this first Advent sermon for this year. It’s a good sort of preparatory story for the Christmas season because we’re not quite fully into it yet.
We’ve looked at the life of Zechariah…the first person God ever announced his coming in the world to. In many ways his story is the story of every follower of Jesus.
We’re a people who have fallen from righteousness but God has been gracious and given us the promise of Jesus…the man who never fell and yet gave up his life for me in my place so I might be saved and transformed. Once we really and truly believe that, repent and put faith into that promise like Zechariah, then God fills us with his Spirit and enables us to then start pointing people to Jesus.
That’s our story. I’m a sinner who has fallen and Jesus has saved me and I pray that everything I say and do in my life will point you to him.
So as we go to the table today to receive Jesus body and blood in bread and wine…let’s remember both the special-ness of all that God went through to set up his coming into the world…and let’s remember the good news of the gospel. That we too like Zechariah have fallen but God has had grace on us and given us Jesus whom we confess and put our faith in.
Let’s pray.
