2nd Sunday in Advent (Populus Zion) – December 10, 2023
Trinity Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Luke 1:5–25
“How Shall I Know This?”
Theme: Our hope is more than a hope for good things in this life; it is a hope centered on Jesus the Messiah.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
What do you hope for out of life? I’m sure at Christmas time, the hopes of many of our little ones are set on the presents that are stacking up around the Christmas tree. Perhaps the hopes of you parents and grandparents are set on seeing the family gather around again, opening presents, eating great food, and talking with one another. After all, our Lord said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). This is a great time for those hopes to be fulfilled and seen.
Perhaps your hopes are deeper. You hope for peace in your family. You hope for peace in the world. You hope for peace in your conscience. You hope for peace from sorrow. This time before Christmas is not always an easy one for some people. We want to feel happy, but not everyone does.
I sometimes wonder what people in the Bible thought or felt. We’re not always given glimpses into their emotions, but we are told things about their lives. Sometimes we can sympathize with different characters in the Bible. The character in our Gospel text for today is Zechariah. He is a priest, from the tribe of Levi. He is married to Elizabeth, but she was barren and unable to have children.
Our world might use the scientific term “infertile” to describe this condition, but the biblical word is barren. Some couples are just not able to have children. This makes couples sad even today as they try for children but are not given children by God. It was even more so in the ancient world as people depended on their children to support them in their old age.
The hopes for Zechariah and Elizabeth to have children seem to have been dashed. She was past her child-bearing years and had not been given a child. On a deeper level, though, we get a hint that other hopes of theirs were still burning bright. Verse 6 says, “they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.” Their hope was still in God, that he would send a Messiah to their people the Jews. This is a hope that they would begin to see fulfilled.
Zechariah, as it turns out, had been chosen at random to be high priest one year. High priests were chosen by casting lots, and they served for one year before another high priest was chosen. Zechariah here in our text is presiding over the Day of Atonement. Other than the Passover, it is probably the most important day in the Israelite calendar. It’s the only day of the year when a high priest goes into the Holy of Holies and sprinkles blood on the ark of the covenant to cover the sins of the people. There’s a rumor that the priests would even tie a rope around the ankle of the high priest as he went in, just in case he touched the ark of the covenant and died.
So while Zechariah is performing his duties in the Temple, the angel Gabriel appears to him. This is not a Precious Moments angel, but rather an awesome, holy, glorious angel that would scare any of us. It sure scared Zechariah. Gabriel said, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John” (13). He goes on to specify that John must live under a Nazirite vow, not drinking alcohol. His purpose is summarized with these words: “to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (17). Prepared for whom? The Messiah—Jesus.
Zechariah here is seeing all of his hopes fulfilled. His spiritual hope in the Messiah is coming—not in his son, but coming after his own son. His earthly hope of having a baby is also being fulfilled.
But, I think he has a bit of a brain fart here. He asks this question: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (18). Do you know how sometimes you get brain farts when someone asks you a question? You forget the answer to a teacher’s question, or the answer to something is just on the tip of your tongue. It’s frustrating when these things happen, right?
Or maybe someone asks you something, and the answer is easy and clear, but you forget everything because you’re not thinking things through. Sometimes at the end of the day, all we can do is laugh at our common mistakes.
Well, Zechariah forgot a lot of things that he should have remembered. He should’ve known that a barren woman having a baby was possible by God. There are six women in the Old Testament who had been barren. Sarah was barren and even laughed when God said that she would have a child, but she did have a child, and he was named “Laughter”—Isaac. Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah, the mother of Samson, and the Shunammite woman were all barren but were given children. Elizabeth would make the seventh time God granted a child to a barren woman, and the second one to do so in old age.
I don’t know what to compare this too, maybe like asking a Pastor if he knows that Jesus appeared to Saul on the Road to Damascus. It may not be the most important thing about our faith, but it’s pretty important.
So, Zechariah is not allowed to speak until the baby is born. In fact, he doesn’t even get to speak until he writes on a clay tablet, “His name is John” (63). What is interesting about this is that the people never get the final blessing of the Day of Atonement. It’s like if I lost my voice here and now in the sermon, and you never got the rest of the service. You’d go away very confused about what happened, and maybe a bit disappointed that you never got the conclusion to the service, with the final blessing from God.
Nonetheless, the hopes of Zechariah and Elizabeth are fulfilled. They conceive, and Elizabeth gives a wonderful confession of faith. Their hope in the Messiah is also validated, and this would be confirmed in six months when Mary would visit Elizabeth and announce her own pregnancy by the Holy Spirit.
What does this mean for your hope? It means first and foremost that your hope should be in Jesus Christ. This in fact is why the Scriptures are written. St. Paul writes in our Epistle: “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (4) and “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (13).
The Holy Scriptures all full of reasons for you to know Jesus Christ and to center your hope in him. Read it, and look for examples of people in the Bible who had great faith at times, and less faith at times. Their examples, both good and bad, help us see ourselves in their shoes. We ought to sympathize with Zechariah, Elizabeth, and many others. Sometimes like Zechariah we don’t remember the words of Scripture like we should, but God does not revoke his promises.
And just as God fulfilled their earthly hopes, continue your prayers to God, and do not be surprised when he grants you your earthly hopes as well. That might be a certain present you’ve been asking your parents for. That might be peace you so desperately need. God worked miracles for Sarah, Elizabeth, Rebekah, Rachel, and many others. He does hear your prayers, and he does answer them through the grace and mercy that His Son Jesus won for you. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt 6:33).
My closing blessing will be this from Romans 15: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Amen.
Return to Top | Return to Sermons | Home | Email Church Office