A CHILD WHO WOULD PREPARE THE WAY FOR JESUS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 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 1:5-17

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Over the past ten messages, we have looked at Old Testament scriptures where God spoke through His prophets to foretell the coming birth of His Son Jesus, the One who would be the Messiah of His people.

These prophecies told of a virgin who would give birth to a Son who would be King and would be named Immanuel, meaning “God with us” (Jeremiah 25:5-6, Isaiah 7:14), but before that birth came, another would happen first, one with its own miraculous and divine nature. Look at these words from the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel:

In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 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 1:5-17

Going back to the prophet Isaiah, we find God also foretelling this coming birth of the man who would prepare a way for the Lord Jesus and His ministry:

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 40:1-5

A child would soon be born who would precede the coming Messiah and announce His arrival, just as someone famous would receive a formal introduction. As we see in the scriptures, his name would be John and he would reside in the wilderness, waiting to fulfill the purpose he was born for. Indeed, we see this purpose come to fruition in the first chapter of the Gospel that ironically bears his name even though he was not the author.

Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”

They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet?”

He answered, “No.”

Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

Now the Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands One you do not know. He is the One who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the One I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’ I myself did not know Him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that He might be revealed to Israel.”

Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from Heaven as a dove and remain on Him. And I myself did not know Him, but the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The Man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” John 1:19-34

So what made John’s conception divine?

We go back to our passage from Luke where an Israelite priest by the name of Zechariah was in the temple and burning incense according to the custom of the priesthood after being “chosen by lot” (random selection like rolling the dice) when his division, Abijah, was on duty.

We know the events of that day happened during the reign of King Herod and Zechariah was a married man. His wife, Elizabeth, was also a descendant in the priestly line of Moses’ brother, Aaron. The scriptures tell is that the couple was childless because they were both “very old” but they had a wonderful relationship with the Lord, living righteous in His sight as they blamelessly observed “all the Lord’s commands and decrees”.

As Zechariah was burning the incense at the altar within the temple, he was alone in the presence of God, that is until “an angel of the Lord appeared to him”, a supernatural happening that left the priest “startled and gripped with fear”.  

The angel, Gabriel (v.19), quickly moved to calm Zechariah’s fright before announcing God’s intent to answer the prayers that he and Elizabeth had lifted up, prayers that they might have a son.

“Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. 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.”

Now, it’s critically important to note how an adult husband and wife would yearn to produce a male child out of their marriage, each for different reasons.

For the husband, a male child would ensure their name was carried into the next generation and this was particularly significant when there was some formal position involved, like a man being a king. A male child would ensure there was a royal heir to the throne.

For the wife, it was bad enough losing your husband and becoming widowed in biblical times but if the woman was childless, especially without a male child, the widow would not have any family to provide support. Further, some people in biblical culture viewed a childless woman as under the judgment of God for sin, an assertion that He was punishing the woman for some sin she committed.

Indeed, the announcement from the angel Gabriel from the Lord was a game changer. Not only would they have a son, against all conventional odds, but that son would be “great in the sight of the Lord” he would go before to “turn the hearts of parents to their children” and “the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous”, all while making “ready a people prepared for the Lord” Jesus.

It was news that would have seemed too good to be true and as we’ll see in tomorrow’s message, Zechariah would make a crucial mistake in his response to Gabriel’s proclamation.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.