Living with Luke (2): 1:5-17
a figure of sacrifice, service and
strength. The
ox signifies that Christians should be prepared to sacrifice themselves in
following Christ.
LIVING WITH LUKE
(2)
Luke 1:5-17 -
Annunciation of the Birth of John the Baptist
5 During the
rule of King Herod of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah who belonged to
the priestly division of Abijah. His wife Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron. 6 They were both righteous
before God, blameless in their observance of all the Lord’s commandments and
regulations. 7 They had no children because
Elizabeth was unable to become pregnant and they both were very old. 8 One day Zechariah was serving as a priest before God because
his priestly division was on duty. 9 Following the
customs of priestly service, he was chosen by lottery to go into the Lord’s
sanctuary and burn incense. 10 All the people who
gathered to worship were praying outside during this hour of incense offering.
11 An angel from the Lord appeared to him, standing to
the right of the altar of incense. 12 When
Zechariah saw the angel, he was startled and overcome with fear.13 The angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah. Your prayers have been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will give birth to your son and you must name him John. 14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many people will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great in the Lord’s eyes. He must not drink wine and liquor. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth. 16 He will bring many Israelites back to the Lord their God. 17 He will go forth before the Lord, equipped with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will turn the hearts of fathers back to their children, and he will turn the disobedient to righteous patterns of thinking. He will make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
In our first post we discovered that Luke
is writing to Gentile Christians (in the person of “Theophilus”) to reassure or
make them confident that their reception into the people of God when many of
their Jewish contemporaries were rejecting Jesus did not imply a fickleness in
God. Obviously, it would be difficult to
give oneself in love and trust to a God whose reliability or faithfulness and
power to carry out his plans were in question.
Would such a deity truly bring them to the good end promised first to
the Jews (which had apparently failed in significant measure) and then offered
to them?
Luke begins at the
point where faithful Israel was in Jesus’ time.
Zechariah and Elizabeth, John’s parent, are the epitome of faithful
Israel (v.6). Both were born of priestly
lines. They were doing all the day in
and day out things that constituted a faithful life and faithful service to
their God. Yet they were barren as a
couple. They had no child and were far
beyond childbearing years. Their sense
of disgrace seemed to be unending. In a
similar way, the faithful Israelites of that time felt barren or fruitless.
Nothing seemed to be happening for them.
There was great fervor for God’s kingdom to come, many versions of that
hope actually, but nothing was happening.
Zechariah had the privilege of
performing the incense offering in the temple according to the process described
in 1 Chronicles
24:1–19. On this occasion, Luke tells us, a crowd was
gathered outside praying as Zechariah performed his duties (v.10). Faithful Israel, gathered for worship in the
temple, sets the stage for what happens next.
An angel appears to Zechariah. Angels often appear to herald the births of
important figures (Gen
16:10-11; 17:15-19; 18:10-15; 25:23; Judg 13:3-21) though this announcement to
the father rather than the mother is unusual.[1] This visitation from the divine realm, not
surprisingly, frightens Zechariah. The
people’s time of waiting is now over.
God is about to act and the angel announces this news in the place where
God and his people meet and commune, the temple (vv.11-12).
The angel reassures the old priest and
tells him his prayers have been answered (v.13). But what was Zechariah praying for? It’s not likely for a child. Luke has told us this couple was “very old” and
to think they were still praying for a child is a stretch. What else could Zechariah have been praying
for? I suspect it’s what all Israel
longed for – for God to return to Jerusalem and defeat his enemies (the
Romans), reclaim his Temple, and reestablish Jerusalem as the chief of all
cities in the world. That Zechariah and
the people are at prayer and worship suggests the prayers God has heard and is
ready to act on are those of the people’s circumstance rather than Zechariah’s
personal situation.
Yet, in the surprising and merciful
wisdom of God, both disgraces, the personal shame of childlessness for
Zechariah and Elizabeth, and the corporate shame of the “barren” people of God
they represent, are taken away. God’s
answer to the people’s plight is the birth of a son to this elderly childless
couple!
Though this child will be born to
Elizabeth and Zechariah he belongs to the service of God and his people. His consecration to God is expressed through
his refraining from strong drink and that he will be “filled with the Holy
Spirit even before his birth” (v.15).
This seems a metaphorical statement stressing the difference between
John and other figures in the Old Testament (prophetic or otherwise) who
received the gift of the Spirit at particular times and for particular purposes
but not as an ongoing “filling” as seems the case here with John. That’s why Jesus can say later in Luke: “I tell you that no greater human being has
ever been born than John” (7:28).
Fully consecrated
to God and thus filled with the Spirit, John will go forth as the long promised
“Elijah” (Mal.4:5) heralding the imminence of the long awaited second or new
Exodus (Isa.43) and the Messiah who will lead it. The angel summarizes his role as to “make
ready a people prepared for the Lord” (v.17).
Who is this people? This takes us back to near the beginning of
the story that Jesus, whose story Luke is telling, is the climax. After sin has destroyed the good order of God’s
creation, God responds by calling Abraham and Sarah as the new parents of a new
people through whom God will deal with the problem of sin as well as restore
his creatures to their role as his original design for creation. God promises our foreparents that through
them he will raise up a great people, will bless that people, and use them to
bless the rest of the world.
This people is God’s “answer” to what has
gone wrong with God’s creation. Their
fate is how God’s faithfulness must be assessed, for their success means the
blessing of the rest of the world!
Luke leaves us at this point poised on the
threshold of a new chapter in God’s unfolding relationship with his world. In a sense it focuses the problem he tells
Jesus’ story as the answer to. We now
know where to look and what to look for in Luke’s story as we move on.
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