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How do you determine what really matters in life? Do you ever take time in silence, away from the noise of life and news and pop-up advertisements and distractions? How do you get to peace? How do you find your way back to acceptance, or back to God? Who helps light the way for you? Can you hear the voices of your ancestors, calling you back to God?
Today we chanted the words of Zechariah—that’s the part of Luke’s gospel that we sang instead of the usual psalm—but there’s more to his story. In Luke’s gospel, Zechariah is an old priest offering incense in the temple when an angel appears before him, tells him that his elderly wife Elizabeth will become pregnant with a baby boy. The angel instructs Zechariah to name the boy John, and John will be great in the sight of the Lord and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and when John grows up, he’s going to prepare the way for the Lord and will prepare other people for the Lord too.
This all sounded like too much for Zechariah to believe. He was skeptical, so he reminded the angel that he and his wife Elizabeth were pretty old, way past the point of having children. The angel, named Gabriel, must have gotten a little annoyed about that, because he took away Zechariah’s voice. For many months: silence. If Zechariah’s voice would get in the way of God’s will, then Zechariah just wouldn’t have a voice at all. Imagine how humbling that would be.
So after nine months of silence, after the baby was born, only then was Zechariah’s mouth opened. What was the first thing he said? Exactly what the angel Gabriel had told him to say: “His name is John.”
Months of silence must have brought Zechariah very close to God, trusting God’s promises as he witnessed a miracle unfolding in front of him. Zechariah obeyed the angel’s instruction to name the child John, and then the very next thing out of his mouth are the words of praise we chanted together this morning in the place of the psalm reading[1]: “Blessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel, you have come to your people and set them free.”
Zechariah tells us about a God who so strongly desires to be united with people that God will forgive sin and restore righteousness, repairing the relationship between God and God’s people. This is the same story also told by the ancient prophets, like Malachi, whose words we read in the first reading this morning.
Malachi was a prophet in ancient Israel, in the era when the people of Jerusalem had rebuilt the temple after being exiled, and their leadership in worship had gotten kinda sloppy. Malachi tells the people that a messenger will come to prepare the way of the Lord, because no one is worthy to stand in God’s presence.
Malachi says the people will be purified by a God whose power and searing heat can melt away imperfections like a refiner’s fire—not a fire of destruction, not like fires of hell (whatever that means), but a useful fire like a refiner uses to purify metal. The people will be cleaned and scrubbed the way someone would use soap to get stains out of clothes.
Theologian Anne Stewart points out that the Hebrew term for “soap” sounds a lot like the word for “covenant.” God isn’t here to destroy but to restore relationship with humanity. Stewart writes, “The purpose of divine judgment is not to punish but to prepare the way of the Lord. It is to bring restoration and renewed life. It is to train the people in obedience to the covenant so that they may offer reverent praise.”[2]
Do we still have a need to be restored to relationship with God? Absolutely. We don’t have to look far to see our need for God’s salvation. Our hearts are hardened against our neighbors, we kinda accept war and gun violence as a way of life these days, we don’t want to care for refugees, and we’re okay with poisoning the environment even if it means increasingly destructive storms and floods will occasionally happen. We are a people dwelling in darkness and the shadow of death.
We also need the dawn from on high to break upon us, to guide our feet into the way of peace. We also need the tender compassion of our God, the assurance that all is not lost, because it’s not over. We are not left alone and hopeless, abandoned in a cruel and violent world. We listen again to the voices of those faithful people who lead us toward God, who has not abandoned us.
We revisit the words of the prophets every year during Advent, in this season before Christmas, remembering that we’re not just getting ready for Jesus to come as a baby two thousand years ago: we’re getting ready for Jesus to return in judgment, just as he promised to do. When we sing “Maranatha,” we are echoing the ancient prayer of the earliest followers of Jesus: “Maranatha” means “Come, Lord Jesus.”
John the Baptist lived up to the prophecies made about him before he could speak, proclaiming a baptism of repentance and letting people know that their lives matter to God. John the Baptist spoke against the injustices done by the political and religious rulers of his day; no one would escape God’s judgment, not even Caesar. John prepared the way for Jesus, who in the power of the Holy Spirit, brings healing to us and to our world.
Paul, who wrote the letter to the Philippians, prayed for the community of believers in Philippi: “This is my prayer,” he wrote in his letter to them from prison, “that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you determine what really matters…”[3] The prayer is the same today, to determine what really matters.
We are not without hope. There is always a pathway back to God, and indeed, God is already providing light for the path. God is already lighting the way.
Amen.
Pastor Cheryl
[1] Luke 1: 68-79
[2] Anne Stewart, “Commentary on Malachi 3: 1-4,” Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2699
[3] Philippians 1: 9-10a
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