“Gabriel’s Surprise for Zechariah”
Luke 1:5-80

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
First Sunday in Advent—December 2, 2018

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

During December we are having a sermon series on “The Angels of Advent,” looking at what the Bible teaches about angels, and their very important role in the Advent and Christmas story.

We see a lot of depictions of angels this time of year.  Our family has over three dozen different angel ornaments for our Christmas tree.  We sing “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”  Many homes have angels in their outdoor decorations, and angels are a popular theme for greeting cards and wrapping paper.

But, the most widespread image of angels in our culture is based more on the Gospel According to St. Hallmark rather than the Scriptures—cute, chubby cherubs.  That is a far cry from the frightfully impressive angelic creatures that the Bible records people seeing, like Zechariah in today’s Gospel Reading, a sight that left them awestruck with holy fear, and caused them to fall down on their faces in reverence.  In fact, whenever an angel makes a visible appearance in the Bible, the sight is so terrifying the first words out of his mouth are always “fear not.”

In contrast to cute, chubby cherubs, Jesus tells us the angels will actually carry out the final judgment at the Last Day: “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.  They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  That is what we all deserve because of our sin and evil.  Each one of us deserves eternal damnation, to be cast by the angels of God into fiery furnace of hell.

But, God’s angels are also messengers of the GOOD NEWS of salvation:  “An ANGEL of the Lord appeared to [Joseph] in a dream and said . . . ‘[Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’”  “And the ANGEL said unto [the shepherds], ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. . .’  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’”  “The ANGEL said to the women, ‘Fear not, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He is not here; he is risen.’”  After he ascended into heaven, two ANGELS told the Apostles, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Angels are God’s messengers of the Good News that his Son was born into our world to save you from eternal damnation, by dying on the cross as a sacrifice to pay for your sins, rising from the dead to bring you eternal life, ascending into heaven and promising to take you there.  As today’s Epistle Reading from Hebrews says, “After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”

Jesus says that on the Last Day, “He will send his ANGELS and they will gather together his elect . . .”  Trust in Jesus as your Savior, and his ANGELS will not cast you into hell, but will gather YOU into HEAVEN.

The word angel means “messenger” or “servant.”  The Bible tells us that angels are spiritual beings, created by God as part of the original seven-day creation, as Psalm 148 says, “Praise him, all his angels . . . for he commanded and they were created.”  Angels are the spiritual messengers and servants of God, as the Psalm 103 says, “Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding.” 

Today’s Epistle Reading from Hebrews tells us that one of the ways angels serve God is by serving us as what we call “guardian angels.” “Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?”

The book of Hebrews also tells us there is “an innumerable company of angels.”  Out of all these innumerable angels, only two are given names in the Bible.  The archangel Michael, and the angel Gabriel, who appears to Zechariah in today’s Gospel Reading and announces: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.  Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.  He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. . . Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God.  And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

This event recorded by St. Luke is one of the great turning points in the story of Scripture and one of the great turning points in the history of the world.  Zechariah is the first to find out that the Old Testament era is ending, and the New Testament era is beginning.  In today’s Old Testament Reading, in the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament, the Lord promised, “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.  He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”  John the Baptist is that promised prophet, who will “go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah.”  So, the birth of John the Baptist signals the ending of the Old Testament era, and the beginning of the New Testament era.

“Do not be afraid, Zechariah;” the angel Gabriel announces, “your prayer has been heard.”  The “prayer” that first comes to mind is the prayer of the aged Zechariah and Elizabeth for a child.  As the angel Gabriel says, “He will be a joy and delight to you.” 

Yet, the birth of this child has a greater significance: “And many will rejoice because of his birth.”  John the Baptist is the answer not only to the prayers of Zechariah and Elizabeth for a child, but the also the answer to the prayers of all humankind for a Messiah, a Savior from sin.  John the Baptist will not be the Savior himself, but he will be the forerunner of the Messiah, who “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah . . . to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Ever since the fall into sin, humankind waited for God’s promise of a Messiah, a Savior from sin, to be fulfilled.  The entire Old Testament is the story of that promise—renewed, repeated, and reaffirmed.  As today’s Epistle Reading from Hebrews says, “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. . .  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.”

All the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah were fulfilled in the New Testament, in the birth of Jesus Christ.  He is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being,” God in human flesh, who lived and died to pay for the sins of the world.  As St. Paul says in Colossians, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things . . . by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

“Your prayer has been heard.”  The birth of John the Baptist is the answer not only to the prayers of Zechariah and Elizabeth for a child, but the also the answer to the prayers of all humankind for a Savior.  Because the birth of John the Baptist means that all the promises of the Old Testament are soon coming to fulfillment.  The birth of the Messiah, the Savior from Sin, will soon be a reality.

As Zechariah proclaims, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.”