Too Deep For Words: Freedom

Luke 1,57-79 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, "No; he is to be called John." They said to her, "None of your relatives has this name." Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, "His name is John." And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, "What then will this child become?" For indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.

Zechariah's Prophecy
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.

He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his child David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us
that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness in his presence 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 his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.

Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace."

• Intro the series
  • Advent this year is going to be a little different
    • Learning that the usual ways we look at it have not always been the traditional way.
    • We've typically, throughout history, seen this as a mini Lent - a time of penitence, reflection, and preparation.
    • Yet that is something that feels kind of odd to us. For a few reasons
      • This is meant to be a warm, joyful season.
      • And certainly, I feel that: the liturgical year's strength is to allow us time to be exposed and explore all sorts of emotions that we live the rest of the time outside of worship - and joy, hope, peace should be part of that.
    • What if there was a balance? What if, in a time of preparation, we could expose the places where we may not be doing all we could? If penitence is merely to show regret - a recognition of a fruitless longing, could we redeem it? Could we allow this time - and what comes after - to be more fulfilling?
    • We can, sure, but it might require us to think through the things that we hope for that are too deep for words, that are only brought forth in song, or in the Spirit's utterance.
    • So we're going to take a look this year at the three canticles - the psalm-like hymns that we have at the beginning of Luke's telling of the coming of Christ.
• Luke 1
  • To understand why this canticle is so important, we need to lay a little bit of the backstory, told in the early part of the chapter. This helps us understand why we may want to pause for a minute during Advent.
    • Luke 1,8-23 Once when he was serving as priest before God during his section's turn of duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to offer incense. Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified, and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Zechariah said to the angel, "How can I know that this will happen? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years." The angel replied, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur." Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering at his delay in the sanctuary. When he did come out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them and remained unable to speak. When his time of service was ended, he returned to his home.
    • While this passage could birth a series of sermons itself, what we notice here is something striking in light of where we need to go - that Zech, for his part, saw the whole thing terribly unbelievable.
      • Interestingly enough, he's only here by chance - he caught this shift for whatever reason from his supervisors.
      • But there had been something tugging at his heart for years, something at first Gabriel only alludes to - his prayers will be heard. He had hoped for a son. And here, in some spectacular fashion, he's having it acknowledged.
      • His life stops cold. He's not continuing on with his work, he's not going to hang out with friends. No gift getting, no busying himself. He's frozen. And now, in total silence.
      • And now the scene here is set just as we might be - Elizabeth and Zechariah, slowed to a halt. Reflective. Pensive. The changing pace helps all around them - their community, also be aware of something that's about to happen. Something special. I try to imagine that home during that time. The pains of pregnancy, and the promise Zechariah has but cannot utter even to his wife. They all know something special is happening, but they cannot truly know. Their hearts grow heavier with the anticipation.
      • So perhaps, we too should again, look at this Advent moment as a time for pensive reflection, aware of the miracles that are to come. That we might be stunned into silence - if not for our unbelief, for our willingness to pass it by to easily.
  • That silence, makes the moment of miracle so much more striking as Zechariah can speak.
  • What then are the words that the Spirit gives him? The thing so deep in his heart that for months, it sat within him, only now able to be freed from him?
    • I found in one of my commentaries this week part of the answer, so beautifully worded it's worth the quote itself:
      The song speaks in metaphors: visit, deliverance, and horn are used figuratively, but instead of being metaphors that awaken the imagination, they are almost code words for the initiated, who find in them a truth already known. But what can always be new in Judaism is the relating of confessional language with the history of the people; through these old metaphors, the voice of one gripped by eschatological reality speaks. When Luke unites himself with this voice and gives thanks for the coming of Jesus, the Davidic Messiah (1:31–33*), the faded images bloom anew.^[1]
  • Here, now, in this moment, is a gathering of all that had been promised, bringing it to now. It is the promise of liberation - of freedom. And that freedom is brought to bear through a promise, one as old as God speaking to God's beloved people. In the (literal) silence of Zechariah a rumbling springs forth again: yes, God will do what God has promised. God always does. Yet it takes the willingness to wait, to watch, to stop in order to see it in its full effect.
  • We too, as Bovon notes, are the initated ones as well. And I would argue that for many of us, we crave the hope of a liberating God. To free us from all that binds us up and deflects away from that hope. That everything that's happened, everything we pray for, all that we wish and dream and want and crave yet carry so deeply in us as we are awash with everything we have and must and choose to do perhaps to bury more deeply the pain of presently unfulfilled.
  • And God asks us to. just. stop. Stop.
  • But something will happen. We will be free. The promise will come from the child, once he returns from the wilderness. We just need to wait.
  • Used this video to close.