Luke 1:57–80

0:00 Every once in a while, something happens that is so unexpected and so improbable that it leaves everybody who's watching it just stunned. And for a moment, there's this kind of astonished quiet that then breaks into rapturous and roaring applause and yelling. Because it's so unexpected, so improbable, and yet so good. For fans of the New England Patriots, something like that happened in Super Bowl 51 in the year 2017.

0:38 The New England Patriots were trailing the Atlanta Falcons 28-3 late in the third quarter. Fans of the Super Bowl began to lose hope. A lot of them took their $1,000 tickets to the Super Bowl and left the stadium early. The announcers had put a gravestone on the New England Patriots by the third quarter. My son, at the time a teenager and a lifelong Patriots fan, actually took his New England Patriots jersey off and threw it on the ground.

1:09 An act that still lives in infamy among his family and friends. But then, completely unexpectedly, completely improbably, the Patriots mounted an absolutely unprecedented comeback. They scored 31 unanswered points to win 34 to 28 in overtime. It was the largest comeback in Super Bowl history. The reactions were electric all over the world. Chris Evans, the actor of Captain America fame, wrote on Twitter, OMG, this was in all caps, greatest sporting event of my entire life, 25 exclamation points.

1:52 Congratulations, New England Patriots. Allie Raisman, the Olympic gymnast, wrote this, Are you kidding me? Exclamation, question, exclamation, question. That was unreal. Best team ever. And Joey McIntyre, who I think was part of New Kids on the Block or something like that, wrote, did that just happen? Hashtag there are no words. Sometimes something happens that just so blows every expectation and probability that it sends people into a just unexpected euphoric rapture because of the sheer unexpected joy of it all. Something like that is what we're talking about today as we continue this series that we've been in for the last few weeks in the book of Luke. Turn, if you will, if you've got a Bible, over to Luke chapter 1. We're still in that particular chapter of the book. Luke 1, well the book starts on page 855 if you're using a red pew Bible. Our text this morning is actually

2:53 on page 856. Just to take a minute to get you up to speed a little bit before we get going. So far in chapter 1, we've had Gabriel, the angel from the presence of God, announcing the miraculous births of two babies. So first, a baby named John, who was going to become John the Baptist, and would be the last of the Old Testament prophets. So ever since the establishment of the nation of Israel, there have been a string of prophets in the Old Testament that were pointing forward to God's promises, especially to send a Messiah. And John the Baptist was going to be the last of the Old Testament prophets who not only got to say the Messiah is coming, he also got to say the Messiah is here and there he is.

3:34 He was the last of the long line and so Gabriel comes and announces his birth to his parents. The second baby was going to be named Jesus who would sit on the throne of his father David and be quite literally the son of God, the Messiah who was promised. Well last week we looked at Mary, the mother of Jesus' song, where she praises God in what's known as the Magnificat, for what God has promised to do through her. That was that section of the book there, verses 46 to 56 of chapter 1. Well today we're going to be looking at the very last section of chapter 1, the birth of that first baby, John the Baptist, and the song that his father sang in praise to the God who was making it all happen. So let's start just by reading it. We'll pick up the story in verse 57 of chapter 1. 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. They would have called

4:35 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. So 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 Zechariah's 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 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 just 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

5:38 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 it's really amazing to me how much the opening of Luke's book has singing in it you ever notice that as you've read it I mean over the course of just the first two chapters of this book you've got at least four songs that are sung Maybe even five, though one of them is not written down for us.

6:40 You've got the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. You've got Zechariah's song today, which is called the Benedictus. You've got the Song of the Angels, the Gloria. And then you've got the smaller song, shorter song, of the prophet Simeon. And maybe even a fifth by Anna, the prophetess. There's all this singing because something is happening that is blowing people's minds with joy and euphoria. It's unexpected. It's improbable. nobody was looking for it. And so when it starts to happen, they're so excited and euphoric that they sing over and over and over again. And that's exactly what happens here. You have two main sections to this text that I just read. You can see them very easily. First, you've got the narrative of John the Baptist's birth from 57 to 66. That's kind of the prose section up there. And then you've got this poetic section, the song that Zechariah sings in praise to God. Starts in, well, 67, 68, makes its way all the way down through 79 or 80. The song there from 57 or 67 to

7:43 79 has its own structure and we're gonna look at that later in a little bit more detail but for now what I want you to see is the main thing I think Luke is getting across to us in all of this story and that's the main idea for the the sermon in the morning today. God has done something unspeakably powerful for you. Don't ignore it. God has done something unspeakably powerful for you. Don't ignore it. So I want to look through this text today in two points. So first point looking at the narrative section, 57 to 66, and the second point looking at the song, 67 to 80. So here are the two points. Number one, finally the silence ends. Finally the silence ends. And Number two, and also the darkness shatters.

8:35 So those two points. Finally, the silence ends. And number two, the darkness shadows. And my hope is that as we look through this text, as we think about this story and this song today, I pray that you will see and understand the absolutely astonishing reality of what God has done for you. It is unspeakably powerful. It is completely unexpected and undeserved. And the worst, most foolish thing you could possibly do in your life is ignore what God has done. Pay attention to him, even this morning, as we look at this story.

9:07 Point number one, finally the silence ends. So earlier on in chapter one, Zechariah, if you remember the story, had been stricken by the angel Gabriel with an inability to speak. He had disbelieved Gabriel's word. He had challenged Gabriel on it. And so Gabriel said, okay, because you didn't believe the Lord's word of what he's going to do in giving your wife a son, because you didn't believe that, I'm going to strike you with silence until the day that the baby is born. Well, this text this morning tells the story of how that silence came to an end.

9:38 But it turns out that it's not just Zechariah's own personal silence that comes to an end. It's a symbolic ending of a much, much longer, centuries-long silence that the nation of Israel has been cursed with, really since the time of Nehemiah, 450 years earlier. I mean, if you remember the series we did on Nehemiah some weeks ago, it was during the lifetime of Nehemiah that the last prophet, Malachi, had delivered his prophecy. And no prophet had come to the nation of Israel since that time.

10:08 So you're talking 450 years where the normal cycle and recurring series of prophets just ceased in the nation of Israel and the word of God dried up. Well, here, that comes to an end. The story itself is really pretty simple. The time comes for Elizabeth, Zechariah's wife, to have a baby. And she delivers the baby and word gets out that this very old woman, whom everybody thought was barren, has had a child. and the whole country, the whole countryside, the whole village is filled up with joy because they see the good that God has done to this woman, the mercy, as Luke tells it, the mercy that he has had on her. Well, eight days after the birth, they take the child into Jerusalem to the temple because according to the ritual, you wait until the eighth day and then you circumcise the baby. Usually the father is the one who does the circumcision. So Zechariah would have been there. He would have done that. He's still stricken mute. He can't speak. It even looks like maybe he's deaf at the same time. It's a little bit unclear there, but at any rate, he can't speak. His mouth is shut. Like the

11:13 prophets for 450 years, Zechariah's mouth is closed until he circumcises his son. And then all the people in their cheering and in their euphoria want to call the baby naturally Zechariah. It's kind of the thing that you do, right? You call the baby by his father's name or maybe his grandfather's name. So they all start to call the baby Zechariah, and Elizabeth steps in and says very firmly and emphatically, no, he shall be called John. Well, they're just perplexed by this.

11:48 Like, why would you just pick a random name that's not a name of your family and call your baby by that? I mean, it's a pretty common thing for us to do when we have babies these days. We just, you know slap a name on them right it's just you pick out a name that you like or a name sometimes even that you've made up and you name the kid whatever you want to name the kid right not in old testament days in old testament days you named a baby a family name and so the crowd just cannot figure out why do you want to call this kid by some random name instead of the name of his father you don't have anybody by the name of john in your family so what do they do well they appeal to Zechariah, assuming that the father is not going to be happy with his son being called something that his wife has just picked out of a hat, right?

12:34 So they sign to him. This is why we think he might have been deaf, right? They make signs to him and say, what do you want the baby to be called? And they hand him what would have been probably a wax tablet. This is the way these things work. They had a frame on them and you pour wax into it and then you could take a sharp stick and you could write things in it. And he writes onto the tablet, in verse 63 there, his name is John. Which makes them all just have their minds blown. And word of this whole thing, the barren Elizabeth being pregnant, this name from out of the blue.

13:08 The whole weirdness of the whole thing spreads throughout the countryside. And people think about it. That's what happens in the story. I think there's several things to see here and to learn here. First thing I want you to see in this and take to heart is that obedience to God often requires bucking the crowd. Obedience to God often requires bucking the crowd.

13:39 That's what Zechariah and Elizabeth realized here. If they were going to obey God, if they were going to do what the angel said and name the child John, it wasn't just going to be a personal decision. they were going to have to buck tradition and buck the crowd. In Jewish tradition, you always name the baby after the family. So for Zechariah and Elizabeth to insist on naming the baby, what the angel told them to name him required them to push back against enormous social pressure.

14:12 I mean, the ship is sailing, right? The baby is eight days old. He's been circumcised. The people are already calling him Zechariah. And she has to step in forcefully and say, no. And John then, or Zechariah, has to step in forcefully and say, no, his name is John. And it caused the crowd to wonder at the whole thing. What's wrong with these people? What's happening here? See, obedience to God's word came at a social cost to them.

14:44 But they did it anyway. Friends, obedience to God is going to come at a social cost to you too. At some point, it simply will. It'll come at a social cost in your neighborhood. It'll come at a social cost in your workplace. It'll come at a social cost sometimes in your church. Obedience to God is always costly. But like Zechariah and like Elizabeth, you should do it anyway. I want you to notice too here, just this particular detail, the words that Zechariah actually writes down on the tablet.

15:20 I want you to notice that it's not his name will be John or we've decided to name him John or even we're going to name him John. It's just his name is John in the present and in the past. It just is. This is who he is. His name is John. See, for Zechariah, the kid's name had been John ever since the angel said that the kid's name was going to be John. There was never any question about it.

15:50 There was no decision to be made at this point of circumcision. Zechariah and Elizabeth didn't come into that circumcision wondering what to name that baby. They knew that this baby's name is John and has been ever since the angel said so. There was no decision to be made. It had been made nine months earlier. Friends, there's a critically important lesson here about discipleship And about how to obey God even in the face of temptation and even in the face of social pressure. Sometimes, obedience to God requires simply that we declare, not that we decide.

16:30 Sometimes, obedience to God requires simply that we declare, not decide. Which means that in the moment when the pressure is highest, we're not sitting on the fence trying to decide whether or not we're going to obey God. Whether or not we're going to live like that. Whether or not we're going to act like that. Whether we're going to do that or not do it. Whether we're going to go gather with the people of God at church on Sunday morning or not. No, we simply declare through our actions who we are in Christ.

17:02 We declare a decision that has already been made. Because of who we are in Christ. Here's another thing to notice here. The end of Zechariah's silence was a reason for Israel, the nation, to celebrate. The end of Zechariah's silence was a reason for Israel, the nation, to celebrate. See, it would be one thing, and it would be a pretty incredible story, if it were just one man kind of learning how to speak again, right? His ears opening and his mouth opening, his tongue being loosed, and he's able to speak again.

17:35 Zechariah all of a sudden being able to talk again and then immediately bursting into praise to God is symbolic. It had been 450 years since any prophet had spoken in Israel, not since the time of Nehemiah, but Zechariah's tongue being loosed and him then bursting into praise with something that the Bible actually says is prophecy. If you look at verse 67, it's like water on a parched throat it's like it's like being thirsty to the point of death and having clear cold water hitting your parched throat and it just feels so good for prophecy to be back it was a prophet amos that said once behold the days are coming declares the lord god when i will send a famine on the land not a famine of bread nor thirst for water but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

18:34 They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of God, but they shall not find it. And that's exactly what happened. For 450 years in the nation of Israel, there was a drought of God's word. So for Zechariah to now begin prophesying again after this nine-month silence was like rain on cracked ground.

19:06 Friends, it is an extraordinary grace of God that you and I have never experienced a drought of God's Word. You can have God's Word anytime you want it, week in and week out. Here at this place, 1045 a.m. every single Sunday, we come in here together and we read and explain God's Word to each other. Nobody takes it away from us. Nobody's burning these or burying them or trying to destroy them. We have God's word, and that is a great grace to us.

19:39 You realize that, don't you? I mean, I think sometimes we take it for granted. I think sometimes we come in here and it's, oh, oh, good gracious. Why do I have to be here? And we take it for granted that our God has spoken to us and preserved his word right here in the Bible. But imagine if it was all gone, and there was a drought of God's Word. Do you think you'd feel that in your own life?

20:12 I mean, maybe you think about it, and you're like, you know what, I'm not really sure. I would feel it. I could go about my day just fine if there was a drought of God's Word. Which, if that's the case, that might be something for you to meditate on a little bit. But my hope is that if you imagine the word of God just being gone from your life and inaccessible, my hope is that that thought, if you roll it around in your mind, that it will break your heart. And you'll see that it would be infinitely worse than a famine of bread or a thirst for water.

20:47 Friends, you don't have to run to and fro. You don't have to wander from sea to sea. You don't have to run from north to east, as Amos said, to find the word of God. It is right here near you. Praise God for that. And thank him for that grace. One more thing I want you to notice from this section. What God has done deserves your attention. What God has done deserves your attention.

21:20 It does not deserve for you to walk past it. It does not deserve for you to ignore it. It does not deserve for you to say that that doesn't matter. It deserves your attention. And in this story, that's exactly what the people gave it, at least for a little while. I mean, look at verses 65 and 66. You see that? They didn't just move on from this. They recognized that God was doing something. In the pregnancy of this barren woman, in the weird naming situation, they recognized that God was doing something, and they didn't just move away from it. They pondered it.

21:51 They wondered about it. They rolled it around in their minds. You can see in verse 66 there, it said, All who heard these things laid these things up in their hearts, and they questioned, what then will this child be? What will this child be if all this is happening? So here's a question for you. Do you still have room in your life for wonder at what God has done?

22:24 Do you still have room in your life, in your mind, in your schedule for even thinking? For laying something up in your heart and pondering on it? Do you have room in your life for giving attention to the biggest questions in the universe? There was a guy in the 1980s named Neil Postman who wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death. I've never read the book, but I've seen the title everywhere because it's just such a striking title. Amusing Ourselves to Death.

22:56 And if there was an epitaph that was going to be written on the gravestone of Western civilization, it might just be that. They amused themselves to death. They drove out all the room for thinking about the big things in life because they were wondering what this celebrity or that sports star was going to do next Monday. They were amused. They had a lot of fun. But they didn't do anything. They didn't think about anything important. Amusing ourselves to death. And you think about it. I mean, in the 1980s, Neil Postman wrote that book.

23:28 He had that question and that problem with Western civilization in the 1980s. And that was way before smartphones and internets. What would he say about us? I mean, these days our minds are so full of reels and shorts and posts and likes and dislikes and hearts. There are days when we barely remember to eat, much less have time to think about spiritual things. And friends, I am pretty convinced that not being able for even a short amount of time to lay important things up in our hearts and ponder them, I think that's a strategy of Satan, to distract us from what is most important in this life.

24:10 Most of you will know the name C.S. Lewis. He wrote a book called The Screwtape Letters, which is a fascinating book because basically he writes in the character of an old demon who is writing letters to his nephew demon about the best ways to keep people away from the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, you know, over the course of these letters, you get old Uncle Screwtape writing to his nephew about all these different strategies that demons have for keeping us distracted from the gospel. And in the first of those letters, I want to read you one of the letters, at least a portion of it, from old Uncle Screwtape to his nephew.

24:47 Here's what he writes. He says, I once had a patient, that's what they call us, patients. I once had a patient, a sound and strong atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The enemy, that's God, he always calls God the enemy. The enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was, I saw my 20 years work on this man beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defense by argument, I should have been undone, but I was not such a fool, my young nephew.

25:26 I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion. You know how one can never quite overhear what the enemy says to them? He presumably made the counter suggestion that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been his line for when I said, quite. In fact, it's much too important to tackle at the end of a long morning. The patient brightened up considerably.

25:57 And by the time I had added, much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind, he was already halfway to the door. Once he was in the street, the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper and a number 73 bus going past. And before he reached the bottom of the steps, I had got into him an unalterable conviction that whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of real life, by which he meant the bus and the newsboy, was enough to show him that that sort of thing just couldn't be true.

26:33 Oh my goodness, how true is that? And these days, you don't even have to go out the front door to see the newsboy and the bus. It's just some demon whispering in your ear, like maybe right now. Scroll to the top of X and see what's happening in the real world. And the enemy causes your soul to drift away and believe that these things aren't important. Listen, friends, it is an extraordinary thing that God has spoken to us.

27:08 That he's revealed himself and made himself known and shattered the silence. Be careful. Be deadly careful that you don't get distracted from that. That you don't ignore it and walk past it and say that it doesn't matter. Train your mind, train your heart to be astonished at the right things. To be joyful at what deserves joy. to lay things up in your heart and ponder them. There's nothing greater in this world than that you can know God because he has ended the silence.

27:43 But not only that, number two, the darkness shatters. Not only does the silence end, but number two, the darkness shatters. That's the main message of Zechariah's prophecy that runs from verse 67 all the way down through the end of the chapter. It's really just an extraordinary piece of writing. And like Mary's song, the Magnificat, we don't really know where it came from. It's got the name Benedictus. Again, that's the Latin word that begins the song. Benedictus is the very first word, blessed. It's possible that Zechariah just sang it right there on the spot.

28:16 If you look up at verse 64, it says his mouth was loosed and he blessed God. And it's no coincidence that the fact that he blessed God comes right before this song that begins with, blessed be God. Right? So it's entirely possible that he just sung it on the spot. Maybe. It may be that he wrote it down later. And the thing is just chock full of beautiful poetry and language from the Old Testament. One interesting thing, just given the, you know, you'll see it as we go, the royal connotations of this song, is that the very beginning of it, verse 68, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, is the exact same phrase that David says when he's thanking God for setting Solomon on his throne.

29:01 And Zechariah knows all of this. He's got the Old Testament deep, deep down in his heart. So it may be that he wrote it down later and organizes it this way. Either way, it's a hymn of praise to God essentially for shattering the darkness that Israel's been living under without a king, without a land, without a nation for about 600 years at this point. Now, we're going to look at it. I want to show you the structure of it and all the rest. But before we look at it, I just want to make an observation. This is not exactly expositional, but it does kind of come out of an observation of the text.

29:32 I want you to notice that this song is being sung by a man. This song is being sung by a man. In fact, it's an old, noble man who's lived a long life and who holds an important position of responsibility in the nation's life. If he lived today, he'd probably be dressed up in a sleek blue suit and some, you know, nice shoes, leather shoes, all the rest. He's not a crazy looking guy.

30:03 He's got an important position. He would have had, you know, finely coiffed hair and probably a neatly trimmed gray beard. He would have looked like a lawyer or a doctor. It's an important man that's singing praise to God. So here's my question and kind of observation from this. When exactly did singing become an unmanly thing to do? When did singing become an unmanly thing to do? I mean, I just, I don't know how many times I've been in church services.

30:37 You know, thank God I don't think it's the main thing that happens here. But I've been in church services all over the world where the dudes in particular just sort of stand there. And they shift from one foot to the other, and they don't really know what to do with their hands. And they just stand there as if singing is somehow beneath them, or girly, or something. But that is such a weird, modern hang-up. When did singing become unmanly?

31:08 Because historically, you know who's done the most singing in all of history? If you were to add it all up and put it in a pile, do you know who's done the most singing? Well, churches. That's who's done the most singing. But in second place, soldiers, armies, men going to war. That's the ones who have sung. And think about it. Even today, that's carried over. That's carried over into the modern world. You know where you hear the loudest singing, even now, besides here at 3rd Avenue?

31:41 You know where you hear the loudest singing? It's like on military bases when they're singing the national anthem. Or, I mean, if you think about this, it's sports events. You ever heard Philadelphia Eagles fans sing that silly song, Fly, Eagle, Fly? I mean, they belt that thing. Why? Why is it that soldiers and sports events are the ones that sing? Because those songs are a declaration of pride and loyalty and allegiance.

32:16 It's men with chests, as Lewis might put it, declaring what's important to them. Declaring what they love, what they'll fight for, and what they'll even die for. That's what those songs are. And friends, that's what singing in the church is too. Singing in the church, the songs that we sing in church aren't meant to just create some touchy-feely emotion in you. Jesus is my boyfriend kind of thing. These are songs that are war anthems. They're declarations of allegiance to our king.

32:49 So brother, if you're a guy who thinks singing is weird or thinks singing is girly or unmanly and you just kind of stand there and hope that the singing just ends so we can get on with the teaching, please, then man, you're missing the point entirely. Sing, declare your allegiance to your king. And then go out and live for his glory. All right, let's look at Zechariah's song. The song is really just two Greek sentences. You've got one big sentence running from 68 to 75, and then the second sentence running from 76 all the way down through the end of it in 79.

33:26 The first sentence there, if you just let your eyes roll over, it's complex. It's a very complicated sentence. We're going to walk through it in a second. But I want you to see that what it does is that it just praises God for keeping his promises to David and Abraham to send a Messiah and save his people. So Zechariah invokes the promises to David. He invokes the promise to Abraham. He invokes the oaths and the covenants and all the rest of it. And he says all of that that God has been promising for all these centuries, he is now finally doing. He's keeping his promises.

33:58 That's what the first sentence does. Second sentence, starting in 76, directly addresses this baby, John the Baptist. You, child, and tells him what his role is going to be. I think it's interesting that it's a direct answer to the question those people are asking up in 66. What then will this child be? 76, you, child, will be the prophet of the Most High. It's a direct answer to what they're asking. So let's walk through it and then notice a few things. Let me just walk through it. We're going to look at that first long sentence from 68 to 75.

34:31 So it starts with this blessing of God, praise to God. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Those two words, visited and redeemed, are famous words having to do with the Exodus. The grand time when God showed up to visit and redeem his people in the Old Testament was the Exodus. And what Zechariah is saying is this whole thing, the birth of these two babies, the coming of the Messiah, is a new visitation by God, a new redemption of God's people. 69, he's raised up a horn of salvation.

35:05 Weird phrase. That's a weird, weird phrase, but I'm going to tell you about it a little bit later. But for now, what you need to know is that it means a king. That's what it means. He has raised up a king for us in the house of his servant David. So blessed be God because he is now keeping his promises. He's raising up a king just as he promised from the house of David. Seventy. And he's doing this just as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets of old. He's doing it so we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

35:36 He's doing it, seventy-two, to show the mercy promised to our fathers, to remember his holy covenant, to remember the oath that he swore to our father Abraham. That's a fascinating phrase, isn't it? I mean, look at all of these things that are getting piled up here. Promise, covenant, oath, swore. It's an incredible combination of words there. And then you get the purpose of it. So that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

36:17 So that's the first sentence. Blessed be the God of Israel because he's raising up a king just as he promised in his covenant with David, just as he promised in his covenant with Abraham. And he's doing it so that having been rescued from our enemies, all of them, it's across the board, any enemy you can think of, so that having been delivered from those enemies, we can serve him without fear in righteousness and holiness. Blessed be God for all of that. That's how the first sentence works. The second one, you, child, in other words, you, little John, the Baptist, are going to be called the prophet of the Most High.

36:51 And then he quotes Isaiah here, for you're going to go before the Lord to prepare his ways. And what you're going to do is you're going to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins. In other words, you're going to tell them that they can be saved through the forgiveness of their sins. And why? Why is that true? Why is forgiveness on offer to us? Because of the tender mercy of our God. whereby the sunrise, we'll talk about that in a second too, but you just need to understand that sunrise there is Jesus. Whereby Jesus shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

37:31 So you child, you John the Baptist are gonna be called the prophet of the most high. You're gonna declare salvation. You're gonna say that forgiveness of sins is available. And that is because of the tender mercies of our God by which, in other words, because of which the sunlight, Jesus, is now going to rise and give light to those in darkness. Okay, just a few details in this. First, God's act of saving human beings is unspeakably powerful, and you need to get that through your head. It's right back to the main idea. God's act of saving human beings is unspeakably powerful. It is an unexpected upheaval of the entire course of history, and it changes everything. Jesus' coming to the earth is an interruption of the world's unbroken march to hell. That, by the way, is the meaning of the phrase horn of salvation there in 69. It's a very strange word. We don't use that kind of thing

38:34 that kind of phraseology anymore. But it's interesting for a couple of reasons. So it shows up first in the story of the Exodus when God is said to toss his horn, right? And it's an image of strength. It's like an ox or a bull who's like, you know, flexed up for war, and he's using his horns, which are his weapon, in order to gore his enemies. And if you've ever seen a bull with horns bucking, it's not a sweet, nice thing, right? Every muscle in that bull's body is thrusting that horn up because he wants to gore somebody.

39:08 Well, that's where the idea came from. And eventually, this bucking bull with all that great power got applied to the king. So that's how God's act of salvation is pictured here. A great king coming who doesn't come nicely. I don't know if you've ever seen the old painting of Jesus where he's standing at the door knocking. He's knocking, and he's got his little foot up like this, and he's knocking on the door. That is not Jesus. Jesus came as a horn of salvation, a great and mighty bucking bull to gore Satan to death.

39:47 Also, the image of the horn in this way, it's used a ton of times in the Old Testament, usually of the king of Israel. But there are only two times in the entire Old Testament where this specific phrase is used. Horn of salvation. Two times. You know who they both refer to? Yahweh himself. So when Zechariah says this, the Lord, Yahweh, is sending a great horn of salvation.

40:25 Who we know to be the king, right? Because it says, in the house of David. He's sending a king who is the horn of salvation, who is Yahweh himself. People sometimes say that the idea that Jesus was God came later. Zechariah is saying it in about as clear a term as you can possibly say it. Right here in Luke chapter 1. The Messiah is not just sent by God. He is God. Second thing I want you to notice here. I want you to notice Zechariah's declaration again, that God always keeps his promises, always.

41:01 That's been a theme of the entire chapter. The angel speaks, God promises, and then God keeps his promises, one right after the other. And that's going to keep up through the entire book. Well, here, that truth that God keeps his promises isn't just about individuals having babies anymore. When Zechariah grabs that idea and blows it up, he blows it up into the whole sweep of redemptive history. I mean, we looked at it, but look back at 72, at the words that are piled up here. 72, promised, covenant.

41:36 73, the oath that he swore. It's like God is on overkill to convince us that he's really going to do what he said he'll do. He could have just said it, right? He's God. He could have just said it like one time, I'll save anyone who trusts in Jesus. And then that'd be it, right? That would be enough from the mouth of God. But he said it, and then he promised it, and then he put himself under a covenant to do it. Then he swore an oath to do it.

42:08 Friend, what else do you want from him? If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian for crying out loud, why not? What do you want God to do for you? Jesus has already come. He's already lived in your place. He's already died in the place of people just like you, sinners, just like you, sinners, worse than you. And now his arms are open wide saying, if you'll come to me, I'll save you.

42:42 I promise, I swear, I put myself under covenant and oath. If you come to me in faith, I will save you. What keeps you from trusting God at his word like that? Whatever it is, friend, it's not worth it. Here's the third thing. Look at verse 78. All of this is happening, Zechariah said, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who are in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

43:17 The word sunrise there, it's a fascinating word. It actually has its roots back in Hebrew, and the Greek just translates it, you know, in one way. But back in the Hebrew, it has two different meanings that are used in various places around the Old Testament. So the first meaning and the main meaning, the meaning that's usually used in the Hebrew, in the Old Testament, is just this right here, sunrise. But the underlying meaning of it is spring up. So it's something quickly popping up.

43:48 So it's also the word that the prophets used when they talked about the Messiah being a branch or a shoot of David. So you remember in Isaiah or Zechariah or several different places when the prophets will talk about there's going to be a branch from David. There's going to be a shoot out of the burned out stump of David. This is the word that they use. It's going to spring up like the sun springs out of the horizon. So what Zechariah says here, that the Messiah is the Tzemach, that's the Hebrew word, but he's the Tzemach that shall visit us.

44:21 If you're a first century Hebrew person, that thing just shimmers with meaning. Multiple layers of meaning. Because it's saying, for one thing, that Jesus, right on the surface, is the fulfillment of Numbers 24-7. Remember where Balaam, against his will, this pagan prophet, against his will, looks into the future and he says, I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. It's not close. It's not happening tomorrow.

44:52 A star, he says, shall come out of Jacob. And now Zechariah says the sunrise is visiting us from on high. That star is coming. It fulfills Malachi 4.2. For you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the saw. And it also in another layer fulfills Jeremiah 23. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord. when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king.

45:30 Friends, our God has done an astonishingly powerful thing for us. When is the last time you really pondered that in your heart and felt the euphoria and the surprise of it? I pray it will be today. Maybe for the hundredth time in your life, but also maybe, maybe for the first. May God lead us into a surprising understanding of the magnificent grace he showed us in Christ.

46:05 Let's pray. Our Lord God, we thank you for this great salvation that you have given to us. We thank you for your kindness. We thank you for your tender mercy. We thank you, Lord, that you've raised up this horn of salvation to crush the head of the serpent and to rescue us from the dominion of darkness. Our Lord, we pray that you would help our hearts to be full of these things, that you would help us to remember them, to ponder them in our hearts. And then we pray, oh God, that you would help us to love Jesus more.

46:35 We pray all of that in his name and always to his honor and glory. Amen.