The Hymns of Christmas - Sing like Zechariah

Invite you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the Gospel

of Luke. In the New Testament Gospel of

Luke, we're going to be looking at chapter 1 beginning in verse

57. If you'd like to know where that

is in the red Bibles around you, you can notice the page printed

for you or the the page number printed for you in the bulletin.

I will say this that the irony is not lost on me that I was

supposed to preach last Sunday on this passage about Zechariah

who is unable to speak and I wasn't able to preach because I

couldn't speak last week with the head cold that I was dealing

with. But I do promise you As for a

different reason than Zechariah. Let's listen now as we hear

God's word from Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 57.

Luke 1 · chapter mention

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 8th day they came to

circumcise the child. And they would have called 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.

And 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 his 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, and 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, 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

delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without

fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all of

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. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for giving us your word, and we thank you

today in particular for giving us this portion of your word

that we're reflecting on. We pray that you would open our

eyes and our hearts that we might see what You want us to

see, what we need to see. But above all, Father, we help.

Help us to see Jesus. And I pray that as we read about

this and reflect on this hymn, this ancient hymn, that you

would use it to change us, to form us into the people that you

desire us to be. For we ask it in Jesus name,

Amen. Many of you no doubt are

familiar with the song The Sound of Silence.

It was a well known hit song that was originally written in

1964 by Simon and Garfunkel. It's been remade a number of

times, a couple of which I think are better than the original.

There are differing opinions about the meaning of the lyrics

of the song. Some argue that it's about the

breakdown of communication in society, cultures, distraction

with superficial things, people's lost ability to have

deep and meaningful conversations, and the social

and emotional isolation that has come as a result the the lack of

deep, meaningful connection with one another.

Zechariah surely understood something about that.

For nine months leading up to what we just read, Zechariah had

not spoken a word. And we'll talk about why in just

a moment. But for now, just imagine that.

Imagine that. Not speaking a word for not

months, for nine months, not even being able to speak a word.

And it's also likely that he was deaf during that time as well.

We'll get to that in a second. Talk about the Sound of silence.

This is the third Sunday of Advent, a season of waiting and

preparation to celebrate Christmas.

But it's also anticipating and waiting for the second advent of

King Jesus. This year we're using the season

of Advent to reflect on these 4 hymns that Luke records in his

Gospel. Two weeks ago we looked at

Mary's hymn, The Magnificat. Today we're looking at

Zechariah's Benedictus. Next Sunday, Lord willing, we'll

look at the angels, Gloria. And then on Christmas Eve we'll

hear about Simeon's nuke Demitus.

These 4 hymns of the first advent of the first Christmas.

And you may remember 2 weeks ago we, we talked about how much

hymns can impact us, the significance of the impact that

they can have on us. They can, they can change us and

have great meaning for us. And so our goal this season is

to meditate on these ancient biblical hymns and see if we

might be changed by them to have these hymns form and to shape

us, to better make us the people God desires us to be, to better

love the Lord, to better obey the Lord, to serve the Lord, and

to love and serve our neighbors. So let's look at our passage

today and let's see three things.

First of all, why Zechariah sang.

Secondly, what Zechariah sang. And then thirdly, how we can

sing like Zechariah. So first of all, why Zechariah

sang. Now we need to remember the

context in order for this all to make sense.

And the immediate context of our passage today is back in verses

5 through 23. There we're told that Zechariah

was a priest and he was married to a woman named Elizabeth.

We find out later that she's a relative of Mary.

Elizabeth was barren and both of them were in old age.

We're told that both Zechariah and Elizabeth were considered

righteous, that they walked blamelessly before the Lord.

And one day Zechariah was serving in the temple.

He was burning some incense for the people, and the Angel

Gabriel showed up. Zechariah was greatly afraid,

but Gabriel told Zechariah his prayers had been answered and

his wife Elizabeth is pregnant with his son.

He goes on to tell Gabriel goes on to tell Zechariah that the

name of his son is to be John and he will be great before the

Lord. He'll be filled with the Holy

Spirit and he will go before the Lord, preparing the way.

Now that was hard for Zechariah to imagine.

He actually questioned Gabriel. He doubted that this could

actually happen. It's not recommended to do that.

If an Angel shows up to doubt what he's telling you about

God's word, It's almost here, as Gabriel said, OK, you want to

doubt me. You want to doubt God's word.

I'll let you know how you'll know this is true.

You're going to be unable to speak until your son is born.

Well, that's where our passage picks up today in verses 57 and

following. Nine months later, Elizabeth

gave birth to his son and the family and the neighbors

gathered around they they came to the home and to celebrate

with the family and then, as was the instruction of the law, on

the 8th day they took their son to get circumcised.

It was custom to announce the name when the son was

circumcised, and the assumption that everybody had was that the

boy's name would be Zechariah after his father.

That was a common practice, but Mary said no, his name will be

John and nobody understood why. The crowd motions to Zechariah

and asked Zechariah what his name will be.

Now notice verse 62. They motioned to Zechariah.

Many scholars believe that that's indicating that he was

also deaf during this time period.

They had to motion to him so because he couldn't hear the

question. Well, still not able to speak,

Zechariah grabs a writing tablet and he writes down his name is

John. Not his name will be John, but

his name is John. It's been decided.

It is already certain. Verse 64, we read that

immediately Zechariah's mouth was opened, his tongue was

loose, and what did he do? What did he do?

What did he say? He spoke blessing God.

He praised the Lord. He sang a hymn of praise and

worship to the Lord. Now, his hymn is what's recorded

for us in verses 67 to 79. We're going to look at that in

just a moment, But for now, notice why Zechariah sang.

He had had nine months of silence, not able to speak,

likely not able to hear. And it was as a result of

doubting God's word that came to him through the Angel Gabriel.

Nine months of reflecting on his wrongdoing of his sin and he had

come to terms with the fact that he had been wrong to question

Gabriel and to doubt God's plan and ability.

He came to realize that he could and he needed to trust the Lord

to praise him for his wonderful plans and his fulfilled

promises. It is interesting that God

waited to give Zechariah his speech and hearing back until

Zechariah acted in faith, trusting the Lord.

Zechariah had learned his lesson.

That's why he sang. He had learned that he could and

he needed to trust the Lord's faithfulness, goodness, grace,

mercy, love and care for His people.

The right, the appropriate response is to sing to the Lord

and give glory to the Lord, the worship that he deserves.

So that's why Zechariah sang. Sang because he trusted the

Lord. He learned his lesson.

But what did Zechariah sing? Well, his hymn is in verses 67

to 79. And it's really easy to see that

it's kind of broken up into two sections.

Each section is 1 long sentence. The first is in verses 67 to 75

and, and there Zechariah is praising God for his

faithfulness, his faithfulness to his promises and his

faithfulness to his covenant. And then the second part of the

hymn is in verses 76 to 79, and he praises God for the role that

his son John would play in preparing the way for the

Messiah to come, the mercy of God coming to his people.

Now the first part of the hymn is about God's faithfulness.

It's in verses 67 to 75. And really what he's talking

about here is God's faithfulness to His promises.

First of all, to David. You can see that in verse 68,

beginning in verse 68. 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

servants. David.

That's a reference there to David, a reference back to

Second Samuel Chapter 7, where the Lord made a covenant with

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

David and he told David, and your house and your Kingdom

shall be made sure forever before me.

Your throne shall be established forever.

The Lord made that promise to David, and things looked pretty

good about that promise being kept by the Lord until Solomon

died. After Solomon died, the Kingdom

split, The Kingdom divided. Eventually the people went into

exile, and there were 600 years without a Davidic king.

And in Zechariah's day, Israel was being ruled by the Romans.

Had God forgotten his promise? Was he disregarding the covenant

that he made with David? Was he abandoning his people?

And Zechariah sings, and he sings about the faithfulness of

the Lord to the promises of David, to the promises to David.

Zechariah's own son John would grow up to be the one who would

prepare the way for the Messiah, who would come as the rightful

heir of the throne of David, who would come and establish that

throne forever. God is faithful to his covenant

promises. He fulfills them perfectly.

But it's not just about David that he references here.

He also references God's promise to Abraham.

You can see that in verses 72 and 73, to show the mercy

promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the

oath that He swore to our father Abraham.

That's a reference to some promises that were made back in

the book of Genesis to Abraham, between God and Abram, Abram and

Abraham. Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

We read that now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country

and your kindred and your father's house to the land, that

I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, and I will

bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a

blessing. I will bless those who bless

you, and him who dishonours you I will curse, and in you all the

families of the earth shall be blessed.

Also think about the promise made in Genesis chapter 2 when

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Abraham almost sacrificed his son.

There we read by myself. I have sworn, declares the Lord,

because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your

only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply

your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is

on the seashore. Zechariah sang a song of God's

faithfulness to his promises, His promises to David, his

promises to Abraham. The arrival of the Messiah meant

that the Lord was continuing to be bring his covenant promises

to fruition, that through Christ, through the Messiah, the

Lord would bless the nations. So the first thing that

Zechariah sings about is God's faithfulness to his promises.

But then notice that he sings about God's faithfulness to his

covenant and to talk about God's covenant with his people.

Zechariah points out what God has done.

We see that first in verses 68 through 72.

The Lord, he says, has visited and redeemed his people.

It, it hasn't even happened yet, but he's speaking about it in

the past tense because it's that certain.

It's that sure. He's raised up a horn of

salvation for his people, He says, the horn being a symbol of

strength. He's saved his people from their

enemies, both spiritual and physical.

He's shown mercy to His people as He promised them long ago,

and His covenant with them. The Lord is faithful to His

covenant with His people. That's what the Lord has done.

And notice why He's done it. In verse 74, He says that we

being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve Him.

The proper response to the Lord visiting and redeeming and

saving His people of the Lord showing His mercy to His people,

is for His people to serve Him, to praise Him, to glorify Him

with all of who we are. But then notice how we are to

serve the Lord because of His covenant faithfulness.

The end of verse 74. It is without fear, he says, No

Fear of judgement, No Fear of being abandoned or forgotten by

the Lord, No Fear of Jesus coming back again, No Fear of

judgement, No Fear of being abandoned, no No Fear of man or

of persecution, not even fear of death.

He goes on the beginning of verse 75.

He says our service is to be done in holiness and

righteousness, seeking not to disobey God's word and seeking

to do everything that it says that we are to do.

He goes on at the end of verse 75 and says our service is to be

before the Lord, having a sense that that our service is for His

glory, that it's in His sight. It's with His knowledge that we

serve. And then at the very end of

verse 75, he says that our service is to be all of our

days. We're called to serve the Lord

until that day when we see Him face to face and then into all

eternity. The goal of God's redemption and

salvation is that His people would serve Him without fear and

in holiness and righteousness before Him all of our days.

Zechariah sings about the faithfulness of the Lord.

He praises the Lord for his faithfulness, faithfulness to

his promises, His faithfulness to His covenant with His people.

And then the second part of the hymn, Zechariah praises the Lord

for the role his son John would get to play in preparing the way

for the mercy of God coming to the people through the Messiah.

Look at verse 76, he says, 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 and 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. You can almost see Zechariah

turning and looking at his eight day old son, addressing his

eight day old son and he praises the Lord for the Lord's mercy.

He starts by describing the salvation that God has provided

through the forgiveness of their sins.

You can see that in verse 77 and the beginning of verse 78.

Part of John's ministry was to give knowledge to the people of

the salvation of God's people, that salvation would come

through the forgiveness of their sins.

This salvation that God was bringing, that God would provide

to his people, it was not something that they would earn.

It's not something they would merit.

It's not even something they could inherit.

It would come to them as it says, the beginning, verse 78,

because of the tender mercy of our God.

And John's role would be to declare the arrival of the

Messiah, who, because of God's great mercy, would provide

salvation for his people through the work that he would achieve

and the forgiveness of their sins.

So he sings about God's mercy, the salvation through

forgiveness of sins that is coming from the Messiah.

But he also sings about God's mercy that's demonstrated in the

light coming into the darkness. That's what he talks about at

the end of verse 78 and end of verse 79.

A light coming into the darkness of the world.

In the Bible, darkness often represents despair,

hopelessness, doom, depravity, death.

And Zechariah is singing praise to the Lord.

Because the light of the world is going to come into those into

the darkness of the world. It will come to those who sit in

darkness, who sit in the shadow of death.

He says the sunrise shall visit the people from on high.

Clearly a reference to Jesus, the light of the world coming

into the world. Jesus would come into the

darkness of this world and the darkness of his people's lives

and hearts, and he would fill the the world with light, the

light of truth and grace and hope.

And notice at the end of verse 79 what the light does for us.

It guides our feet into the way of peace, peace with God, peace

that we have with brothers and sisters in Christ because of our

union with Christ. This is what Zechariah sang.

How can we sing like Zechariah? How can we sing like Zechariah?

3 things as we finish. The first is this.

We must trust in the faithfulness of the Lord.

That's the lesson that Zechariah had to learn the hard way after

nine months of silence. But he learned it.

The Lord is faithful to His promises.

The Lord is faithful to his covenant.

The Lord is faithful to his people.

The Lord is faithful in His work of salvation in our lives.

He said that He would provide the solution to the problem of

sin, that He would provide the solution to the consequence of

death. He made that promise to Adam and

Eve in the Garden of Eden. And then the Lord kept telling

his people over and over again throughout redemptive history

until eventually Jesus did come into the world and He lived a

life of perfect love and obedience.

And then He died on the cross and paid for the sins of his

people. And when he died, Jesus said it

is finished. Salvation is achieved for his

people and is completed. We need to trust the Lord's

faithfulness in accomplishing salvation for us in Christ.

Your sins are forgiven. We need to trust in the

faithfulness of the Lord and bringing the work that He has

started in our lives to completion.

That's what Paul tells us in Philippians chapter 1.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at

the day of Jesus Christ. We need to trust the Lord is

faithful and that promise that He's made to us.

The Lord will bring to completion the good work that He

has begun in each one of His people.

We need to trust the Lord's faithfulness and working all

things together for good for those who love Him.

That's what the apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Even when we can't tell what the Lord is doing, even when we

don't like what the Lord is doing, we need to trust that He

is faithful in His promise to work all things together for the

good of His people. We can admit we don't understand

how that's the case, but we also must trust that it's true.

Trust the faithfulness of the Lord in what He is doing.

The Lord was faithful in what He told Zechariah about Elizabeth

being pregnant. A son would be born.

The Lord is faithful to His promises and His covenant.

The Lord is faithful in His work of salvation and is faithful.

He is faithful to complete that work in His people.

He is faithful to work all things together for their good.

We need to trust the faithfulness of the Lord.

Secondly, we need to serve the Lord.

That's what Zechariah said in his hymn, God's salvation.

God's redemption for his people should lead them to serve Him.

If that was true in Zechariah's day, how much more so is it true

for those of us who understand so much more.

The full extent of what God did, the full extent of the

redemption that He has provided all of our lives is to be

service to the Lord for the purpose of bringing Him glory

and praise. And just like Zechariah saying

we should serve the Lord without fear.

No Fear that He won't like the service that we do.

No Fear of what the world thinks about us serving the Lord.

No Fear of judgement from the Lord or persecution from the

world. Service to the Lord should be

with No Fear. It should also be with holiness

and righteousness. It should be in accord with what

God's Word says about how we are to live our lives.

Our service to the Lord should have that sense that we are

doing it before Him, in His presence, in His sight.

And we should serve the Lord all of our days, not just when we're

young, not just when we're old. We should serve the Lord all of

our days. So what are some ways that we

can serve the Lord this way? Well, one of the ways that we

can serve our Lord this way is in our vocations, our jobs.

Think about how you serve and treat your employers, your

employees, your patients, your bosses, your subordinates, your

customers, your teachers, your students.

You can serve the Lord by serving in your vocation

according to the Word. You can serve the Lord certainly

by volunteering. You can volunteer within our

church. There are always lots of

opportunities to serve the Lord and serve your brothers and

sisters in Christ and our church family by volunteering to do

things. In fact, every single week in

the bulletin, we have AQR code there that you can click on and

it will just tell you what the greatest needs are right now

that you can sign up to do. You can also volunteer outside

of the church. Find a local ministry that we

support or even one that we don't support and offer to

volunteer. Offer to volunteer in the school

system. You can serve the Lord by loving

your neighbors and serving your neighbors, getting to know them,

finding out what their needs are, ways that you could come

alongside of them and show them the love of Jesus.

There are all kinds of ways that we can serve the Lord, but the

key point is that we are called to do so.

God's grace to us, God's mercy to us in the gospel is meant to

move us to love and to serve Him all of our lives.

How is God's mercy to you motivating you to serve Him?

Lastly, we need to hope in the light that will will return.

Zechariah saying about the light of the world coming into the

world the first time. A hope that would bring that

would come for the people who were sitting in darkness,

sitting in the shadow of death. And now we are waiting for the

light of the world to come back a second time, to come into the

world a second time, a second advent.

And as we wait, we are to wait. As people of hope, we say it all

of the time. Biblical hope is not the same

hope that the world speaks about.

Worldly hope is more about wishing that something will

happen, not having a a certainty about something that.

But I hope this takes place. Biblical hope is something that

is different. It is a lifestyle based on the

certainty of God's faithfulness. Christians have certain hope

that Jesus, the light of the world, is coming back.

The light will once more come into the darkness of our world.

The light will once again shine on people sitting in darkness

and and the depravity and the death of this world.

When our son Riley was diagnosed with Melanoma and before we had

much more concrete information, I talked with our family about

not assuming the worst, not expecting the worst, and then

living in the present with that assumption.

Biblical hope is exactly the opposite.

We hope for the return of King Jesus, and we are to live in the

present in light of what we know will happen in the future.

Of course, we all have moments and sometimes seasons of of

despair and discouragement and doubt and darkness.

But as God's people, we are to be people of hope as well.

We have the true and certain biblical hope that a light, the

the light is coming back into the darkness of this world, that

everything that is wrong and dark and broken and depraved is

one day going to be undone. And that certainty of the future

must impact how we live in the present.

One last thing here about the light that's coming in our hope

for that light that's coming, it should also motivate us to be

ready to tell other people about that light, to be to be ready to

give the reason for the hope that we have.

To be prepared to tell others how they can have that hope as

well. Trust in the faithfulness of the

Lord. Serve the Lord.

Hope in the light that is coming back.

Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the

hymn of Zechariah. We thank you for the model that

this hymn is to us, and we pray that as we meditate upon, it's

not just now, but throughout this week perhaps we pray that

you would use this ancient biblical hymn to form and to

shape us into the people that you desire us to be.

Father, fill us with joy. A joy that is not just a

feeling, but a way of life. A joy that is not the joy of

this world. A joy that is anchored in the

incarnation of our Savior in the hope of His second Advent.

Help that joy then to drive us to greater love for you and

greater loving obedience to your Word.

All this we ask in Jesus name, Amen.