In 1963 Andy Williams released his first Christmas album which contained a song that has become one of the top ten holiday songs of all time – “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”. So it’s not surprising that the song has been recorded by nearly 20 other artists ranging from Harry Connick, Jr. to Garth Brooks to Amy Grant to Chicago.
But for many reasons, Christmas is not necessarily the most wonderful time of the year for everyone:
• For some, it’s the reminder of the loss of a loved one.
• For others, it’s a reminder of their broken families – perhaps as a result of a divorce or rebellious children.
• For still others, it brings attention to financial struggles that are going to be exacerbated by the money they feel pressured to spend to meet the expectations of the season.
• For many, it would more accurately be called “the most stressful time of the year”, with all the pressure to decorate, and send Christmas cards, and bake and to find just the right gift for everyone on your list combined with all the extra activities that occur this time of year.
Or perhaps this Christmas you’re going through some trial or difficulty that is completely unrelated to Christmas – maybe a health issue or problems at work or relationship problems. So this really isn’t the most wonderful time of year for you, either.
If, for any of those reasons or any others, Christmas isn’t the most wonderful time of year for you, then this morning’s message is particularly relevant for you. And even if you really love the Christmas season and things are going great for you, there are some things that all of us can learn that will be of great help in our lives and in the lives of others when the times of darkness and despair inevitably come.
This morning, as we continue our series on the Songs of Christmas from Luke’s gospel account, we’re going to focus on a couple who was unlikely to view Christmas as the most wonderful time of year. But we’re going to see how God turned everything upside down in their lives and turned their darkness and death into light and life. And more importantly, we’ll learn how he can do the same for us and how He can use us in the process of brining hope to others.
Turn with me to Luke chapter1 and follow in Luke’s gospel as I describe the situation that faced Zechariah and Elizabeth. Beginning in verse 5, we learn that Zechariah and Elizabeth were both advanced in years and yet they had no children, which was considered to be a curse in that culture.
The historical context for the nation of Israel didn’t provide for a lot of hope either. Although the people of Israel were looking for the coming of the Messiah, it had now been over 400 years since the people had heard from God through the prophet Malachi. And now they were living under the rule of an oppressive foreign king, King Herod, who served as a vassal king under the authority of the Roman Empire.
So both personally, and as a part of the nation of Israel, there were many reasons why this certainly wasn’t the most wonderful time of the year for Zechariah and Elizabeth. But that is about to change.
Zechariah was one of about 20,000 priests who served in the Temple. His division of priests was on duty for one week two different times during the year, and during those times he would travel to Jerusalem to fulfill his responsibilities at the Temple. In verse 8, Luke reveals that on this particular occasion, he was chosen by lot to be the one to enter the Holy Place and burn incense outside the curtain to the Holy of Holies. This was a once in a lifetime experience for a priest since once he was chosen he would never have that opportunity again. Obviously, as we’ll see, this was no chance occurrence as God was working behind the scenes to carry out His plan.
While Zechariah was arranging the incense and interceding for the people, a large group was also praying in the courtyard as well. While all that was going on, the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and revealed that he and Elizabeth are going to have a child who will prepare the way for the Messiah. When Zechariah asks how he can be sure that this is really going to happen, Gabriel tells him that he will be mute until the birth of his son.
It is during this period that Gabriel also appears to Mary to reveal that she is going to be the mother of the Messiah, Jesus. Shortly thereafter Mary comes to visit Elizabeth and speaks the song that we looked at last week.
After their child is born, Zechariah and Elizabeth prepare to circumcise him on the eighth day according to the requirements of the Scriptures. After Elizabeth indicates that the boy is to be named John and the neighbors and relatives question why they are not going to name him Zechariah after his father, Zechariah writes on a tablet that “His name is John.” Immediately his mouth is opened and Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit and he speaks the song that we’ll look at this morning. You can follow along as I read beginning in verse 67:
And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him 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 knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
(Luke 1:67-79 ESV)
Zechariah’s song reveals that God has turned things upside down for Zechariah and Elizabeth, He has given them hope and turned darkness and death into light and life. God wants to do the very same thing for all of us regardless of how bleak our circumstances might look. And He also wants to use us in the process of doing that in the lives of others. So let’s use the words of Zechariah’s song to learn…
How to let God turn darkness and death
to light and life:
As we’re going to see this morning, Zechariah and Elizabeth certainly had some amount of hope in their lives before they experienced these events. But in Zechariah’s response we see that their hope and joy are taken to a whole new level as a result of what they learn about God through these events.
Zechariah’s song is also a good reminder that only God can bring lasting hope and joy. Many of the people and things that we often rely upon in order to provide hope in our life are might seem to work for a while, but ultimately they are only going to disappoint us.
As a priest, Zechariah was certainly in a position to try to find hope in himself and in his service for God. But just like we saw with Mary last week, God’s decision to choose Zechariah and Elizabeth to bear the one who would prepare the way for the Messiah, was strictly an act of God’s grace and was not dependent on anything they had done to merit that blessing. Zechariah, like Mary, reminds us of the futility of trying to find hope in self.
In the culture of Zechariah’s day, hope was often found in the possibility that the Messiah might be born into one’s family. So being childless certainly didn’t foster much hope. That’s a reminder to us that hope that is based on our circumstances is only temporary because those circumstances will almost certainly change.
Zechariah would have also been tempted to seek hope that was based on his heritage as an Israelite and especially as a priest. As we’re going to see, to the extent that his heritage led him to trust in God, it was certainly a legitimate source of hope. But to the extent that it was merely a matter of religious activity and tradition, it failed to provide any lasting hope. The same is certainly true for us. Religious activity and tradition without a personal relationship with God will never provide lasting hope.
In addition to the things we just discussed – self, circumstances, and religion - we’re also tempted to seek hope in other people, in our possessions or in our social status among other things. But finding lasting hope that will take us from darkness and death in light and life requires that we say “no” to all those potential sources of hope and say “yes” to hope that is rooted in the nature of God. Zechariah’s song leads us to say “yes” to God in three crucial ways. Here’s how we let God turn darkness and death into light and life:
• By saying “yes” to a hope based on God’s pursuit
It’s certainly fitting that the theme of the last words of God spoke in the Old Testament through the prophet Malachi are picked up again at the beginning of the New Testament. In Malachi, we saw God’s pursuing love of His people. Even when they had turned away from Him and rebelled against Him, He continued to purse them. Zechariah carries that same theme over into the New Testament. We see that in a macro sense in the overall tone of his song and we also see it in a micro sense in some of the specific wording he uses.
Let’s focus first on the overall tone of the song. As we read these words we can’t help but see that everything is focused on God’s actions. Zechariah is totally concerned with what God is doing through the birth of his son, and even more importantly through the birth of the Messiah for whom his son John is going to prepare the way. Only two verses of the entire song are in any way about John and even in those two verses – verses 76 and 77 – the focus is on John’s role in preparing the way for the Messiah.
So nearly every verb that we find in the song is describing what God is doing - He visited, He redeemed, he raised up a horn of salvation, He spoke, He showed mercy, He remembered, He delivered, He forgave, He gave light, He guided.
Clearly the hope that Zechariah had did not come from anything that he could do or that any other human could do – it was based completely on what God had done in the past, what He was doing in the present and what He would do in the future.
That is reinforced by the particular verb that Zechariah uses at the beginning of his song in verse 68 and again near the end of his song in verse 78 – visit. In verse 68, Zechariah, similar to what we saw in Mary’s song last week uses the “prophetic aorist” which basically means because the future act of the Messiah visiting His people is so certain to occur he uses a past tense verb when he speaks of God visiting and redeeming His people. Then in verse 78, he uses a future tense verb to describe that same work of God, using poetic language which describes God as the sunrise who will visit from on high to give light and life.
The Greek verb translated “visit” in both those verses has a much deeper meaning than the way we usually use that word in English. It means to look in on someone for the purpose of helping or benefitting that person. So there are critical elements that are implied by that particular verb:
o Personal contact
o Personal examination
o Personal provision
Certainly Jesus accomplished all three elements by putting on a body of flesh and coming to live here on earth and then dying on a cross to provide for our salvation.
So once again we see that God pursues His people. Some have claimed that God doesn’t go where He isn’t wanted, but Christmas tells a different story. Even when God was not expected and not wanted, He took the initiative to pursue each of us by becoming flesh, an idea that John captures quite well in his gospel account:
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
(John 1:9-11 ESV)
Even though Jesus knew that many of the very people He had created would reject Him, He still chose to humble Himself and take on a body of flesh and live in the midst of those who would not receive Him. He was willing to do that because there were going to be some who would not reject Him. Some would choose to find their hope in Him and receive Him into their lives and as a result they would become part of His family. That hope is expressed in the very next verses in John’s gospel:
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
(John 1:12-13 ESV)
Perhaps more than anything else Christmas is about a God who pursues us even when we have rejected Him. And the good news this morning is that even if you’ve rejected Jesus in the past, He is still pursuing you and it’s not too late to turn to Him and to make His loving pursuit of you the basis for your hope.
And for those of us who have received his great gift of salvation through faith in Jesus, Christmas is a reminder that we need to continue to find our hope in the one that continues to pursue us and not in all the other false sources of hope that the world offers to us.
Secondly, we let God turn darkness and death to light and life:
• By saying “yes” to a hope based on God’s promises
In his song, Zechariah points to two different covenants of God.
In verse 69, he points out that the Messiah is going to come from the house of David. And we know from Mary’s genealogy in Luke 3 and Joseph’s genealogy in Matthew 1 that both Mary and Joseph were descendents of David. So both Jesus’ biological mother and his legal earthly father can trace their lineage back to David. That was important because of the covenant that God had made with David about 1,000 years earlier.
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
(2 Samuel 7:12-13 ESV)
The other covenant is the covenant with Abraham, one that we’ve referred to often recently:
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
(Genesis 12:1-3 ESV)
Every faithful Israelite held out hope that God would fulfill both these promises, but until the birth of Jesus, it wasn’t clear that both covenants were going to be fulfilled in the person of God’s own Son. Jesus, the Messiah, would be both the ruler of a kingdom that would remain forever as well as the one through whom God was going to bless all the nations of the earth by making salvation possible for all.
Unfortunately, as time passed, many, if not most, of the people of Israel began to lose hope when they didn’t see the fulfillment of those covenants in their lifetimes. But, as we also saw in Malachi, there was a faithful remnant who lived with hope because they trusted in the fact that God is a covenant-keeping God who would completely fulfill His promises.
For Zechariah and for us, Christmas is the reminder that God is a faithful God who always keeps His promises. And that truth is what gives us hope even in the midst of circumstances that seem to offer no hope at all.
Right before He was going to die on the cross in order to fulfill the covenants with David and Abraham, Jesus spoke these words of comfort to His followers that also give us hope that is based on the promises of God:
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
(John 16:33 ESV)
Even if you are living in the shadow of darkness and despair right now, the good news of Christmas is that God broke through that darkness. He is the sunrise who has visited us from on high in order to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Whatever tribulation you may be going through right now is only temporary. And we can rely upon Jesus’ promise that He has overcome the world so that we might have light and life and hope.
Finally, we let God turn darkness and death to light and life:
• By saying “yes” to a hope based on God’s purposes
Like Mary, Zechariah and Elizabeth certainly had their own plans which were completely turned upside down by God. And like Mary, they chose to submit to God’s purposes rather than try to hang on to their own.
Zechariah’s song shows us that the first Christmas was not some isolated event in the history of the world. It was not something new. Instead it was merely the fulfillment of a plan that God had established before the creation of the world in order to create a people for Himself with whom He could share a relationship.
As we see here in Zechariah’s song, there are three purposes of God that He accomplished through the birth of His Son:
o Salvation
The reason that God was going to visit His people was to provide for their salvation. In his song, Zechariah uses several different terms to describe that work of God in the lives of His people:
He redeemed them (v. 68)
He raised up a horn of salvation (v. 69)
He saved them from their enemies (v. 71)
He delivered them from the hand of their enemies (v. 74)
He forgave their sins (v. 77)
We obviously can’t look at all those aspects of God’s salvation in any kind of detail this morning, but taken together, they certainly reveal that by visiting the earth in the person of His Son, God provided for a salvation that impacts every area of our lives.
o Sanctification
We’re going to come back to the idea of serving God in just a moment, but first I want us to focus on the work that God does in us that enable us to serve Him. You’ll notice that in verse 75, Zechariah points out that God’s people are in “holiness and righteousness before God all their days”. Positionally, we are considered to be holy and righteous at the very moment that we place our trust in Jesus alone for our salvation, as we see clearly in this verse that we refer to frequently:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)
Because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins on the cross, when we place our faith in Him and what He has done for us, we are once for all considered to be righteous in the eyes of God.
However, because we still have our sinful human nature, we don’t automatically begin to live lives that are completely holy and righteous. So God begins a process of sanctification in which He conforms us more and more to be like Jesus. That’s the process that Paul refers to in this familiar verse:
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
(Philippians 1:6 ESV)
God is using everything in our lives to make us more like Jesus so that we can not only be holy and righteous before God positionally, but so that our day-to-day lives would also be characterized by holiness and righteousness. And as a result of that work in our lives, we are then enabled to engage in…
o Service
You’ll notice in verse 74, that the goal of salvation and sanctification is that we might be prepared to serve God without fear. It is Christmas that has freed us and prepared us to be able to serve God wherever we are.
Obviously, there are many facets of that service, but Zechariah’s song focuses on one particular aspect of serving God. Although Zechariah’s main focus in verses 76 and 77 is on how his son John is going to serve God, there is certainly a sense in which all of us have been called to the very same mission. Like John, we have been given the task of preparing the way for the Lord by proclaiming his salvation in a way that other people can understand it and accept it and be forgiven for their sins.
Certainly God wants all of us to find hope in the miracle of Christmas. But even more than that, He wants us to reach out to a world that hasn’t yet experienced that hope. That requires that we get our eyes off of ourselves so that we can be about the task that Jesus has given to each one of us who are His followers. We are to prepare the way for the Lord and show people the way of salvation. We are to reach out to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death and love them and show them the light and declare to them that the sunrise is coming.
Zechariah’s song ends with a wonderful promise that we could sum up like this:
Saying “yes” to God’s pursuit, promises and purposes
brings God’s peace
As we’ve discussed before, the Biblical concept of peace in both the Old and New Testaments goes far beyond just the absence of conflict. It describes a whole and abundant life that provides fulfillment and hope. And God has promised that when we say “no” to the ways of the world and “yes” to His ways that He will bless us with that kind of peace.
Let me close this morning with two challenges:
1. First, if you’re one of those people who don’t feel like Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year for whatever reason, then I want to encourage you to get your eyes off of your circumstances and focus on the miracle of Christmas which reveals that God is pursuing you and that He is faithful to fulfill all His promises and that He has a purpose for your life that includes salvation, sanctification and service. One of the best ways to find the peace of God this Christmas is to find some ways to serve others in the name of Jesus.
2. Second, if you are one of those who see Christmas as the most wonderful time of the year, then spend some time this Christmas season helping others to find that same kind of joy and peace. Love and serve those who are living in darkness and the shadow of death and show them the way to find light and life in Jesus.
