And you my child...
After 400 Silent Years (it had been that long since the Israelites had someone come and say "thus says the Lord") an angel appeared to Zechariah to tell him that he and his elderly wife Elizabeth would have a son who would be the forerunner of the Messiah.The angel also told him to call their son "John" which means "The LORD is gracious" but Zechariah was skeptical and so he was deprived of the ability to speak until their son was born.
When their son was born, the family wanted to name him Zechariah after his dad but Elizabeth was insistent that he should be called John and so they asked Zechariah... When Zechariah indicated that it would be "John" his tongue was loosened and he burst forth in praise and prophecy.
In his praise Zechariah recognises God as a God of strength and rescue who delivers His people - a God who keeps His promises and allows us to serve Him without fear. It is beautiful praise.
He also recognises a significant destiny for his son, John who would be the prophet of the most High.
What is significant is how Zechariah saw the work of the Messiah...
There's a line from "Hark the Herald Angels" that I really like. It reads: "Peace on Earth and Mercy mild - God and sinners reconciled." But there are three lines from Zechariah's song that capture a similar sentiment: "to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God."
Doesn't that so aptly describe Jesus' Mission and the purpose of Christmas?
And then one more thought: The birth of Jesus into our world makes the birth of every child even more special, because God chose to share in our birth. We see this preemptively in John's birth as his father lovingly prays over him "And you my child..." Just as John's birth became special because of the coming of the Messiah, so our birth and the birth of our children is made special by Jesus' coming.
| When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, "No! He is to be called John." They said to her, "There is no one among your relatives who has that name." Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is John." Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, "What then is this child going to be?" For the Lord's hand was with him. His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago), salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us-- to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace." And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel. (Luke1:57-80) |
