Richard Davenport

December 6, 2023 – Advent Midweek 1

Malachi 4:1-5, Luke 1:5-24

            The prophecy of John the Baptist’s birth is a passage that doesn’t really come up in our readings throughout the year. It’s unfortunate, since it is a pretty major event and has a fair bit going on.  But, even on the three-year lectionary cycle that we use, there just aren’t enough Sundays to get through everything even in the Gospels, not to mention the whole Old Testament. 

            John the Baptist doesn’t get a whole lot of screen time in the Gospels.  But, it’s still essential to understand who he is and what he’s doing to really get a sense of what’s going on in Jesus’ life as he interacts with the Jewish people. He sets the stage for Jesus.  God prophesied through Malachi that Elijah would come before the great and awesome day of the Lord. Now that prophecy is being fulfilled.  Here is the one who goes in the spirit of Elijah.  This prophet’s arrival can only mean one thing:  the day of the Lord is at hand.

            Just what the day of the Lord would look like, well, that was the subject of some debate.  Throughout the Old Testament, the day of the Lord was a bit of a mixed message.  Sometimes it’s the day of salvation, when God brings his people out of darkness. Sometimes is a day of terrible judgment and destruction, a day you really shouldn’t be excited about.  The reality is that it is both.  Whether you get the salvation or the destruction just depends on whether you’re on God’s good side or his bad side.  Obviously that’s a little over simplified, but you get the idea.

            The Jewish people had been waiting for this moment for a long time, basically since the moment sin entered the world.  The prevailing school of thought was that the day of the Lord would be the time when God saves his people by bringing judgment down on everyone around them and restoring Israel as a sovereign nation. Still, there was always some uncertainty.  God had told the Israelites of old that they shouldn’t be looking forward to the day of the Lord because they were some of the ones who would come under judgment at that time.  They were acting as bad or worse than the pagan nations around them.  They wouldn’t be spared, at least not as a whole.

            So, when John the Baptist later goes around preaching and he talks about Jesus as the one who will baptize with fire and who holds the winnowing fork, ready to throw the chaff into the fire, some uncertainty was natural.  But all of that will come later.  We have a sense of what John’s life and ministry will look like, since we know he will follow in the footsteps of Elijah, confronting powerful people with their sin and idolatry, making powerful enemies, but standing firm in his faith throughout it all.  Proclaiming God’s Word to young and old, rich and poor, telling them to repent for the day of the Lord is at hand.

            As I said though, all of that will come later. Here we simply have God’s messenger who has been sent to relay a message to Zechariah, who, as we are told, is a faithful priest.  He isn’t faithful because he trusts in his lineage and own works of righteousness, as the Pharisees do.  Instead he is one who has put his trust in God.  He carries out his duties before God and follows the Law of Moses, not because it earns him favor with God, but because this is the duty of faithful people.

            The angel gives Zechariah a pretty interesting message. After all, it isn’t every day that an old man with a barren wife is told he will have a son.  Not just that, but this son will be one walking in the spirit and power of Elijah, and everyone here knows what that means.  It’s like watching one of the old NASA space shuttle launches, or one of the new Space-X ships.  There’s that excitement that fills the air, a kind of low level busy buzzing as everyone checks and rechecks everything to make sure it’s ready for launch. But then that 10 second countdown when everything gets quiet and everyone’s eyes are glued to the monitor. Then the roar as the main engine starts and suddenly everything changes as the ship lifts off and takes to the skies.

            That low level buzzing had been going on ever since the savior had been prophesied.  The big difference was that no one really knew where the timer was at, but now they do. Lift off is moments away, the day of fire, noise, and frenetic activity, the day when everything finally comes to fruition and the long wait is over.

            So there you are, doing your job, just like you’ve done for decades now.  Suddenly an angel shows up and tells you you’ll have a son.  Already things are sounding a little crazy.  You haven’t had any kids.  Even when you were young and active you weren’t able to have kids and now you’re old, past the age when people normally have kids.  It takes a bit to process this.  At this point, he’s had to come to terms with the fact that he would never have kids.  Whether he was at peace with this or not, we don’t know.  But that’s just how it was going to be.  Except, apparently that isn’t the case anymore.  So, exciting news, maybe?

            There’s more though.  It sounds like God has some pretty big plans for this kid.  He’s going to be a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.  That means he’ll probably have a tough life, but it also means God will be with him through it all.  As a father, he knows he’ll be able to be proud of his son and the work he’s doing.

            But, that still isn’t all of it.  He won’t just be a prophet, he’ll be THE prophet, the last prophet.  The Messiah is coming soon.  God is flashing the lights in the lobby, telling everyone the show is about to begin. These are exciting times indeed.

            It’s not really surprising that Zechariah had some trouble with all of this.  God’s promised savior was coming and the next step in the process was to give an old, childless couple a son who would announce the savior to the world. 

            We struggle with hearing things that sound too good to be true, too good to be believable all the time.  You really did get the job, even though you thought it was a longshot. You had cancer.  Now you don’t.  Doctors don’t really know why, but that’s what they’re telling you. Your kids had made some poor life choices and haven’t really talked to you in years but now something has changed and they want to reconnect. 

            You hear the news and it’s natural to suspect something’s going on.  These kinds of things don’t just happen.  In fact, they don’t really happen at all.  So, even though you get the news, you aren’t sure you believe it.  Again, it’s only natural.  People make mistakes all the time.  Maybe someone read the wrong line, mixed up the reports, something got misinterpreted or whatever the case may be.

            It is natural in world where people make those kinds of mistakes, or where people lie, cheat, spread rumors, or all sorts of other things that give you false hope and assurance.  There’s a good reason to be wary of that kind of news. But this isn’t that kind of news, because this news doesn’t come from the world. 

            God uses this theme a few times, especially regarding prophets.  Whenever you hear a crazy and ridiculous message, consider the messenger.  Who sent him?  “If I, the Lord, sent him, then you can trust the messenger.  What he says will be true because I gave him the message.  You know my track record.  You know I’ve never failed to do anything I promised to do, no matter how unbelievable it sounded.”

            Zechariah should have known.  He should have taken the angel’s message at face value.  But Zechariah had trouble untangling what he knew of God with what he knew of the world, and he doubted.  He wanted a little more proof, as if an angel showing up in the temple wasn’t proof enough.

            But, even though Zechariah’s reason and understanding were wrestling with this message, he still trusted God.  God doesn’t rescind his promise because Zechariah doubted. Instead, God helps Zechariah to overcome his doubts and learn something from this experience.  He is made unable to talk.  It sounds like a punishment, and it might have been perceived that way. However, God is still with him and uses this to emphasize his message.  Like the Israelites standing on the banks of the Red Sea, watching as the Egyptians thunder down on them, God simply tells them to be silent and watch as their salvation is revealed.

            We doubt earthly things and earthly matters all the time.  It’s no surprise we’d doubt spiritual things and spiritual matters too.  We can see earthly things and we still doubt them, even more so those things we can’t always see.  God sends his messengers to you, telling you not to doubt, but to believe.

            God didn’t abandon Zechariah in the face of his doubts. He stayed with him.  He reaffirmed everything he had promised to him.  God blessed him anyway.  His messenger comes to you, anyone who speaks God’s Word is speaking the words God has already spoken, words of forgiveness, words of love, of comfort, of hope, of promise.  He knows you have doubts, and so he gives you the sacraments, where you can see his words at work firsthand, to give you a place to reflect on his mercy and know that he has given it to you.  For even when you doubt, his promise holds true. 

            This advent, we look forward to the fulfillment of his greatest promise, the savior who will take our sins away.  We’ve heard the message, but sometimes we still doubt that everything Jesus did, he did for us.  Thankfully, just like Zechariah, where we doubt, God is still faithful and his still holds his promise.  He made it you and he will keep it.  Jesus was born here for you.  He died here for you.  He rose here for you. And he will return here to be with you.