Let’s turn together back to Luke chapter 1 tonight. You can find that on page 856 in your pew Bibles. Luke chapter 1. You may have heard it said before that, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” It sounds kind of cool, maybe even vaguely motivational, but I don’t see how that could be true because dawn comes on gradually, doesn’t it. It doesn’t come on like a light switch. And the dawn is when everything starts to wake up. There’s a slight hint of light on the horizon and the birds begin to chirp and the coffee starts to brew in the pot. Everything starts to wake up at dawn.
I remember 20 years ago, over 20 years ago, going to Cajamarca, Peru on a mission trip with our church. And there’s a park at the top of a large hill overlooking the center square of Cajamarca. And I thought it would be a good idea one morning to wake up early and to go up to the top of that park and to watch the sunrise. And so I walked up the hill. I walked through the gate, found a place to sit down, and I sat and I watched as the sun rose over Cajamarca and the city came alive. It was the perfect place to see everything wake up. The only glitch was that when I got ready to go back to where we were staying, I found that the gate I had walked through had been closed and locked with me inside of it and so I had to find another way out, which, to my surprise lead me straight into an encounter with a rather stout looking llama! And he looked at me like it was his park and I was not supposed to be there, and so I carefully kept my eye upon him as I walked another way and scaled over a little low wall and made my way safely back to where we had been staying. It was a fun, innocent, early morning, Peruvian adventure.
Our passage tonight is about what happens before the sunrise. It’s about what happens before the dawn of a new day. And Luke chapter 1, verses 57 to 80, are about the birth of John the Baptist. And what we’ll see in these verses is that before God sends His Son as the climax of His plan of salvation, before the coming of the great day of the Lord, God sends a prophet. He sends John the Baptist to prepare the way, to signal that the promised day has arrived. And so John’s birth and John’s ministry says to the people, it says to us, “Wake up. It’s time to greet the Savior. It’s time to greet the day of salvation.” So let’s turn our attention to God’s Word. Before we do, let me ask God’s help as we read and study it.
Our Father, just as Your Spirit spoke through the prophets in the days of old, Your Spirit spoke through Zechariah and Your Spirit spoke through John the Baptist, You have spoken to us most fully and completely in the person and work of Your Son, Jesus Christ. And so as we come before Your Word tonight, we pray that You would show us Jesus again and that You would help us to pay attention and to have a sense of urgency and anticipation for what You are doing in this world through Him and through Your work of salvation. And that You would help us to serve You in holiness and righteousness all of our days. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 1, verse 57:
“Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, ‘No; he shall be called John.’ And they said to her, ‘None of your relatives is called by this name.’ And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. 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.
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’
And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Nine months is a long time to be silent. It’s a long time to be unable to speak when all of your life you have been able to communicate and relate to people in speech just as everybody else does around you. And yet that’s where we pick up the story of Zechariah the priest and his expectant wife, Elizabeth. And the last thing that we heard Zechariah say is, “How shall this be? I am an old man. My wife is advanced in years.” He did not believe the angel’s message. He did not believe what Gabriel had said to him – that he and his wife would have a child. Gabriel told him then that he would be unable to speak until the day that child was born. And so for nine months, Zechariah could not say a word. And he had to use hand motions. He had to write on his little writing tablet. The commentators tell us that this was in fact not an iPad, but it was a, maybe a little tablet that was covered in wax that he could scratch out little words and notes on his writing tablet.
And nine months, under normal circumstances, can go by fairly quickly, but not when there’s a baby on the way. When a baby is on the way, nine months can seem like an eternity. Have you ever heard of families that are expecting a child and they decide or think about getting a puppy before the baby comes? My theory is that they are so ready to have something cute and cuddly to care for that they can’t wait the nine months for the baby to arrive so they think about getting a puppy. Not a good idea. Nine whole months for Zechariah.
What would Zechariah have been doing then? What would he have done to pass the time while they waited for the birth of John? Of course he would have gone about his regular business. He would have been carrying on with the daily chores of life that he had to tend to. But I imagine that he would have had plenty of time to think. Quiet time to think; to think about what the angel, Gabriel had said to him. To contemplate what kind of child his son would be. And then came the time for Elizabeth to give birth. Verse 57 says, “She bore a son and they called his name, John.”
And I find myself – and I don’t know exactly what all to make of the naming of John. It seems like that is the main point of the story of John’s conception and birth. And I think it’s surely to indicate what sort of child he would be; to signify what John would be all about. Because the name, “John,” means, “God is gracious.” And here is this little boy, who would grow up to be a prophet, and he would be a wild and rugged prophet. And his first words, the first words out of his mouth as a prophet that we read in chapter 3 verse 7 is, “You brood of vipers!” His message is one of repentance, a calling to turn from their evil ways and to turn to the ways of the Lord. It is a message of repentance, but what else is it? What is his message more than anything else? His overarching mission, the heart of his message – what is it? It’s grace. It’s signified by his name, John. “God is gracious.” And it’s the grace of God that has come in Jesus Christ that John is all about. And preparing for God’s work, we could say, may at times be unsettling. It may be disruptive. And yet it’s grace. It’s grace if it leads us to Jesus and to salvation.
And that’s what John was born to do. John’s very name sets the stage for a new work of God’s grace. And when Zechariah and Elizabeth name their son, John, “Immediately,” verse 64 says, “Immediately Zechariah’s mouth was opened, his tongue was loosed, and he spoke, blessing God.” He had been silent for nine months and the last words out of his mouth were, “How shall this be?” And now he speaks and his first words are to bless God. And their friends and their neighbors and all the people in the hill country of Judea, they see these things and they are filled with wonder. They are filled with fear and they ask, “What then will this child be? What will this child be?” That’s the big question. That’s the point of this passage.
And Zechariah has the answer. This is what he has discovered in those nine months of silence. This is what God had planned for His Son. It’s right here in this prophecy. The Holy Spirit comes upon him and he prophesies in verses 68 to 79. This is what he had learned. And Alexander White writes this this in his old book of Bible characters. He says, “Has your New Testament a margin with readings?” He’s talking about in your Bibles, oftentimes we have margins that have cross references and footnotes. He says, “Does your New Testament, does your gospel of Luke, does it have margin with readings?” And White says, “Your so instructive margin, if you will attend to it, will tell you the very scriptures over which Zechariah spent his days and nights all that silent time in Hebron. All you’ve got to do some day when you are in the mind is to consult the margin over against Zechariah’s prophetical song and you are in that as good as looking over the shoulder of his writing tablet. You are as good as walking out alone with him when he goes abroad among the sunsetting rocks of Judea to wonder and to praise and to pray over Elizabeth and himself and their unborn son.”
If you look in your margins and you look in the cross references that go along with Zechariah’s song, you’ll find verses like Psalm 132: 17 and Psalm 106:10, Micah 7:20, Genesis 22:16, Malachi 3:1, Malachi 4:2, and there are many others as well. It’s filled with references to the Old Testament, to the Old Testament promises. There are verses that talk about the salvation of God that comes from the house of David. And there are verses that talk about the oath that he swore to Abraham and the prophet that will come to prepare the way of the Lord and the sunrise visiting His people from on high. And John is that prophet. John is the prophet that was predicted in the Old Testament to signal, to signal that the day of salvation had come, that a new day of salvation had dawned.
And so we can say that when Zechariah prophesies, when he breaks his silence with this prophecy, he’s not just breaking nine months of silence; he’s actually breaking something like 400 years of silence. Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets, and Malachi and the prophets before him had spoken of the great and the awesome day of the Lord. It was going to be a day of judgment; it was going to be a day of salvation. It was a day of refining and healing and restoration and there would be wonders on display in all of creation. And the day of the Lord meant the coming of the Lord Himself as the climax and the pinnacle of God’s plan of salvation. And the last verses that we read in the book of Malachi, the last verses in our Old Testaments say this – “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” And then there had been no new word from the Lord. There had been no new message from the prophets. There was silence for about 400 years and then Gabriel comes to Zechariah and he says that Zechariah’s son would come in the spirit and the power of Elijah and that he would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and so on. And when Zechariah is able to speak for the first time, he is filled with the Holy Spirit and he prophesied, the silence was over, you see, and the Word of God was revealed through him. The day of the Lord had arrived. He says in verse 68, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people. He has raised up a horn of salvation in the house of His servant, David.” And John would be that prophet to go before the Lord to prepare His way.
Back in Malachi, God had said that the day is coming when “the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings,” and Zechariah says, God says through Zechariah, that following John’s ministry, “the sunrise shall visit us from on high.” You see, Zechariah’s prophecy and John’s forthcoming ministry, they would set the context, they would set the stage for understanding who Jesus is and for understanding what Jesus had come to do. This was the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. This is the moment to which all of the Old Testament had looked forward in anticipation and expectation of what God would do in salvation.
So for anybody hearing these words from Zechariah, from those who had gathered around him from the hill country in Judea and they heard these words of his prophecy, he’s saying to them, “Wake up! Wake up! Don’t miss what’s happening here! Pay attention to what this child will be! Pay attention to what God is going to do through Him, because God is announcing that this is it! This is the climactic stage in His work of salvation. This is the light that comes before the sunrise of the day of the Lord. Don’t miss it! Don’t miss the coming of Jesus!”
And the message is the same for us as well. The only thing is that for us, the frame of reference has changed a bit and the perspective has shifted. For those who heard Zechariah, they were looking forward to the birth of Jesus. But for us, we look back, because Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are past events for us; for us they are history, not prophecy. They have already happened, and it’s clear to us what was probably not so clear to Zechariah or the prophets that had come before him, and it is that the day of the Lord was to arrive in two different stages. And the prophets looked forward to the day of the Lord, the coming of the Lord, and they saw it almost like we see a range of mountains on the horizon. And when we look out at a range of mountains, we may see peak after peak after peak and they look like they are all on one line, the same distance away from us. But in reality, what do we know? That those mountains may, in actuality, be hundreds of miles apart from one another.
And so the prophets saw a flat view of the mountain range, and yet what happened was that Jesus came. There were two stages. There was a delay in Him beginning, initiating and accomplishing His work and then bringing it to completion and fulfillment. Zechariah may not have known that, but we see that Jesus came 2,000 years ago. He came to initiate and to accomplish that work of salvation and He will come again one day to complete that work of salvation. It’s two stages of the same event, all centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the central figure and the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. He is the Messiah. There’s no one else after Him. We are not looking and waiting for anyone else.
And when He returns, that’s it. That’s it. There’s no more chance of repentance. There’s no more appeals and pleas of mercy and grace. But it will be salvation for all of those who trust and serve Jesus Christ and it will be judgment and wrath for all those who refuse to come to Him by faith. “Wake up. Wake up,” Zechariah is saying to us. And just as there was an anticipation and an urgency to Zechariah’s message in those days, there is an anticipation and an urgency to His message still because we are living in the last days. The Lord has visited and redeemed His people. He has raised up a horn of salvation. The sunrise has visited us from on high. Jesus has come. He has come to bring about the tender mercy of God. He has come to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He has come to guide our feet into the way of peace. Don’t miss it. We don’t know when He is going to return. We don’t know when that second advent will be, but we know that He will come and we do know that that will be the final event of salvation, that that will be the final event of history. And we cannot afford to be complacent or apathetic or indifferent about what God has done in Christ and what He will do in Christ in that last day. These verses are calling us to a sense of urgency and a sense of expectation and hope in the Christian life.
Sometimes we get so used to the way things are that we think this is the way they always have been and we think this is the way they always will be. I mean, what did we talk about before Covid? What are we going to talk about after the pandemic is over? We’ve gotten so used to talking about vaccines and quarantines and PCR tests that we have forgotten that that’s really weird to talk about those things. The Omicron variant of the Covid virus rolls off our tongues like our own names today and we forget how strange that is. I heard someone on the news say the other day, “I’ve been vaccinated, I’ve been boostinated, and I’ve had a negative Covid test.” We’re just making up new words at this point and it’s the way we talk, and in some ways, we’re used to it! It seems like this is how it’s always going to be. But it’s not. And one writer has said that, “We tend to think of Jesus’ miracles as interruptions of the natural order, but in fact, they are a restoration of the natural order.” And that we are so used to living in a fallen world that sickness and disease and pain and death, they seem natural and normal to us, but they’re not. They are the interruption into God’s creation and natural order.
And we tend to think, like it was said in Peter’s day, Peter writes in 2 Peter chapter 3, “Where is the promise of His coming? All things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” And that’s just not true because Jesus has come. The age of salvation, the age to come, has broken into this creation and He has done all things necessary to restore this creation and to make all things new. And until He comes again to finish the job, there is an urgency, there is an urgency to turn to Him in faith and repentance and to walk in His ways. There is an urgency to serve Him without fear and in holiness and righteousness. The birth of John the Baptist is a big deal. It’s a big deal because it triggers the series of events into which the last in the climactic age of salvation begins. And Jesus is born.
“In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” In those days. “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Wake up. Don’t miss it, because we live in the light of that great event and we live in the hope and the expectation of that final event in which He returns to make all things new. Let’s live then, today, with a sense of urgency. Let’s live today to serve Him without fear and to go forth into this week to come to live and to serve Him in holiness, in righteousness before Him all of our days.
Let’s pray.
Our Father, we give You thanks that You have shown Your light in darkness and in the shadow of death. Even in this week to come and the weeks past and surely in the weeks ahead of us, we will recognize that we are living in the valley of the shadow of death and that all around us we face sickness and sorrow and pain and death. And yet, we ask that You would remind us again, that You would confront us and wake us up to see that You have shown Your light into this broken and fallen world and that You will come again with healing in Your wings to make all things new, to make all things right, to set us right with You and right with one another and right with the creation for all eternity. We look forward to that day. Help us not to lose sight of that day but to live today and tomorrow in light of that great day. Help us to serve You in righteousness and holiness. Help us to be bold and courageous and to proclaim to others this message to wake up, to see Jesus, to turn to Him and find grace and salvation. We pray all of this in Christ’s name, amen.