Scripture: Luke 1:5-25
During Advent this year, I’ll be preaching on classic Christmas texts from the gospels of Matthew and Luke, chapters 1 and 2. And the Christmas story begins with Elizabeth and Zechariah in today’s scripture, and the sermon is called, “But They Had No Child.” I want to make three points: Number One, The Prayer. Number Two, The Punishment. And Number Three, the Purpose.
On Thanksgivings when I was a kid—between the ages of six and 16—do you know what I was often most thankful for? Cheap, thin wrapping paper… especially if the base color of the wrapping paper was white. It could have decorations on it—pictures of Santa or reindeer or the Star of Bethlehem or whatever… But I was thankful for white, cheap, thin wrapping paper. Why do I say that?
Because my friends and I—It’s not just me, my friends did this too… But my friends and I had an annual tradition: When gifts were wrapped and placed under the tree—which happened throughout the month of December—our tradition was to first shake the packages and see if we could discern any clues about what they contained. And of course even my mom didn’t mind if I did that. I could do that “out in the open.”
But… when the coast was clear… when Mom and Dad were nowhere around… and even when my sisters were nowhere around—because they would tattle on me… I would take the each gift addressed to me out from under the tree and head into the kitchen. We had a desk there, with one of those bright “banker’s lamps.” Next best thing to an X-ray machine! I would hold the package under the light and try to identify words and pictures on the box that might reveal what the gift was.
And then, if I saw the gift, and that gift was high on my Christmas wish list, I could go to school the next day and brag to my friends: “I don’t know about you chumps, but I am getting Mattel Electronics Football 2—the green one that allows you to run backwards and pass.”
I mean, sure, that would ruin the surprise on Christmas Eve, when my family exchanged presents—but at least I could could relax a little, breathe a sigh of relief… because I knew that I was not going to be disappointed.
By contrast, when we read about Zechariah and Elizabeth—the first characters Luke mentions in his version of the Christmas story—it’s easy to see that they have lived, for at least a couple of decades, with profound disappointment.
Zechariah, Luke tells us, was a priest serving in the temple. But not only that: notice verse 8: Zechariah was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.” “Entering the temple” means entering the outer part of the sanctuary known as the “Holy Place.” Inside the Holy Place there’s an altar called the altar of incense. It sits right next to the thick linen curtain that separates the this outer room of the sanctuary from the inner room—otherwise known as the “Most Holy Place,” or the “Holy of Holies.” Only the high priest could enter that room, and only once a year.
Originally, the ark of the covenant was in the Holy of Holies. But at this point in Israel’s history the ark of the covenant had long gone missing. It would only later be recovered by Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Just kidding. But remember, the Spirit of God resided in a special way inside that room. So from Zechariah’s perspective, he was as close to God as nearly anyone on earth could ever get!
So being chosen to burn incense in the Holy Place would have been the highlight of Zechariah’s career as a priest. In fact, once you performed this ritual, you weren’t eligible to do it again… It was literally a “once in a lifetime” opportunity.
Anyway, Zechariah took a censer—a special receptacle for holding the burning coals—went inside the Holy Place and dumped the coals on the altar of incense. Then he took finely ground aromatic spices and frankincense and threw it on top of the coals. For a moment, the room was blanketed in smoke and perfume. The smoke would have been a reminder of that pillar of cloud that hovered above the tabernacle after Moses and the Israelites left Egypt. Moments later, the smoke cleared and what did Zechariah see?
He saw the angel Gabriel standing on the right side of the altar!
As is usually the case in scripture, the angel had to say, “Fear not”… because it’s easy to imagine Zechariah’s shock and surprise! Terrifying!
But notice what the angel says next, in verse 13: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard…”
Wait… What prayer? The prayer that “your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.” The couple is childless… and now they’re beyond childbearing years. Up to this point we didn’t know that Zechariah had been praying about that… but of course this connects back to what Luke told us earlier in verse 7: “they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.”
Notice that Gabriel says, “your prayer has been answered”—prayer singular, not prayers plural. 1 And here’s the thing: Zechariah, we’ve already been told earlier is “righteous and blameless under the law.” He prayed every day—and for many things. In fact, even burning this incense was a symbolic way of lifting up prayers to God. And he was praying as part of this liturgy for burning this incense.
Zechariah was a man of prayer—a man of many prayers—yet when Gabriel refers to one prayer in particular, he’s referring to Zechariah’s deepest prayer… his deepest hurt… his deepest pain… his deepest disappointment in life… the most tender place in his heart… which was, his and his beloved wife’s childlessness.
We know this was painful to them because of Elizabeth’s words in verse 25: “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.” The couple felt the “reproach”—or disapproval—of others because, like Job’s friends, people who knew them would have perceived—wrongly—that their infertility was punishment from God because of Elizabeth’s sins… or both of their sins.
So here was Zechariah, during what should have been the most satisfying moment of his ministry—and one of the happiest days of his life—doing something that priests like him dreamed of doing—but he couldn’t even perform this task wholeheartedly without, at the same time, thinking of Elizabeth back home… thinking of that unanswered prayer… feeling heartbroken…
Feeling disappointed…
Are we so different from Elizabeth and Zechariah? If an angel came to you and said, “Your prayer has been answered,” how many of you would know exactly what the angel was talking about? Many of us would!
I’m talking to people right now who, at this moment, are enduring a pain that other people may not even know about. I’m talking to people who have a tender place in their heart because of some unanswered prayer. I’m talking to people who are carrying around invisible wounds and scars. I’m talking to people who are heartbroken. I’m talking to people who are hurting. I’m talking to people who are disappointed.
And to make matters worse, it’s Christmastime! These painful feelings are especially unwelcome during this “most wonderful time of the year”… [singing]“with the kids jingle belling and everyone telling you, ‘Be of good cheer.’” If you’re not “of good cheer,” we don’t want you throwing a wet blanket on our Christmas celebration. You don’t want to be a Grinch, after all, spoiling everyone’s Christmas party!
One of my favorite Christmas songs is “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” I like it in part because it’s more realistic than a lot of other Christmas songs: It includes these lines: “Next year/ All our troubles will be out of sight.” And later… “Next year/ All our troubles will be miles away.”
Of course, “next year” is going to bring plenty of troubles too—maybe the narrator is kidding himself. But when he says that next year, everything will be okay—at least he acknowledges that right now, during this Christmas season, everything is not okay… Because he has trouble.
And that’s the way life is, isn’t it? Filled with trouble.
And it’s filled with trouble even when you are a faithful child of God…
I point this out because we are often under the mistaken impression that if only we remain faithful to God, and do what God wants us to do, and be a good Christian, then God will protect us in some way from troubles. That’s what Elizabeth and Zechariah likely thought… Which adds to their sense of disappointment…And certainly it’s what the people who were judging the couple for their infertility thought! Look at verses 6 and 7:
And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
Do you see what Luke is saying… They were righteous and blameless under the law… but… contrary to expectations…despite what everyone thought would happen…this bad thing happened to them anyway!
They were faithful to God, yet they still had to endure years of disappointment and heartache because of their childlessness. It just doesn’t seem right!
They did everything they were supposed to do… “But they had no child.”
Why was God doing this to them?
So it’s understandable that their prayer for a child was their deepest prayer. And that’s Point Number One… the prayer.
Point Number Two… the punishment…
So Gabriel tells Zechariah that he’s going to have a child. But not just any child. He and his wife will give birth to the one whom the prophet Malachi foretells: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers…”2
This child, who will grow up to be John the Baptist, will prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah—who is, as we know, his cousin Jesus.
Now notice verse 18: “And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”
I wish Zechariah hadn’t asked that question… How about you? And I bet Zechariah wished he hadn’t asked that question, too! Because Gabriel says, in verses 19 and 20: “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.” So for at least the next nine months, Zechariah will be unable to speak… And not only that: we learn from verse 62 later in the chapter that he also wouldn’t hear. So he was struck deaf and dumb for at least nine months, until after John was born.
And I confess that for many years I used to worry that perhaps Zechariah’s punishment didn’t exactly fit the crime. Like… I worried that maybe the punishment was too harsh?
I don’t worry about that anymore. I am less sympathetic with Zechariah than I used to be. After all, what kind of question is he asking, anyway: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”
Why would he doubt that God could work a miracle for him and Elizabeth? After all, at this very moment Zechariah is already an eyewitness to a supernatural event! He doesn’t doubt that he’s talking to an angel: The angel appeared suddenly in the Holy Place, in a supernatural way. The angel clearly didn’t look like a mere human… Angels in scripture are sometimes terrifying for humans to behold, which is why they often say, “Fear not!” And the fact that Gabriel had access to secret information about Zechariah—that his and Elizabeth’s deepest prayer was to have a child—implies that God sent Gabriel to Zechariah.
Zechariah doesn’t doubt any of that…
And if God will go to the trouble to do all that for Zechariah, then why would Zechariah doubt what the angel says?
But here’s the thing: I don’t think that Zechariah doubts that God has the power to perform this miracle that Gabriel describes. I think he doubts instead that God wants to perform this miracle for him… that God loves and cares for him enough to perform this miracle for him!
It’s as if he doubts the loving nature of God himself!
Why?
In an episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza receives good news: NBC, the television network, has agreed to produce the pilot episode of a sitcom that he and his friend Jerry have pitched to the network.
But then… the bad news: George’s doctor biopsies what George describes as a “white discoloration” on his lower lip.
While awaiting the results, George is convinced he has cancer. He tells Jerry: “I knew this would happen, Jerry. God doesn’t want me to be happy.”
And Jerry said, “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”
And George said, “I do for the bad stuff!”
While George may struggle, intellectually, to believe that an omnipotent God created the world and performed all the miracles that the Bible describes, make no mistake, George still has faith in God: except his faith is in a God who is working against him, who is not on his side, who does not love and care for him.
True faith, by contrast, is not merely believing that an all-powerful God exists and has performed this or that miracle. Often, that’s easy enough to believe! But true faith is believing in a God who loves and cares for us more than we can imagine, One who is actively working for our good.
As with George Costanza—and Zechariah—that’s often the hard part!
In the back of his mind, because of the disappointment I talked about in Point Number One, maybe Zechariah has convinced himself that if God really loved him, God would have given him and Elizabeth a child a long time ago.
I know that most of us in here don’t struggle with intellectual doubts about God… We don’t doubt that God has all the power to do mighty things in and through his children.
But do we believe that God wants to do that… for me and you?
So… I want to invite you to consider the Bible’s many promises about God’s love for you: for instance, that God is on your side—Psalm 118:6… That God is for you. Romans 8:31… That you are God’s beloved son or daughter. Romans 8:16-17… That God the Father loves you exactly as much as he loves his only begotten Son Jesus—and he doesn’t love and favor other children more than he loves and favors you. John 17:23 and 26… The Bible promises that God’s favor rests on you. Luke 2:14… That God is working all things together for your good. Romans 8:28 and 1 Corinthians 3:21-23… That you are the apple of God’s eye. Psalm 17:8… That the Lord takes pleasure in you. Psalm 149:4… That he rejoices over you with joyful songs. Zephaniah 3:17.
And many, many more promises to go along with those…
So… Gabriel made Zechariah unable to speak for nine months… And that seems harsh… But hold on: Zechariah wasn’t unable to speak. He could speak in the most effective way possible: through prayer to God Almighty. And maybe he couldn’t hear for those nine months. Except he could hear in the most important way: he could hear God speak to him through scripture and prayer.
I am quite certain that for those next nine months, Zechariah did the best praying of his life! And if it took being struck deaf and dumb to get Zechariah to pray like this, to strengthen his faith, to grow closer to God then—praise God—God was gracious enough to strike him deaf and dumb!
As the author of Hebrews tells us, in Hebrews 12:11: “No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.”
So we can be sure that throughout Zechariah’s nine months of discipline, God accomplished many, many good purposes.
And speaking of purposes, this bring us to Point Number Three…
I just said that God had good purposes for Zechariah’s nine months of silence… But not only that… Skip down and look at Luke chapter 1, verse 36.
As a sign that God is going to keep the promises he makes to Mary, the mother of Jesus, look at what Gabriel tells her: “And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”
So the very fact that Elizabeth—this cousin of Mary’s who had been unable to have a child—the fact that she was pregnant was a sign to Mary that God’s message about the Messiah was true, and it was a source of reassurance and encouragement to Mary; it bolstered Mary’s faith… because God knew that Mary would need that! Elizabeth’s pregnancy demonstrated, in a very personal way, that “nothing will be impossible with God”—including conceiving in Mary’s womb the very Son of God!
We’ll talk about that next week.
Besides, the fact that we’re reading the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah two-thousand years after the fact goes to show that this story continues to reassure, to encourage, and to strengthen the faith of believers like us today.
In fact, God planned it that way… To encourage and strengthen us… and this is yet another reason God wanted this couple to experience childlessness.
But here’s the thing: We have the benefit of “looking ahead” in the story and seeing what God was up to. Neither Elizabeth nor Zechariah, as they were struggling with childlessness, had that benefit. They couldn’t imagine what God was up to for those many years—even decades—when they were trying so hard to get pregnant and have a child but were unable to…
Their story reminds me of the prophet Elijah, in 1 Kings chapter 19. I preached on chapter 18 earlier in the year, but I almost preached on chapter 19… If you’ll recall Elijah has that contest with the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, and through him God accomplishes a great victory: all the people can see, once and for all, that Israel’s God, Yahweh, is the one true God. And Elijah prays a prayer, and God brings rain… He brings an end to the famine that had laid waste to the land for three years.
So… Mission accomplished. Don’t you think after all that Elijah is entitled to a couple of weeks’ vacation. But no… In chapter 19, verse 2, immediately after learning what Elijah did, “Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, ‘So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.’”
And Elijah has to run away. He goes all the way to Mt. Sinai, where God gave Moses the law. But God comes to him asks him, on two occasions, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And each time Elijah replies: “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” 3
And God tells him both times, in so many words, “You have no idea what’s really going on. You have no idea what I’m up to. For one thing, you’re not the only faithful person left: there are 7,000 others in Israel who’ve never bowed down to Baal. And you’re so worried about King Ahab and Jezebel. I’m going to take care of them, don’t worry.”
Elijah, like Zechariah, you see, needed to reinterpret the circumstances of his life.
And often, we do too… to have the humility to say to ourselves, “I don’t know what God is up to right now by putting me through this, but I know he’s on my side; I know he’s for me; I know he has all the power to help me; I know that he couldn’t love me more. So in the meantime I need to trust him—because I know he’s got good reasons, even if I can’t see what they are right now.”