A Sermon On:
PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO
Like the silence of night.
When you lay in bed, alone the thoughts that roar through your brain.
You wish you had someone to share them with, but all the world is asleep.
Except you.
Or the silence of distance.
You'd love to be able to communicate with a loved one. But for whatever
reason you cannot reach them. You can remember them. And wish you could
touch them, and hear their voice.
That kind of silence can really get to you after a while.
It's the sort of silence that Zechariah was experiencing in his life. And not just
him. The whole nation of Israel was surrounded by silence.
A huge, holy silence - the silence of God.
Perhaps we don't think about it much, but between the last page of the Old
Testament and the first pages of the New Testament is a span of some 400
years. 400 years since the last prophet had declared the divine word of God to
His people. 400 years where the space between earth and heaven seemed
absolutely monstrous. 400 years during which the silence began to thunder.
Remember - these were the days before the Holy Spirit was poured out.
There were no prophets.
No inner voice of the Spirit.
Just silence.
We're not told outright, but from the context of the story earlier in ch.1 I think
we can safely imagine what life had become for the people of Israel;
what life had become for Zechariah.
If I were to colour his life, I would choose grey.
If I had to paint the sky, I would use a high level solid cloud cover.
A dull November sort of day. That was his life.
Zechariah was a priest, and he took his duties seriously. But even serious
duties, when done long enough without any seeming sort of response - well,
even serious duties turn into dull routine. One can't help that it becomes so.
Zechariah, and Israel along with him, continued to serve Holy Creator God.
They tried to keep all His commands and laws. They continued in the Temple
worship ritual. But the spark was gone.
Zechariah had another silence in his life. He and wife Elizabeth had no
children. Offspring in Israel was important. Each family was waiting for God's
promised Messiah. Perhaps he would come through their family. To have no
children was to be cut out of the future of God's people, to be left out of the
loop among those awaiting salvation. It was even seen on occasion as a curse
- that God's favour was not with you.
Painful - that's what that barren silence was!
Till the day when Zechariah left his other job for a turn in temple service,
which was how it was for priests of his day. There were many of them, and so
they took turns praying and offering the sacrifices. For the rest they would hold
regular jobs.
Zechariah was called. He did his temple routine - till the angel of God
shattered the routine, smashed the silence and broke into the dulled, grey life
of this priest with a holy roar.
A baby would be born to this elderly couple.
Their child would be a prophet, an Elijah look-alike who would announce the
coming of Messiah.
God's silence would end as He speaks to the people through this boy.
His name would be John - meaning "God is merciful."
Poor Zechariah is overwhelmed. He can hardly believe it. Even protests.
And the angel flips the silence around, clamping a divine lock on ol' Zech's
yap, giving him some 9 months to quietly consider the matter.
We picked up the story when the baby is born. Wonderful event! Divine
silence ended through the cry of a baby. They name him John. And the
surprised community, dulled out from 400 years of grey silence, celebrates as
Zechariah sings his prophetic song!
A song of salvation;
The advent of hope!
We're not told if he ever did temple time again. But I can imagine that there
was a new spring in his step, hope in his heart, and sunshine in his elderly
soul.
God's silence was ended. His holy work continued. That which the people had
read so much about as happening to the father of faith, patriarch Abraham, and
through the generations to the people -
- that was now continuing among them!
And more would be to come. That's what the prophetic song speaks of - loud
and clear for all to hear. No silence here!
God is redeeming His people. Meaning He's rescuing them. He coming to
push their enemy out of the way. He's coming to set them free. Bringing
something called "a horn of salvation."
The horn was seen as the concentration of an animal's strength. It was
focussed, concentrated, there.
God was going to concentrate His divine strength in One who would bring
salvation to His people.
Those who faced the enemy of death, who faced the chilling prospect of
eternal silence amid the hellish absence of God, who faced the conquest of sin
in their lives,
they now had the prospect of freedom.
There would come a future without fear where they could live in the
presence of the Lord, serving Him in holiness and righteousness. Meaning
they would have the security of belonging to Him - that's holiness. They would
be able to focus on living His will and doing what makes Him smile - that's
righteousness.
No one would be able to rip them away from the Lord.
No more silence.
No more distance.
The grey clouds would be pushed away.
Sunshine would reappear - like a new morning, dayspring, new daylight.
All by the tender mercy of God.
That's Zechariah's song of prophetic hope.
A song with which we begin the season of advent; the season of preparation
for Christmas celebration. In our advent time we remember how people
prepared for the coming of the Horn Of Salvation - the One in whom the
saving power of God was concentrated. We prepare to celebrate the birth of
Jesus Christ.
And we look for the day when all grayness and monotony of life today will
be pushed aside as the trumpet shatters the silence, and Jesus breaks through
the clouds at His second coming.
"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you."
said Isaiah.
Indeed it has!
It has come for Zechariah. And it has come for us.
We celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ - Immanuel, God-with-us.
Divine silence is forever ended!
The great enemy, Satan, has been mortally wounded, gored by the horn of
salvation;
the horn - our saviour who was pierced on a cross.
who assumed our weakness, carried our guilt, paid for our sin.
Our Saviour - who made possible the coming of the Holy Spirit
the Spirit who remains with God's people, living in the heart of every
single believer as a constant presence, guide and comforter,
ensuring that NO believer need ever experience years and
decades of divine silence as Israel and Zechariah experienced.
Making it possible for us to experience peace instead of hopeless, humdrum,
whatever-for kind of senselessness in our lives.
We don't ever have to ask, "Why bother" about our existence, the way
Zechariah may have done as he trudged to his daily routine. For we know that
the Spirit of Jesus is with us, guiding us with His determined counsel and
purpose, working all things - somehow - to saving good.
Working, says the bible, through believers like us, towards that final day when
Jesus returns for good. We've got a part to play in the movement towards that
wonderful moment. Your part will be different than my part. Each has a unique
role. But each of us has a role! And the horn-power of Jesus, the legions of
angels, the comforter presence of the Spirit, will ensure that our role is
accomplished.
The evil work of Satan will not be allowed to derail or distract it from
doing that which the Lord has determined is our role to do.
We can live out the prophetic words of v.74:
to serve Him without fear in holiness (for we belong to Him)
to serve Him without fear in righteousness (for the voice of the
Spirit renews and remakes us into Christ-like people).
It happens to each of us.
And it happens to us as a community.
It also happens in the world around us - just like for Zechariah.
Remember - this amazing breakthrough in his life didn't just happen to him
and his dear wife. They celebrated in the context of their community. Shared it
with the people around them.
That's how God works! In individuals, yes. But then also far beyond that by
joining those individuals into a community that He builds together, shapes
together, moves together towards His goals.
In our immediate context that community is Church - the Body of Christ.
Christ speaks, saves and pushes away the clouds among us.
And then calls us to be His active body -
His silence-shattering, hope-inspiring agents in an often grey, senseless
world.
We can bring hope to those without hope. You can bring hope. We can be
those through whom God moves, just as He moved through Zechariah and
through John the Baptist.
It can happen in little ways, when we sit and share a moment of our life
with a lonely senior - perhaps giving them for the first time in weeks an
occasion to sing or laugh; or when we shatter the grey space of someone
confined to a jail cell.
It can happen when we expand the limited space of someone on fixed
income through providing them with a little extra resource, perhaps privately,
perhaps through our deacons, or through volunteering at a food bank or shelter
or other agency. In that way, there is for believers the challenge to make this
happen for the long haul - making it more than a mere christmas blip on the
year-long screen.
It can happen when we take the time to listen to the struggles of
someone in the next office cubicle, for whom perhaps life's focus and meaning
is gone, shattered because of divorce, or trouble with children.
And it can happen in a special way in this time of year as people become
spiritually open in a way they are at no other time of year. My friends, studies
show again and again that this is the one season of the year when people
become spiritually receptive - they let their guard down and become willing to
hear the name of Jesus and the promise of God's love for them.
Their heart doors open. For some just a crack, big enough for us to
slip a small note of hope through. For others far wider, so that perhaps this is
the season and year when they'll allow Jesus to walk right in.
Will you pray that the Lord will provide opportunity for you to give the true
hope of Christmas, and the hope of the second coming of Christ, to someone
this season? That He would give us the boldness and desire to not be silent in
this season, but to be an instrument to bring salvation life and light -
- eternal hope -
into some grey heart this season.
Pray that as God uses each of us hearts in Ottawa-Carleton may, for the first
time, begin to sing with the joy of the Lord,
to sing their own canticle of Christmas.