Day 15 - Luke 1:76-80
14 Dec 2023
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“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.”
And the child grew and became strong in spirit,
and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel."
It is natural for parents to have high expectations for their children. We want to be proud of them. It is not easy though when children grow up and challenge their parents. The normal expectation is that the older generation teaches the younger - not that the younger corrects the older.
This explains why evangelising our unconverted older relatives can be uniquely difficult. A child telling their parent about Jesus isn’t just sharing the good news. No matter how lovingly you put it, it will always (rightly?) be heard as you saying “the way you have lived and brought me up is wrong and has been built on faulty foundations.” While all conversions are a work of the Spirit of God, it is very clear that this is needed when we speak to parents and grandparents.
With that in mind, the last few lines of Zechariah’s prophesy are almost astonishing. Zechariah speaks about his 8 day old son in his arms and says “your task is to correct us all”. He is the one the Lord has sent to prepare the way for the Messiah.
The shocking thing is that the listeners to Zechariah’s words wouldn’t have considered that they needed to be prepared. They would have been cheering at his earlier words about the Lord coming to rescue them from their enemies. But the implication of his words here are that they need to be brought back. They are the ones who need to be prepared. Their sins need to be forgiven. They are the ones living in darkness and in the shadow of death.
It is a sign of Zechariah’s faith and understanding that he recognises the truth of what he was told in the temple by the angel. He has connected what he was told with the prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi. His son is a vital figure to be used by God. He has the humility not to resent that, but to embrace it and to call others to listen to him.
If we don’t have the humility to recognise that these words also speak to us we will miss the heart of these chapters. Yes, we can enjoy the accounts. But at their heart, the Lord is saying to us “we need him”. By ourselves, we are not right with him. We need forgiveness. We need peace with God. In Christ, God has acted to bring that to his people. So will we respond? However we hear this message, whether it’s being told by our parents or our children, by the older or younger generation, this is the voice of God in his word.
As we leave Zechariah’s prophecy, notice one last thing. He isn’t talking about what will happen in the future. He began his words by saying “God HAS visited and redeemed his people….[he] HAS raised up a horn of salvation for us.” Because John is born, God’s action is certain. In fact, it was certain the moment the Lord made his covenant promise. As David Gooding writes “As far as the world is concerned, the sun had not yet risen. It was still dark. Yet Zechariah’s faith was already sensing vindication and victory.”