He Will Be Great before the Lord
Luke 1:11–17 – Come Light Our Hearts
Second Sunday of Advent – December 5, 2021 (am)
Aslan is on the move! (Lewis 67) These were the words of Mr. Beaver to the Pevensie children the first time that all four of them had landed in Narnia. Due to the spell of the White Witch, it had been winter for 100 years—always winter but never Christmas. Just think of that! But Mr. Beaver had said it:
“Aslan is on the move—perhaps has already landed.”
And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don’t understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning—either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer (Lewis 67-8).
I think we all know that feeling. And we might think it’s a feel we can only get in a dream, or in a fantasy world like Narnia. But as we mentioned a few weeks ago when talking about the writing of J. R. R. Tolkien, the best fantasy has a bit of reality in it, blurring the line between the worlds and making fantasy seem really possible (Dickerson). That’s what fires our imaginations and draws us in! And we get drawn in when we hear that Aslan is on the move!
I need to say two things: (1) I think this statement excites us because it’s already happened in the real world, in this world! (2) If we were to hear such a statement anywhere in our world, Aslan is on the move, today’s text is the place! But first, some introduction: today is the second Sunday of Advent. Advent means coming or arrival, appearing. It’s the Latin translation of the Greek παρουσία, the NT word that refers to the return of Christ. So, it’s a word that spotlights the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, whether in His incarnation at Bethlehem two millennia ago or in His promised return at the end of this age. During Advent Season, then, we’re preparing our hearts for the celebration of Christ’s first coming as an intentional exercise that will help us prepare our lives for His second coming!
We’ve read this morning from Mal.3 about the [purification] of God’s people that will be accomplished by the coming of the messenger of the covenant into the temple of the Lord. This is God Himself! He says through the prophet that a messenger will prepare the way before me (Mal.3:1), and later He adds that this messenger will be Elijah (Mal.4:5). Mal.4:6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers…. Intergenerational faithfulness will be restored through the ministry of the forerunner who prepares the way for Messiah! Luke records that the arrival of this messenger is imminent!
Zechariah is a priest of the division of Abijah (5), and his division is serving in the temple (8) during one of their two weeks per year, and he has been chosen by lot to clean and refresh (Stein 74) the most holy (Exo.30:10) Altar of Incense. This happened twice a day, morning and evening (Exo.30:7-8). Now there were about 18,000 priests serving in Israel at this time. According to the Tamid section of the Mishnah, a priest might serve at the Altar of Incense only once in his lifetime. And the sheer number of priests would tell us that not all of them would even get to do it once! The privilege fell to them by lot (9)—by sheer chance from a human perspective, but Pro.16 says: 22 The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. Ultimately, then, it wasn’t by lot that Zechariah was serving in this role at this time, but by God’s sovereign appointment. And he was likely pumped up beyond words at this opportunity!
[T]he people were praying outside (10), as was customary at this hour—perhaps praying for deliverance from the occupying forces of Rome just as they’d [prayed] for deliverance throughout so much of their national history; quite likely also praying for the coming of Messiah, their ultimate Deliverer. And while they were doing this, Zechariah was inside the temple refreshing the incense that symbolized their [prayers] (Rev.5:8; 8:3, 4). Again, this his would’ve been an indescribable moment, surely the crescendo of Zechariah’s priestly ministry, and quite possibly of his whole life!
Then something happened! Let’s see what! We’ll unpack todays message in two parts.
God’s Stunning Message through His Special Messenger
As Zechariah was doing his work, deeply focused on fulfilling each responsibility with precision and dispatch, an angel suddenly appeared, standing on the right side of the altar (11). Imagine! The Altar of Incense was at the far end of the Holy Place centered in front of the double veil that separated this room from the Holy of Holies (cf. Unger).
12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. It struck terror in his heart! 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah—that had to help—for your prayer has been heard—that likely helped as well, but what prayer?—and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. I doubt that Zechariah was praying for a son while he was there in the temple performing his priestly duty! No, I believe the angel was answering a longstanding prayer of Zechariah and Elizabeth, a prayer that quite possibly had ceased now that they were so advanced in years (7).
But there may have been an even greater focus of their prayer: anticipation of a Deliverer, God’s appointed Savior, the anointed One, Messiah! Eloquent story teller that Luke is, he has tied this scene to life in Israel under Herod’s reign (5), a nagging reminder of all that still isn’t right in the land—their hundred-year winter! But theirs struggles go back more than a millennium!
We won’t survey Israel’s history of occupations and exiles. At least they were in the land at this point, but they were still under the thumb of Rome. And, oh, for the deliverance that God had promised! Do you think that request wasn’t on the lips of the people who were praying outside at the hour of incense? (9)
Of course it was! This was the grandest prayer to pray for a faithful Israelite. What Malachi spoke with irony to Israel of his day was perhaps the truest prayer-wish of these people this day! Mal.3:1 The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
But in order to answer it, God is first going to have to send the messenger He promised would prepare the way! (Mal.3:1) Isaiah spoke of this same one! Isa.40:3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord…. 5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed…!” This forerunner, this herald of the Messiah, was a necessary player for God’s plan of salvation for His people to be accomplished.
And he is the one with that special assignment—Mal.4:6 … he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers…. These are the closing words of the OT Scriptures, and indeed of the whole OT era! Once they were written, there followed more than 400 years of silence from heaven! No prophets. No special revelation. Just quiet. And anticipation. Again like the opening of the seventh seal in Rev.8:1 when there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. How long is half an hour in a timeless place? Might it be 400 years, or more?
Then, here, the angel Gabriel (19) brought the very words from heaven that are recorded in Scripture! And they’re essentially the same words! When your son is born, Zechariah, 14 … you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb—he’ll be set apart for God’s purpose throughout his entire life. Now, listen: 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.
The coming of this herald is now at hand! The forerunner of Messiah! Aslan is on the move! God’s long-promised, long-desired deliverance is arriving! The Advent of the Servant, the Savior, the King, has come! Nothing less could account for the joy and rejoicing that this birth will bring! This was the stunning message of this special messenger!
The Message We Should Hear from Him Today (Two Things)
1. We should hear that the aim of God’s whole saving plan is to make ready for [Himself] a people prepared (17), ready for Jesus’ return (cf. 1Jo.2:28), so reconciled to God that they’re reconciled to one another, across generational lines, responding to His call to the point of reflecting His heart of wisdom and justice [and righteousness], [turning away] from the petty selfishness and short-sightedness of relational division—perhaps that which has different age groups, parents and children, defining [righteousness] differently to the point where they’re separated from each other even as they pursue it—and from standing by ignorant and unmoved at the sin and injury of injustice that so saturates this world, hard-hearted in the presence of human suffering, failing to grasp the tragic incongruities of seeing such desperate need among God’s image-bearing creatures, and seeing it right there in the presence of His sovereignly chosen people! And here I’m not talking about religious persecution (like in the book of Acts), I’m talking about the suffering that results from living a godless life, pursuing selfish, self-gratifying aims as though this life is all we have, and our satisfaction is up to us.
When a people are [made] ready for the Lord, when they’re a people prepared, they reflect the wisdom and depth of God’s love as ones reconciled to Him by [repentance] and faith. And their disobedience is displaced by the wisdom of the just (17).
This passage is challenging us to enter into this salvation, the salvation that’s promised and proven real by the intervention that God is announcing though the same angel who’d soon announce the birth of Jesus to Mary (26), and who also, some five centuries before, had revealed parts of this plan to the prophet Daniel while he was exiled in Babylon (Dan.8:16; 9:21).
2. Being ready for the return of the Lord ourselves is not our only aim, any more than it was John’s only aim. With him, it is likewise our aim is to call people to repentance and faith in preparation for the coming of the Lord, now His second coming, in obedience to the Great Commission (Act.1:8). We also have the privilege of being heralds of this good news!
And this message roots itself more deeply in our hearts each and every time we proclaim it! We get to be the ones who share with those who don’t even know the name that Aslan is on the move! Jesus is coming!
He came once to make provision for the removal of our sin in fulfillment of the promise of God to do so. And now, He’s coming again, also in fulfillment of a promise to do so, and this time he will deliver our salvation, fully and finally bringing us into His new heaven and new earth to live in sinless celebration of the greatness of His glory for all eternity!
Conclusion
And as we do these things—as we enter into the salvation that’s ours by repentance and faith in Jesus, and as we proclaim this salvation to those who’ve not yet entered into it—the truest joy of Christmas begins to descend on us in ever-deeper ways—the joy of reconciled relationships thanks to the cleansing work of Him Whose birth established Christmas; just wisdom displacing selfish disobedience as a defining description of who we are; these are the joys of Christmas! Have you received them?
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Resources Cited
Dockery, David S, ed. 1992. New American Commentary. Vol. 24, Luke, by Robert H. Stein. Nashville: Broadman & Holman.
Harrison, R. K., ed. 1988. Unger’s Bible Dictionary. By Merrill F. Unger. Chicago: Moody.
Lewis, C. S. 1950. The Chronicles of Narnia. Vol. 1, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. New York: Harper Collins.
Meyers, Ken. 2013. On the Likeness between Beowulf and Three of Tolkien’s Heroes, track 2. Interview with Matthew Dickerson. Mars Hill Audio Journal, vol. 117, June.
NEXT WEEK: My Spirit Rejoices in God My Savior, Luke 1:46–55