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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
When it was time for Elizabeth to have her
baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord
had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.
On the eighth day they came to circumcise
the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his
mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”
They said to her, “There is no one among
your relatives who has that name.”
Then they made signs to his father, to find
out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to
everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” Immediately his mouth was
opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God. All the
neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people
were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it,
asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with
him.
Luke 1:57-66
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
For the last two days, we have looked at
the story of Zechariah and how he first got himself into a quandary when he
doubted God but received a proposition detailing how a day would come when his
son would be born and his voice would be restored.
Today, we look at the events that led to
the resolution of Zechariah’s punishment and the subsequent restoral of His
relationship with God but before we dig in too deep, we need to do a little
refresher.
First, you’ll recall that Zechariah and his
wife Elizabeth were both very old, well beyond the years that would have
allowed them to have children. The way things looked, Zechariah would die with
no son to carry on his name and receive his inheritance while Elizabeth would
be left with the embarrassment and shame that came along with being a woman who
was barren and unable to bear children.
But then something amazing happened. While
Zechariah was carrying our his duties as a priest in God’s temple, tending to
the sacrifices and the burning of incense at the altar, an angel named Gabriel
appeared to share a special message from God, a message of miraculous
proportion. Gabriel told Zechariah that he and Elizabeth were going to have a
son and they were to give him the name John and this son would be special,
already purposed by God before he was born. We know this because the scriptures
tell us so in these verses:
“He will be
a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he
will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other
fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is
born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.
And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn
the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom
of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Luke 1:14-17
Now, this should have been enough for
Zechariah who the scriptures professed was “righteous in the sight of God,
observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.” He should have
received God’s word with thanksgiving and trust that God could do all things,
even allow his beloved Elizabeth to become pregnant with his son. But Zechariah
didn’t do that. Instead, he doubted and it was a critical mistake, one that put
him into a quandary for Gabriel went from being God’s messenger to an
instrument of His judgment, removing Zechariah’s ability to speak until such a
time when his son would be born into the world. This was the proposition that
moved Zechariah from quandary toward resolution.
Fast forward ahead now to our scripture
passage for today. Elizabeth had carried her baby to term and God’s word tells
us that she gave birth to a son. It was a time of joy for Elizabeth and
Zechariah. The improbable had not just become probable but a reality as relatives
and neighbors all shared in the jubilation of the new parents.
Eight days after the baby’s birth, the time
had come in accordance with Jewish law where the baby boy would be circumcised
in keeping with the covenant God had made with Abraham many years prior. During
that circumcision ceremony, the baby would be named and everyone assumed the
boy would bear the name of his father, Zechariah, but Elizabeth spoke up and
declared that the boy’s name would be John, something that took everyone in
attendance by surprise for they were unaware of any relative in the family who
carried the name John.
And so they turned their attention toward
Zechariah, looking to him to see if he would be in agreement with the words his
wife had just spoken. Since he could not speak, they motioned to him with signs
to try and communicate with him but to no avail and so Zechariah asked for a
writing tablet on which he jotted these simple words:
“His
name is John.”
And with that, Zechariah immediately had
his speech restored and the scriptures tell us “he began to speak, praising
God.”
What a spectacle this had to be for
everyone who witnessed it!
First, Zechariah comes out of the temple
mute, leaving everyone to speculate what happened when he was inside.
Then, Elizabeth becomes pregnant in her old
age and a baby boy is born, healthy as could be. It was nothing short of a
miraculous birth from anyone on the outside looking in.
Finally, as soon as Zechariah writes four
simple words on a writing table, communicating the name given to his son, his
voice is restored and he immediately begins praising the Lord. His quandary had
been resolved and it was little wonder afterwards why “all the neighbors were
filled with awe” and everyone in the “hill country of Judea” were left “talking
about all these things.”
Who wouldn’t after witnessing all that?
So in the end translation here, we have
seen the full cycle of events we can experience when we find ourselves in tough
situations, whether we are in the midst of God’s consequences or placed in
predicaments where we’re not sure what we should do in the midst of difficult circumstances.
Things start with a quandary which is
followed with a proposition to help us through that quandary and then finally, God
brings a resolution to the matter at hand, a resolution that so very often
leaves a person in a spirit of praise.
Tomorrow, we’ll see what that spirit of
praise looks like in our final devotion focusing on Zechariah.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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