This is the second Sunday of Advent,
but since I was not here last week we waited until today to start our next
sermon series. It’s called “Angels Among Us”, and it looks at the role
angels played in the Christmas story.
We don’t know everything that angels
do--in fact, we really don’t know just a whole lot about angels at all--but we
know that one of the things angels do is give people messages from God.
That’s mostly what they do in the Christmas story. And in the story
we’re looking at today, they have a message for a man named Zechariah.
As you heard, Zechariah was a Jewish
priest at the time, and he was chosen by lot to go into the temple of the Lord
and burn incense. We kind of lose the significance of that now, but that
was a high honor that Zechariah had been given. There were only certain
people who were allowed to go into the temple of the Lord, and they were only
allowed in at certain times. And given the number of priests they were,
it was a rare thing for a priest to be chosen to do this. It might happen
once in your career that you’d be the one chosen to go into the temple and burn
incense. It might not happen at all.
And the fact that Zechariah was chosen by lot did not make it less
of an honor. In fact, it made it more of an honor. The thought was
that when someone was chosen by lot, it meant that the Lord had taken a hand
and chosen that person.
So, Zechariah goes into the temple.
We’re told all the assembled worshipers were outside. Zechariah was
probably kind of nervous. After all, here he was, going into this high
holy place, probably the only shot he’ll ever get at doing this. He wants
to be sure he gets it right, because, after all, the temple of the Lord was
where the Lord was considered to actually be. He goes in there, and he
looks toward the altar. And there’s the angel of the Lord, standing at
the right side of the altar.
Now, we don’t know much about
angels. We really don’t even know what angels actually look like. I
don’t think they probably look like the characters in Touched by an Angel.
In fact, they must look kind of scary, because almost every time someone
sees one, they’re scared to death.
Zechariah certainly was. We’re told that he was “startled
and gripped with fear”. And who can blame him? I mean, try to
imagine this. We’re going to be taking communion in a little while,
right? So suppose I go through the communion liturgy, and I turn around
to go and get the bread and the juice, and there’s an angel standing there next
to the altar. And there’s no doubt that it’s an angel. We’re not
saying “who is this” or something. We all know it’s an angel. How
would we react? I think we’d probably all be scared to death.
But the angel tells him “Do not be afraid”. The angel knows
that Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth don’t have any children, and that they’ve
been praying for one. So the angel tells Zechariah that his prayers have
been answered. He’ll have a son.
The angel tells him to name the son John. And then the angel
goes on to tell Zechariah who his son will be. The angel tells him the
easy stuff first. The angel first says John will be a joy and a delight
to them. That sounds okay--in fact, Zechariah probably thought, well, of
course he will. The angel says many will rejoice because of his birth.
Well, okay, yeah, lots of people know how much Zechariah and Elizabeth
wanted a child, so there’ll be people who are happy for them.
But then the angel says, “He will be great in the sight of the
Lord. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.
Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God.
He will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn
the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom
of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
And Zechariah says “Ho-lee Cow!”
Well, the Bible does not tell us Zechariah said that. But
what would you say? Think about being told that your son, who is not even
born yet, is going to do all these awesome, incredible things. That’s got
to be a lot of pressure, right? And here Zechariah is, an old man who’s
never had children. This is going to shake up his whole life. And
when he expresses just the slightest doubt, saying, “How can I be sure of
this?”, the angel, who we find out is named Gabriel, takes away his ability to
speak. Zechariah cannot even tell anyone about what’s happened. It’s
not until after his son is born, and he agrees that the son’s name is to be
John, that he is able to talk again and can tell people all about the things
that happened that day in the temple.
As I said, we don’t know much about angels. But I imagine
Gabriel enjoying this assignment. Think of it this way. Have you
ever planned a big surprise for someone, something you knew was going to make
them incredibly happy? That’s what Gabriel was doing here. I mean,
Gabriel did not cause Zechariah and his wife to have a child--God did that--but
Gabriel got to be the one to tell him about it.
I picture Gabriel standing there by the altar ahead of time, just
waiting for Zechariah to show up, imagining what Zechariah’s reaction is going
to be. Then, seeing the look of Zechariah’s face when he tells Zechariah
how great his son is going to be, picturing that mixture of pride and
astonishment. And then, as the time goes on after this, I wonder if
Gabriel was checking in on Zechariah and Elizabeth every once in a while, just
to see how they were doing. And then, seeing the happiness when John was
born, and hearing Zechariah praise God and tell everyone about how great his
son John was going to be. I have to think this was one of the best
assignments Gabriel has ever had.
And of course, the other thing about this is that Gabriel knew
this was only the beginning. We’ll talk more about that next week, when
we look at Gabriel’s conversation with Mary. But Gabriel knew that, as
cool as this assignment was, there was an even better one coming.
Now, most of us have probably never seen an angel. Maybe
some of us have, and if you have I’m not questioning that or doubting you.
But most of us probably have not.
But even if we’ve never seen an angel, God still has messages for
us. There are things God wants to tell us. That thought can be
scary to us, just like seeing Gabriel was scary to Zechariah. After all,
most of us are fairly comfortable in the lives we have. We have problems,
and sometimes they’re serious, but still, we’ve gotten used to being where we
are and doing what we do. And when we get a message from God, it shakes
us up. It takes us out of our comfortable life. And we get scared,
just like Zechariah did.
But I think God enjoys that, in a way. Not that God wants us
to be scared--Gabriel did not want Zechariah to be scared--but God knows that
sometimes the only way God can give us what we really want is to shake our
lives up. Zechariah and Elizabeth may have wanted a child, but getting
one really shook their lives up.
And what God enjoys, I suspect, is shaking our lives up so that
God can give us what we really want. I think that’s one of God’s favorite
things to do. God loves to plan surprises for us. God pictures our
reaction to whatever it is God is planning for us. Then, God does it, and
sees our astonishment. And then, things work out and God sees how happy
we are when we finally see where all this is going. I suspect God really
enjoys that.
God has a message for you. God has a message for each one of
us. And that message is designed to shake us up. It may shake us up
in small ways, or it may shake us up in bigger ways. But God has a
message for us, and that message is designed to shake up our lives.
And if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that. We’ve felt
it. It’s that nagging feeling that, while things are going okay, there’s
something missing. There’s something that’s not quite right. It’s
that nagging feeling that there’s something more we’re supposed to do. We
try to ignore that feeling, because it scares us. I know I do. I
did it for years before I became a pastor, and I still do it now.
We can be really good at ignoring that feeling. In fact, if
we can ignore it all our lives, if we choose to. But it never goes away.
God’s message for us, that message that’s designed to shake up our lives,
that surprise God has planned for us, is still there. We can push it to
the back of our minds, we can pretend it’s not there, but it never goes away.
Let’s stop pretending. Let’s listen to the message God has
for each one of us. Let’s trust God enough to accept the surprise God has
planned for us. Look at it as God’s Christmas present to us, if you like.
It may be a little scary. It may shake up our lives. But if
we trust God enough to accept it, we’ll find out that accepting God’s surprise
was the only way we could get what we really wanted.
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