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If you’ve ever seen a fireworks
display put on by a large city you know how it works. The pyrotechnics that
begin the show don’t come close to matching those that erupt at the finally.
But, if you watch those early explosions closely you’ll be able to gauge how
big the finally will be. The colors, the size of the blasts, the shapes of the
blasts, and the height of the detonations—all foreshadow what’s coming.
The same is true of the events
preceding the birth of Jesus Christ. The birth of Christ was an unprecedented
event. God had never been human before. When the Son of God was born in a
stable in the outskirts of Bethlehem, it was a miracle to rival all miracles.
And to prepare the world for the birth
of its Savior, God arranged a succession of lesser miraculous to occur. These
miraculous events have been recorded for us in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
This year, as we go about making all of our outward preparations to celebrate
Christmas, we’ll also pause to prepare our hearts as well by reading about the
miracles that preceded our Savior’s birth.
Each of the miracles we’ll be
examining is marked by the appearance of an angel of God. These messengers were
sent from heaven to give people details about how God was carrying out his plan
to save mankind from sin and hell.
Today’s angel appears to an old
priest named Zacharias.
Luke 1:5-12 (NASB)
5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a
priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the
daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
6 They
were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the
commandments and requirements of the Lord.
7 But
they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in
years.
8 Now
it happened that while he was
performing his priestly service before God in the appointed order of his division,
9 according
to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple
of the Lord and burn incense.
10 And
the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the
incense offering.
11 And
an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of
incense.
12 Zacharias
was troubled when he saw the angel, and
fear gripped him.
▬
We’ll pause
there for now.
Luke has just
given us the background on which to see a miracle take place. The time is
around 6 B.C. King Herod is reigning. The place is Judea. Jerusalem to be
exact, where the temple of the Lord stood.
Luke introduces
two characters in this drama—Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth. A priest and his
wife. Luke describes these people as “righteous in the sight of God”. That is
to say, they were true followers of the God of the Bible. They trusted in him
and ordered their lives according to his word as well, as any sinful human
couple can.
Interestingly,
Luke includes the fact that they had no children because Elizabeth was unable
to bear children. And while there might have been hope for children earlier in
their lives, now that hope was gone—for they were now well beyond their
childbearing years.
Have you
figured out what miracle God is about to do? Luke is pretty much telegraphing
what’s going to happen. And in a way, so is God. You can almost imagine God’s
train of thought…
“Hmm. I’m going to need someone to get the people ready
to meet their Savior. I know! I’ll have
this someone born to parents who couldn’t have a child without a miracle
happening. That’ll get the people’s attention. That’ll help them see MY hand is
at work here. That’ll warm prepare them for the even more miraculous birth of
my Son.”
▬
After painting
the background, Luke sets out the scene for Zacharias’ meeting with one of
God’s angels.
Luke says that Zacharias
was part of the priestly division of Abijah. There were a lot of things to take
care of at the Lord’s temple. People came to worship and offer sacrifices to
God on a daily basis. So, a lot of priests were needed. The different divisions
of priests were essentially “worship teams” who took turns serving at the
Lord’s temple.
One of the
great honors for a priest was to be selected as the one who got to go into the
Holy Place of the temple to burn incense to the Lord. Zacharias was chosen at
random for this task. This was a pretty exciting thing for Zacharias. This
might happen once in a priest’s life.
And so up the
stairs he went, bearing the incense and the fire, and in through the door of
the temple. This wasn’t a public event. Only priests were allowed into the
temple proper. Everyone else had to wait outside. And when the incense was
offered, only the selected priest was there. It must have been quite a sobering
and awe inspiring experience for Zacharias.
And though he
did not know it, Zacharias had already been touched by the miracle working hand
of God. It wasn’t mere luck which had caused Zacharias to be born into the
family of Aaron, the only family allowed to be priests in Israel. It hadn’t
been mere chance which had brought the division of Abijah to serve during this
week of the year. It wasn’t just the “luck of the draw” that caused Zacharias
to be chosen at random to offer incense on this day. The Lord had wanted
Zacharias here, in this empty room, on this day. He had an important message to
give him.
In the book of Psalms
David wrote…
“...all the days ordained for me were written in your
book before one of them came to be” (Psalms 139:16 NIV).
God did not
create the universe just to yield it up to time and chance. He is active in his
creation. With purpose and a plan he drops opportunities into our lives and
moves us from one place to another. In the same way that God brought Zacharias
to that altar of incense, he has also brought us to this place of worship today.
Through his guiding of our lives, and through his powerful Word, the Lord
intends to bless and effect us.
▬
So much for the
little miracles of time and place in the life of Zacharias. Let’s get to the
bigger, more obvious miracles. Verse 11…
Luke 1:11-13 (NASB)
11 And
an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of
incense.
12 Zacharias
was troubled when he saw the angel, and
fear gripped him.
13 But
the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been
heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the
name John.
14 “You
will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.
15 “For
he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor,
and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.
16 “And
he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.
17 “It
is he who will go as a forerunner before
Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to
turn the hearts of the fathers back
to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous,
so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
▬
If you were to
ask Zacharias if he had ever experienced a miracle, he’d probably mention that
one time when he got a visit from one of the Lord’s angels. But there’s more
miracles going on here than just that. When the angel opened his mouth to
speak, a flood of prophecies came out. Prophesies that would later come true.
First of all,
his old wife was going to have a child! The angel said that his prayer
had been heard and would soon be answered with a resounding, “Yes.” How long
ago had Zacharias prayed for that blessing? We have no way of knowing. But we
can guess it wasn’t just yesterday! We ought to remember the flabbergasted
Zacharias when we feel like God isn’t listening to our prayers. He marks each
and every request from his followers. And he answers in his own time, according
to his own plan, and in the way that his supreme wisdom deems best.
Not only would
Zacharias have a son of his own, the angel told him that his son would be
“filled with the Holy Spirit” right from his beginning. This was a miracle
in itself. The Spirit of God would be with this child! Endowed with God’s power
and presence, he was to serve the Lord.
And this child
would perform miracles of his own. He would “turn many of the sons of Israel
back to the Lord their God.” Human beings are born into this world as
sinful creatures. Creatures infected with sin, whose hearts are set against
their creator. But John would turn sinners back to God through the stern
preaching of God’s Law, and the joyful preaching of God’s forgiveness which
comes through the Christ.
And while many
prophets of the Lord had performed this task through Israel’s long history,
John would be special. He was to be the “forerunner” of the Savior. He
would get the people ready for the Lord’s arrival in the flesh.
▬
In years to
come, people would look back on all these prophesies and see that they came to
pass just as the angel had said. And this fact would strengthen their trust in
the God of their salvation.
Today, this
story moves OUR hearts to trust more fully in God’s plan of salvation. What God
says, he does! Through prophecy and fulfillment in the past, God encourages us
to trust him to keep his promises about our future. Through his faithfulness he
penetrates our hearts and changes the way we look at the world. If he says
something is sinful and damaging, we ought to believe him. If he says that our
sins have been forgiven through the sacrifice of his Son, we ought to believe
him.
But the hearts
of mankind are hard and unfeeling when it comes to spiritual truth. And that
much is seen here in Zacharias. For in the face of all these joyful and
miraculous promises, Zacharias could only see the impossible. Verse 18…
Luke 1:18-20 (NASB)
18 Zacharias
said to the angel, “How will I know this for
certain? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.”
19 The
angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of
God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.
20 “And
behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things
take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in
their proper time.”
▬
There he stood, chosen to offer the
incense at the Lord’s temple for what would probably been the only time in his
life. There before him stood an angel of God, again, for what would probably be
the only time in his earthly life. God promised him that he would have a son in
his old age. Moreover, that son would be a servant of God and would precede the
Savior’s entrance into the world. And yet among all these miraculous promises
Zacharias seizes on one thing: the physical impossibility of his barren wife
conceiving and giving birth to a child.
In the presence of God’s promises,
doubt is an ugly thing.
I’m not sure if angels feel distain
for human doubt. But you can at least sense a tone of unbelieving rebuke in the
angel’s response to Zacharias.
“I’m sorry, maybe you don’t
understand who I am, or who I come from. So let me make it clear. I AM GABRIEL.
I spend most of my time next to the throne of GOD. But now I’m here because the
GOD OF THE UNIVERSE has dispatched me with a bit of GOOD NEWS for you.”
Perhaps it was at this time that the
needle on Zacharias’ “fear meter” started to redline. But it was too late. What
was said, was said. And now he would receive a firm, but gentle, rebuke from
God’s messenger. He would be unable to speak until the things Gabriel foretold
had taken place.
▬
Did you see what happened to God’s
plan when Zacharias threw his “doubt” grenade? Nothing.
God had promised Adam and Eve that
he would send a Savior to erase the fate their sins had attached to them. But
God wasn’t about to back out on his promise because of some doubting Judean
priest. Like Gabriel said, all these things would be “fulfilled in their proper
time.”
And we can take a lesson from this.
God’s miraculous plan of salvation was not stopped by human doubt, because
God’s plan of salvation doesn’t depend on us. It’s a promise God made, and God
fulfilled.
And when it comes to our own doubt,
God has more than enough power to overcome that ugly wart. When the world
causes us to doubt the reliability of the Bible, God says, “Compare what I’ve
written to what you see in the world. You’ll see that it matches perfectly.”
When the world causes us to doubt
the existence of a God who is active in human history, God says, “Check out all
the prophesies about my Son’s birth, life, death, and resurrection from the
grave. You’ll see that they’ve all been fulfilled.”
And when the devil himself causes us
to wonder if God really forgives our darkest and ugliest sins, God says, “Who
you gonna trust? The one who brought sin into the world, or the God who sent
his own Son to save you from hell? Are you really forgiven because of what
Jesus suffered in your place? You bet you are. That’s what all these miracles
I’ve been doing are meant to show you. I’m bigger than your doubt. I’m your
Savior. And what I say will be, will be.”
▬
When you see the fireworks display
for the first time as a child, there’s nothing quite like it. It dazzles your
eyes and opens up a world of wonder in the sky above. And the next year you go
out to see it again.
It’s the same with Christmas. We’ve
seen in before. We’ve seen the fireworks that come before, and we’ve seen the
finally. But don’t let that mute your amazement. Instead, as we move through
these days of Advent, let’s think on how God has laid miracle after miracle
before our eyes through the Scriptures. And all of them to point us to the
miracle forgiveness that comes to us through his Son.
This Christmas, may God bury our all
our foolish doubt with the miracle of his forgiving love, laid to rest in
Bethlehem’s manger.
Amen.
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