Consider these questions as we look at Luke 1:5-25:

1. How does the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth reflect the theme of God's ability to bring life and blessing where it seems impossible, and how does this connect to the broader narrative of God's promises in the Bible?

2. What significance does Zechariah's temporary loss of speech hold in the context of the angel's announcement, and how does this highlight the importance of believing and proclaiming God's promises?

3. In what ways does Elizabeth's response to her pregnancy demonstrate a shift from potential shame to a profound understanding of God's grace and blessing, and how does this parallel the transformation that occurs in the lives of believers through the gospel?

Transcript:

We can all recall a time when we were preparing for something important to happen. No matter how clean my grandmother kept her home I knew that it was time for my cousins to come visit with my aunt and uncle when she started getting ready. It wasn’t just making sure that stuff was picked up. It was making sure the beds were ready and ensuring that everyone had a comfortable spot. It was also making sure that the food supplies were not only sufficient for the extra mouths but she also made sure that they had the stuff that they liked. I alway say that I knew when my cousins were coming because next to the regular milk pitcher with the raw milk my grandfather picked up from the farm was a gallon jug of two percent milk from the store. In other words, them city kids didn’t know what was good for them. All of the preparations and anticipation made it very clear to me that the time of their arrival was near. When you are expecting someone you prepare and this is what we see in what we read this morning from the first chapter of Luke. It is time to prepare the way of the Lord. The child of the promise prophesied in Genesis and pointed too through the whole Old Testament is on the way and now it is time to get ready for his arrival.

‌First, we meet a familiar state of affairs. We come across two characters that will not get much play beyond this part of Luke. The part of their story that is familiar to us is the barrenness that we find in Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah. We’ve heard this before. Sarah was barren. Rebekkah was barren. Rachel was barren. As we read this we find that God is making it clear that he is the one who brings about the arrival of the Messiah and not the will of humans.

‌Secondly, we see that the birth of John the Baptist is foretold and Zechariah doubts for a very good reason. The previously mentioned fact that Elizabeth is barren and advanced in years. But as we’ve seen before, God makes a promise to bring a child because the human limitations cannot stop him. And so due to his unbelief, God silences Zechariah . And so, this story of the promise of John the Baptist is driving home the point to remind us of the nature of God’s promises. They are supernatural and not of human will.

‌Finally, we see that God is good to keep his promise and Elizabeth understands the blessing that God has put on her. She understands that it is not because of anything that she and Zechariah have done but that the Lord alone takes away her reproach. He is the one who accomplishes his will in the life of his people.

‌And so we land in the first part of our passage today as we are introduced to Zechariah and Elizabeth.

‌‌Now, we are pretty used to the general story of the arrival of Jesus with our celebration of Christmas every year but imagine with me for a moment that you are hearing this story for the first time. You’ve been told that Jesus is the crucified and risen savior. This seems like it would be an enthralling tale and now where you begin is with some story about a priest and his barren wife. Shouldn’t the story of Jesus begin with, you know, the story of Jesus. But here in Luke we learn about John the baptist. We will see the significance of his ministry in the future but the story starts off differently than we would expect, doesn’t it? For a crucified and risen Lord a tale of some people who can’t have a baby seems strange. But God has a purpose here.

‌Luke lets us know who Zechariah is. He is a priest and so he is a Levite and his wife Elizabeth is also from the daughters of Aaron so she is a Levite as well. And he lets us know that they were righteous before God and walked blamelessly in the commandments and statutes of the Lord. This doesn’t mean that they were flawless and had never once sinned. Instead, it means that they were upright and godly people who followed the commands of God. Yet, there was something in their life that had not gone the way that they had hoped. They were without child. And we read that this was because Elizabeth was barren. This is a terrible thing in their culture. It would have been a substantial source of shame for Elizabeth because children are a blessing from the Lord and so to be without them would have implied some sort of disgrace before God. Perhaps this is why Luke let us know that they were upright and followed the statutes of God. The reason they were without child was not because God was punishing them for sin and unbelief. Instead, God is going to do his good and perfect will in their lives.

‌As I mentioned as I was lining out the points for today this is a story we know. Being barren is a familiar theme in the Bible and particularly for us. We’ve seen this theme multiple times in our journey in Genesis, right? The most famous example is the story we were engrossed in for a significant amount of time. Sarah and Abraham have been promised to have a child through whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed but she is aged and barren. And remember the theme I kept coming back to throughout that story. We like to think of the story of Abraham and Sarah as a comeback story but we saw that it is a resurrection story. It is not a “you can do it” type of story. It is about God bringing life to Sarah’s dead womb because only he is the one who can save.

‌And so, as the story of our savior is being told, God has once again ordained the story of his people to unfold in this way. Once again, God is going to drive the point home to us. He is the one who saves. He is the one who accomplishes his will. It is not because humans worked their way around to get it done. It isn’t going to be because a husband and wife had a child. It is God who brings life and it is God who saves. As we read this story and consider it we need to have that as the undercurrent that helps us to understand this and normally, I’m not a big fan of looking too far forward in the story but with this one, the story of the birth of Jesus is no surprise to us. As we get to the story of Mary and the birth of Jesus we are going to once again encounter the theme of being barren because what is more barren than the womb of a virgin. The story of salvation is once again the story of God bringing life where there is none.

‌And so we have met the characters in the story and we know what the big theme is going to be and so now let us move on to our second point as we see the promise that God brings.

‌‌As we journey on through the passage what we find is that Zechariah goes in to perform his priestly duties and an angel of the Lord appears to him. I love how Luke describes it. An angel of the Lord appeared to the right side of the altar and Zechariah was troubled. You think? Anytime someone is where you don’t expect anyone to be it can startle you. When Caty is here cleaning during the week Sutton will often make sport out of trying to scare me. Most of the time I hear her coming but there has been a time or five where she’s startled me and I’ve jumped out of my skin. I can only imagine if I was here some early morning praying and suddenly an angel is sitting in the chair in my office. I’m pretty sure we’d have to sort out my final affairs if that happened. My heart would probably fail.

‌But the angel tells him not to be afraid. That’s easy for the angel to say though. He’s the scare-er, not the scare-ee. The angel has good news for he and Elizabeth though. Their prayers have been heard and God is going to answer them. Elizabeth is going to have a son. His name will be John. This name means the Lord is gracious or the Lord has shown favor and in their old age and in the barren state of Elizabeths womb the favor and grace of God is being displayed. And the angel gives them even more details. Obviously, they will be filled with joy having a son at their age but they also are told that he will be great before the Lord.

‌And he is not to drink strong wine or other strong drink. This has some people thinking that John was a Nazarite set apart like Samson but we can’t know for sure. The big idea is that John is different and his life is not only set apart to the service of God from the very beginning but he is also filled with the Holy Spirit, even in his mother’s womb. Now that is amazing but we shouldn’t be surprised by this. It is not the actions of man that cause us to be filled with the Spirit. It is the electing grace of God and so John being filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb of Elizabeth shows us that God is the one at work here.

‌And being filled with the Spirit we read that he is going to do amazing things. He is going to proclaim the word of the Lord in the Spirit of Elijah. He is the one who will fulfil the promise of the one who will prepare the way of the Lord.

‌And so we see this is what is promised from what was foretold but like you and I probably would, Zechariah finds this all hard to believe.

‌This kind of cracks me up when I think about it. Uh, Zechariah, you were just startled by an angel appearing next to you. Maybe you should just trust the angel. But this shows us just how contrary it is to human reason and ability. It is impossible for an aged and barren woman to have a child. Again, we see an echo of the reaction of Abraham and Sarah. They doubted the possibility of God’s promise coming to pass and we see Zechariah doubting and so he wants a sign.

‌And so, as a sign the angel Gabriel lets him know that he is going to be able to speak until the day all has taken place.

‌Now, that’s an interesting sign. When you ask for a sign you don’t expect that something is going to be impeded. Or at least I wouldn’t. If we asked for a sign we might expect a flash in the sky or some sort of blessing but this is actually a form of judgment on Zechariah. His ability to speak has been taken away because of his unbelief. But his lack of belief is not going to cause the blessing of a child to be rescinded. God is going to keep his promise and cause his good will to come to pass.

‌And we read that the people are waiting for Zechariah. In all this maybe we forgot that he had gone in to burn incense and do his priestly duties. It tells us that the people are wondering what is taking so long and then he comes out and he can’t speak. It doesn’t tell us exactly how Zechariah communicates with the people but it’s fun to imagine a guy in priestly garb playing charades to get the people to know what has happened to him. Regardless of how he communicated it they come to understand that he saw a vision in the temple.

‌And despite all this we find out that standards of attendance were a little stronger back then than they are now. You and I would send someone home if they had been startled and lost their voice. Just go ahead and punch out. Come back when you’re feeling better Zechariah. Poor guy. Had all this occur and has to go about his job for what was likely a week or two without being able to speak to anyone.

‌But when the time of his service is ended he is able to go home. And that is an important detail. If he and Elizabeth are going to have a child he has to return home from his service. This is a miraculous birth but it isn’t the virgin birth. There are two parties involved and as we move on to our final point we find the joy that Elizabeth has in the promise of God.

‌The pace of the story continues to be quick as we find out that Elizabeth conceives. She has been barren for decades upon decades but now the promise of God comes to pass quickly. He is accomplishing his purposes in the life of Elizabeth. The impossible miracle has come to pass. God is the one who brings life to his people and he brought life to the womb of his servant Elizabeth that he might bring glory to himself through John the Baptist preparing the way of the Messiah.

‌It is rather interesting to look at the story here and see that she keeps herself hidden for five months. Why would she do this? The text doesn’t tell us but likely it was to rest and prepare and to keep herself safe. She is rather old and pregnancy can take its toll on women, even when they are young. But notice what Luke tells us she has to say about this as she keeps herself hidden. Clearly she is praising God and worshipping him as she is in isolation in the early stage of her pregnancy.

‌This sentence from Elizabeth is a beautiful statement. As a barren woman she would have been seen as someone who was being judged by God for her inability to conceive. She would have had this stamp upon her. Likely even her friends and family would have looked upon her in this way. That somehow she wasn’t worthy or was being punished would have loomed over her all the time. Instead, the exact opposite was true, wasn’t it. Elizabeth wasn’t barren because God was punishing her. She was barren because he was going to use her to bring glory to himself and to bring into the world the one who would prepare the way of the one who would crush the head of the serpent. What was believed to be judgment was actually blessing to show the amazing majesty, power, and grace of the Triune God.

‌In this promise he takes away her reproach and instead of being seen as cursed she is an amazing sign of blessing for surely God’s hand is upon her for who can conceive at an advanced age without the miraculous intervention of almighty God.

‌What an amazing picture for us of the gospel. In our sin and unbelief you and I are barren and without hope. There is nothing that we can do to save ourselves. But God, in his mercy comes to us and brings us to life and takes away the reproach of our sin. By grace through faith we are no longer children of the darkness but instead children of the light.

‌And so, through God’s providence this story shows us the picture of the bigger story. It points us forward to the Lord Jesus, even before we hear of his arrival. What a blessing that God was working all things together to bring salvation to his people.

‌And so what can we take away from this passage today and walk away from here with that we might bring praise to his holy name in our lives in the coming week.

‌I believe there are two significant applications from this passage for us today as the people of God.

‌The first is that we should take God at his word. As we look at Zechariah and his response we find that he had an angel of the Lord in front of him and he doubted the promise that was spoken to him. We wonder, how could that be? At the same time, you and I often find ourselves doubting the promises of God and we have the clear, written word of God right in front of our faces. It is just as foolish for us to doubt the word of God as it was for Zechariah. May we hear the word of God and instead of responding in doubt, may we live confidently that we have heard his word. May we in word and deed believe what he has to say. All of our sin is failing to believe the promises of God and so may we remember his word and believe it that we might pursue holiness and bring glory to the name of the Lord Jesus.

‌The second application that I want us to walk away with today is to speak the word of the Lord. Think for a moment about Zechariah. He and Elizabeth had desired a child for many years and now, when the angel announces this good news to them he has been silenced. He can’t tell anyone that they are expecting a child. Imagine that feeling of being unable to speak when arguably the most important news in his life is able to be told.

‌God has not left us silent. The good news that Zechariah had was just a precursor to the good news of Jesus Christ and that is the message we are called to proclaim. In his mercy God has taken the reproach of our sin and given us new life. May we not be silent about the mercy that he has shown to us and proclaim the good news.

‌And so may you and I leave this place taking God at his word and speaking the word of the Lord.