Introduction
This Christmas we’re working our way through the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel and Luke’s account of the events surrounding the Saviour’s birth. And I’ve said before that the two chapters can be divided into three main parts and that the first part contains two announcements; and the second part contains two births; and the third part contains two consecrations.
Two weeks ago we studied the two announcements. The first was the angel’s announcement to Zechariah that his elderly, barren wife would conceive and give birth to a son who should be called John. And he will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. And the second announcement was the angel’s announcement to Mary that she would conceive a child by means of the Holy Spirit and give birth to a son who will be holy and great and who will rule as king and who will be known as the Son of God.
That’s what we studied two weeks ago. This morning we thought about the story of the time when Mary visited Elizabeth. So, this was the follow-up to the two announcements. And when Mary visited Elizabeth, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt for joy, because the mother of the Lord had arrived. And Mary praised God for his kindness to her personally and for his kindness to his people generally.
Today and tomorrow we have the two births. So, this evening we’ll think about John’s birth and what happened afterwards. Tomorrow, which is Christmas morning, we’ll think briefly about the Saviour’s birth and what happened afterwards. What happened after both births? After John’s birth, Zechariah praised God. And after the Saviour’s birth, the angels and shepherds praised God.
And then, if all goes to plan, next Sunday we’ll come to the two consecrations. In the first, Mary and Jospeh brought the infant Jesus to Jerusalem to consecrate him to the Lord, as the law of the Lord required. And in the second, the Lord, in a sense, consecrated himself when he accompanied Mary and Jospeh to Jerusalem when he was 12 years old; and he made clear to his earthly parents that he was dedicated to his Heavenly Father’s work.
But this evening, we’re focussing on the passage which we read a moment ago about John’s birth and about what happened afterwards. At the beginning of the passage, we’re told briefly about John’s birth. Then there’s the account of what happened when he was circumcised. At that time, the neighbours wanted to name him after his father, but both Elizabeth and Zechariah are adamant that his name is John. And then, in verses 65 and 66, which is really the centre of today’s passage, the neighbours were filled with awe and wondered what this child is going to be. And in the rest of the passage, Zechariah answers their question by telling his neighbours that God is about to redeem his people; and John will be the Lord’s prophet, who will go before the Lord to prepare the way for him. And the passage ends with a brief statement of how John grew and became strong in spirit.
Verses 57 and 58
And so, let’s turn first of all to verses 57 and 58 where Luke tells us briefly about John’s birth. And he tells us very simply that when the time came for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Of course, behind this simple record of his birth is what we read earlier in the chapter about Elizabeth’s old age and her barrenness. Up to this time in her life, she had never been able to have a child; and she was now well past the normal age for having children. And yet, old age and barrenness are no obstacles for the Lord, with whom nothing is impossible. And so, the Lord enabled this old, barren woman to conceive and to give birth to a son.
And this was the fulfilment of the word of the Lord through the angel Gabriel. Zechariah did not believe the word of the Lord. He doubted what the angel said to him. But he shouldn’t have doubted, because the Lord always keeps his word and he always fulfils his promises. Zechariah should have believed; and we too should always believe what the Lord has said to us in his written word. Everything he says to us in the Bible is true and we can always rely on him to keep his promises and to do all that he says he will do.
And Luke tells us that Elizabeth’s neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy. He had shown her mercy, or kindness, by taking away the disgrace which people suffered in those days when they were unable to have children. And since children are a gift from God, he had shown her mercy, or kindness, by giving her a child of her own.
And look how verse 58 ends: her neighbours and relatives shared her joy. So, she was filled with joy, because of what the Lord had done for her; and they were filled with joy as well.
Verses 59 to 64
In verses 59 to 64 Luke tells us what happened when the day came for their child to be circumcised. As you can see from verse 59, this took place on the eighth day after the birth. This ceremony goes all the way back to Genesis 17 when the Lord gave circumcision to Abraham as a sign of his covenant with his people. A covenant is a relationship with is based on a promise. And so, God and Abraham and his descendants were entering into a new relationship with one another, when God made certain promises to Abraham. And from that time on, Abraham’s male descendants were to be circumcised when they were eight days old as a sign of God’s covenant.
And so, circumcision is connected to God’s covenant. And do you remember how God revealed his covenant with Abraham in three parts? In Genesis 12, God appeared to Abraham and promised him that he will make him into a great nation. Later on he said that they will become like the stars in the sky and like the sand on the seashore. In other words, they will be too many to count. That’s the promise he made in Genesis 12.
And then, in Genesis 15, the Lord performed a covenant-making ceremony with Abraham. And at that time, God once again promised Abraham that he will make Abraham into a great nation. But then the Lord also promised Abraham that he will rescue Abraham’s descendants from slavery and he will bring them back to the Promised Land where they will live. He was referring to their slavery in Egypt and to how God would rescue them from it in the days of Moses and lead them to the Promised Land of Canaan.
And the Lord told Abraham to cut in half a heifer and a goat and a ram along with a dove and a pigeon and to lay the pieces in two lines on the ground. And then a smoking brazier and a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. The smoking brazier and blazing torch represented the Lord. And by passing through the animals, the Lord was saying to Abraham that if he — the Lord — did not do what he said he would do, then may be become like the animals. The Lord was saying to Abraham: ‘May I be killed and ripped in two if I don’t do what I have promised.’
Walking between the animals was a covenant-making ceremony. God was covenanting and promising to Abraham’s descendants that he will give them the Promised Land.
That was in Genesis 15. And then, in Genesis 17, God repeated his earlier promises to make Abraham into a great nation and to give them the Promised Land. But he also added something new. He promised Abraham and his descendants that he will always be their God. So, just as when a man and woman are married, and the man promises to be the woman’s husband and the woman promises to be the man’s wife, so the Lord was promising to be Abraham’s God. And, as a sign of the covenant, he gave Abraham and his descendants circumcision so that if they ever wondered whether God loved them and cared for them, the sign on their body would reassure them of God’s commitment to them. And so, years later, when they were in exile in Babylon, they may have wondered whether God still cared for them and would they ever see the Promised Land again? But they could look down at the sign on their bodies, which was a sign of God’s commitment to them; and the sign would reassure them of God’s never-ending love and faithfulness to them.
And so, that’s the background to what happened to John when he was eight days old and he received the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants. And we’ll come back to that, because Zechariah refers to it later on in the passage. For now, Luke tells us that the neighbours were going to name the child after his father. Apparently it wasn’t normal to name a child after his father. Normally a child was named after his grandfather. But perhaps they suggested the father’s name because Zechariah was as old as a grandfather. However, whatever their reason for wanting to call him Zechariah, Elizabeth spoke up and made clear that her son should be called John. But the people replied that no-one among their relatives is named John. So: You may not want to call him after his father, but surely you should name him after someone in the family? But there was no one else in the family called John. And so, they made signs to Zechariah to find out what he thinks. Now, remember: because Zechariah doubted the word of the Lord, the angel said that he would not be able to speak until the word of the Lord was fulfilled. So, for the past nine months, Zechariah has been silent. It now seems that he had become deaf as well and they needed to use signs to communicate with him.
And to answer them, he took a writing tablet and wrote down the words, ‘His name is John.’ And his words are more forceful than’s Elizabeth’s, because she said, ‘He is to be called John’. whereas Zechariah said, ‘His name is John.’ In other words, it’s not up to us to decide on his name. There’s nothing for us to debate, because his name has already been decided. It’s John. End of discussion. And this is not a case of Zechariah throwing his weight around. He’s simply repeating what the angel said and making clear that naming him John is God’s will for him.
And immediately Zechariah’s mouth was opened. His nine-month, God-imposed silence was over. And what were the first words from his mouth after nine months of silence? His first words were in praise of God. He began to praise God, who had kept his promise and enabled him to have a child.
Verses 65 and 66
And according to verse 65, the neighbours were filled with awe. That is, godly fear fell on them. And all these things were talked about throughout the hill country of Judea. The news spread from one person to another. Have you heard that old Elizabeth had a baby boy? Have your heard what happened when he was circumcised? Have your heard how Elizabeth and Zechariah insisted that the boy’s name is John? And have you heard that Zechariah’s speech returned and he began to praise God? Have you heard these things? The news was passed on from one person to another and everyone was talking about these things and wondering what it all meant. Something strange was happening. Something new was happening. And the people were trying to make sense of it. And they asked one another: ‘What then is this child going to be?
And Luke adds at the end of verse 66 that the Lord’s hand was with John. And so, he’s telling us that the people were wondering these things about John, because they sensed that the Lord was at work. It had been four hundred years since the Lord last spoke through one of his prophets. But now it seemed that the Lord was about to do a new thing among them.
Verses 67 to 79
And Zechariah’s speech which follows is the answer to their question about what his son will be. And it’s in two parts. In the first part, verses 68 to 75, he praises the Lord who has come to rescue his people. And in the second part, verses 76 to 79, he prophesies about his son and what he will do for the Lord. And according to verse 67 Zechariah was inspired to say these things by the Holy Spirit. So, God gave him the words to say.
And his speech begins with praise. He praises the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to redeem his people. In other words, God has come to rescue his people. He has come to deliver them. Zechariah is saying that this has already happened. And it’s already happened in the sense that the birth of John marks the beginning of God’s work to rescue his people. The birth of John signifies that God has come to deliver his people.
And he goes on to announce that God has raised up a horn of salvation for his people. The image of a horn signifies strength and power. So, think of the damage a bull or a goat can do with its horns. And by saying that God has raised up a horn of salvation, he means that God has raised up a person with strength and power to save God’s people from their enemies. He’s referring to the king. In the past, God raised up David to be the horn of salvation for God’s people. Before he became king, David rescued the Israelites from Goliath. And afterwards, after he became king, he rescued the Israelites from the Philistines and the other nations again and again and again. And so, he established peace in the land for God’s people.
And Zechariah, speaking by the Holy Spirit, praises God for raising up a new horn of salvation for his people. And he says that this new horn, this new king, is from the house of David. In other words, this new king is descended from David. He is heir to David’s throne. And, according to verse 70, this is in fulfilment of God’s promise to his people which he made long ago through the prophets.
And sure enough, the Old Testament prophets spoke of the time when God would send them a new king. For instance, Jeremiah spoke of a righteous Branch, who will be a king who will reign wisely and will do what is just and right in the land. And in his days, God’s people will be saved. And Isaiah also spoke of a new king who would come as a shoot from the stump of Jesse and the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him and he will judge with righteousness and justice and will rule over a renewed earth. And here’s Zechariah announcing by the Spirit that the time has come. God has come to deliver his people by raising up a new and better king from the line of David.
And so, according to verse 71, God will save his people from their enemies and from the hand of all those who hate him. And in this way, God will show mercy to our fathers. Do you see that in verse 72? Another way to translate his words is that God will show mercy which he promised to our fathers. So, he promised their forefathers that he would show mercy to his people in the future. And the time for God to show mercy to his people has come. God has remembered the covenant he made with Abraham, when he promised Abraham and his descendants that he would be their God; and that he will make them into a great nation; and that he will rescue them from slavery and give them the Promised Land. That’s what God promised Abraham way back in the book of Genesis when he gave them circumcision as a sign of his covenant-commitment to them. And on the day when Zechariah circumcised his son, Zechariah remembered God’s promises and he understood that God was about to keep his promises to his people once again. As Zechariah says in verse 74, God was going to rescue them from the hand of their enemies, so that they could serve the Lord in the Promised Land without fear, but in holiness and righteousness.
So, when he circumcised his son, Zechariah remembered and believed God’s promises to his people; and he was reassured that God was about to come again to raise up a new king to rescue them so that they could live in peace and safety in the Promised Land, where they would serve the Lord.
Now, although Luke’s gospel is in the New Testament, Zechariah was thinking like a man who belonged to the Old Testament. And so, when he thought about a new king, he was thinking of a king who would be a warrior like David, who would come to kill and destroy. Remember what the women used to sing back in the days of Samuel?
Saul has slain his thousands
and David his tens of thousands.
That’s the kind of king Zechariah and everyone else was expecting: a king who would slay tens of thousands of their enemies. In the days of David, their enemies were the Philistines. In the days of Zechariah, their enemies were the Romans, who now ruled over the land of Judah. And the people longed for the day when God would rescue them from the Romans and let them live in peace and safety in the Promised Land once again.
So, Zechariah was thinking as a man who belonged to the Old Testament. But, as I’ve explained in sermons before, God’s promises to Abraham are fulfilled in a new and better way in the New Testament. So, God’s promise to Abraham to make him into a great nation is now fulfilled by the church of Jesus Christ, because everyone who believes God’s promise of salvation, the way Abraham believed God’s promise of salvation, is regarded by God as one of Abraham’s descendants. And the number of God’s believing people is like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, which cannot be counted.
And God’s promise to rescue his people from their enemies and to bring them into the Promised Land is fulfilled by sending the Lord Jesus into the world. He came as God’s horn of salvation and he came to rescue us from the tyranny of the Devil through the forgiveness of our sins, so that we will live with God forever, where we will worship and serve God forever in holiness and righteousness. And so, God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants will live in the Promised Land of Canaan pointed forward to the hope of everlasting life in the Promised Land of Eternal Life.
Zechariah was a man who belonged in the Old Testament and he thought about salvation in Old Testament terms. But God had something better in store for his people. He had something richer in store for them. He had something broader in store for them. The message of the gospel is a broad message, because it’s the message that God so loved the world that he raised up his Only-Begotten Son to be our Saviour-King and to rescue us from Satan’s tyranny and to give us eternal life in the new and better world to come where his people — drawn from every nation of the world — will worship and serve him forever.
Verses 76 to 79
And in verses 76 to 79, Zechariah began to speak about his son, John, in order to explain what he will be. What will he be? He will be a prophet of the Most High God. And as God’s prophet, he will go before the Lord to prepare the way for him. Once again, Zechariah was thinking as a man who belonged to the Old Testament. So, if you asked him who the Lord is, he would say that the Lord is the God of Israel. He’s the God who made all things in the beginning; and he’s the God who revealed himself to Abraham; and he’s the God who recused Israel in the days of Moses. We were thinking about this this morning. That’s what Zechariah would have in mind when he mentions the Lord. But what he did not yet understand is that, yes, the God of Israel was coming. But he was coming in the person of his Son; and he was coming into the world as one of us. God the Son was coming to earth as a man to save his people. And John was appointed to prepare the way for him, by giving the people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. So John will teach the people that what they need in order to be saved from Satan’s tyranny and in order to have eternal life in the presence of God is forgiveness. They need to have their sins forgiven. They need God to pardon them for all that they have done wrong. They need God to remember their sins no more. And that’s why God’s Saviour-King did not come to kill, but to be killed. He came to give up his life on the cross so that all who believe in him can receive forgiveness. He came to take the blame for us so that God will not hold our sins against us.
And God is willing to save his people, because God is a God of tender mercy. That is to say, he is merciful and gracious and slow to anger and he’s abounding in steadfast love. We don’t deserve his salvation. We cannot earn it. Nothing we can do or give to God can make up for a lifetime of disobedience. But because Christ took the blame for us, God is merciful and gracious and he promises not to treat us as our sins deserve.
And the last thing Zechariah says is that the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the path of peace. The word translated ‘rising sun’ means ‘that which rises up’. It can therefore be used of a plant which rises up from the earth. And therefore it recalls God’s promise to raise up a righteous Branch and a shoot from the stump of Jesse. It can also be used to refer to a star which rises in the sky. And therefore it recalls a promise in the Old Testament book of Numbers of a star which will come from Jacob. In each case, God was promising to raise up a new king. So, it’s a new king for a new day. The days of darkness and despair and death are over, because the new king is coming, who will save his people from the tyranny of the Devil through the forgiveness of their sins, so that they may live forever with God.
Zechariah was saying that the king is coming. And we can say that the king has come. Jesus Christ is the new king. He is God’s Saviour-King, the horn of our salvation, the one who rescued us from Satan’s tyranny by giving up his life on the cross to pay for our sins; and the one who gives us eternal life with God in the new and better world to come, where we will worship and serve the Lord in holiness and righteousness.
This is the good news of the gospel. And we must all believe the good news and trust in Christ our Saviour-King. And since he is our King, as well as our Saviour, then we should devote the whole of our lives to serving him. If he is the King, sent to save us, then we are his servants, who are to trust in him for salvation and who are to obey him in our daily lives. And so, the way to respond to the good news of the gospel is to trust in Christ our Saviour-King and then to live the rest of our lives for him.
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