Living with Luke (3)
a figure of sacrifice, service and
strength.
The ox signifies that Christians should be prepared to sacrifice
themselves in following Christ.
LIVING WITH LUKE
(3)
1:18-25: Zechariah’s Response to the Angel’s
Announcement
18 Zechariah
said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? My wife and I are very old.”
19 The
angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in God’s presence. I was sent to speak to
you and to bring this good news to you. 20 Know this: What I
have spoken will come true at the proper time. But because you didn’t believe,
you will remain silent, unable to speak until the day when these things
happen.”
21 Meanwhile,
the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they wondered why he was in the sanctuary
for such a long time. 22 When he came out, he was unable to
speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he
gestured to them and couldn’t speak. 23 When he completed the
days of his priestly service, he returned home. 24 Afterward,
his wife Elizabeth became pregnant. She kept to herself for five months,
saying, 25 “This is the Lord’s doing. He has shown his favor to
me by removing my disgrace among other people.”
When Zechariah questions the angel
Gabriel it is in terms of the birth of a child (v.18). But I wonder, given the interplay between the
hope of the people and that of this couple, if Luke does not intend us to hear this
question as about the hope of the people too?
Because of Zechariah’s faithlessness at this point, he will be mute till
the child be born (v.20). Does this
imply as well that the priestly regimen of the temple is also faithless and has
no truthful witness to bear about Jesus and his ministry?
Israel gathered for worship worries
about the time it is taking Zechariah to perform his duties. His reappearance to them, mute, signals that
something of extraordinary importance happened to him in the temple. But he could not tell them what it was!
(v.23)
His period of service at the temple
over, Zechariah returns home still mute.
Luke doesn’t tell us whether Zechariah somehow communicated what had
happened to him to his wife. But I think
not. Why else would Elizabeth keep her
extraordinary pregnancy a secret for five months? Could it be that her witness “This is the
Lord’s doing. He has shown his favor to
me by removing by disgrace among other people” (v.25) is to be seen in contrast
to Zechariah’s muteness. She can bear
faithful witness to what God is and is about to because she is a faithful
witness and trusts wholly in God (much like her younger relative Mary whom we
will meet shortly).
Is this also, perhaps, an example of
Luke’s penchant for lifting up women and their witness as Jesus himself did in
his ministry? I suspect so.
But there is another “disgrace” than
Elizabeth’s barrenness that John’s birth will redress. And that is the disgrace of his people
remaining in exile (that is, under foreign domination and control) in the midst
of their own land). John will remedy
that barrenness too, as we will soon see.
Luke is skillfully interweaving
various nuances into a tapestry that all eventually lead to another child, the
one to be born of young Mary. The
Christmas hymn says that on that night in Bethlehem “the hopes and fears of all
the years are met in thee tonight.”
Amen.
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