Zechariah: Meeting Our Savior
Text: Luke 1:57–80 ESV
I'm excited to get into the text today and look at Jesus through the eyes of Zechariah. I thought about the story this weekend probably because I have some family in town who's helping me get our house ready to move into. I remembered as a kid we went up to my grandparents house. They had a bathroom upstairs, and it had pocket doors—the kind that come out of the wall and latches on the other side. Now, I remember them saying, these doors didn’t work well. They would sometimes get jammed, but I didn’t pay much attention until one day I went upstairs to use the bathroom, and I couldn’t get those doors open. Look, I was pretty young at the time. It took me very little time for my worry to shoot through the roof.
I’m trying to open these doors—nothing. So I start crying for help. Nothing. This house is big. No one could hear me because I was upstairs. I’m crying, trying the door, but I'm stuck. My memory, you know, as a kid, I remember it feeling dark in there. And hopeless. I don’t know. I guess I think I'm going to die there. I mean, I'm in there for what felt like 17 days, you know. It's probably like 17 minutes, but it just felt like forever. Until finally someone heard me. But it's scary, right? You're stuck, and you're trapped. You feel like you don't have hope.
As I read the words of Zechariah, I saw in his words, hope for stuck people. Hope for people who are caught in darkness. Zechariah is preaching good news to those who are surrounded by enemies. They're feeling oppressed. They're feeling like they have no hope. Swords are at their throat. In fact, it describes them that they're stuck in darkness. And that darkness is called the very shadow of death.
But Jesus comes to seek and to save the lost. He comes to rescue those who are trapped. He comes to bring light, in fact the text describes him like the sunset. After 400 years of darkness, the sunrises here — the rescuer is here. I'm really excited to hear the words of Zechariah. First, here’s a roadmap of where we’re going.
Picture like we'll go into a bit of a concert. It’s a one-song concert sung by Zechariah. It's a prophecy that he's singing out. Well, the first thing we're going to do is we're going to set the scene. We need to see what’s happened, what's created this bursting forth of a song — of this great prophecy.
First, we are going to set the scene as we look at verses 57–67 and see John the Baptist’s birth. Then we are going to look at the prophecy—the song. The song has two parts: verses 67–75 and 76–80. The first part of the song has two verses if you will. Verse 1 is a section on God, in Jesus, fulfilling his promise to David. Verse 2 is God, in Jesus, fulfilling his promise to Abraham. Then we get this break in the song. Almost like an intermission to cue us to a change in the song. Now, this second part also has two verses: Verse 3 focuses on John the Baptist. Then finally this grand finale, this great ending. This final verse, verse 4, sings us out by showing God's great mercy. Chorus: Praise God for his great mercy.
Okay, like the crowd, let's get our bags, and we're going to go see Elizabeth, Zechariah, and their newborn. Now, it turns out we're going to a concert, but we don’t know that yet. Instead, we arrive on the scene, and beginning with me in verse 57:
“Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.” (Luke 1:57–58 ESV)
So the baby has been born. The neighbors and relatives (that’s us), we heard that the Lord had shown great mercy. But in our scene, it has been eight days since the baby’s birth. It is circumcision day. What happens? Well, as you heard this morning, they are getting ready to name the baby. Elizabeth says his name is going to be John. And us concert attendees—the neighbors and family, say, “Hey, Elizabeth? No. You can’t name him John.”
I mean, first of all, that’s pretty bold. Go ahead, and try this sometime. Go to a new mom and say, “Oh, what a precious baby. What’s her name?” “Oh, Emery Grace.” “No, no. Why don't you go with Elizabeth.” Good luck. But here's the crowd saying, “No, you can't name him John. No one in your family is named John.” And so they motion to the dad. “Hey, Dad, what’s the name of the baby?” He can't speak. But he grabs a writing tablet. His name's John.
This is not a normal scenario—not a normal birth. This is a unique moment. This is a unique baby. You see that in how the crowd responds. Look what it says, “And they all wondered.” Or when they saw how Zechariah’s tongue was open, and he could hear again, they all said “What will this child be? For the hand of the Lord is with him.”
Here we are. John the Baptist is eight days old. Jesus is still in Mary's womb. John's dad, Zechariah, for the first time in nine months hears and can speak. He's going to say the first words he said in a long time. In fact, these are the first words he will say to his own son.
Now we get to see what he said. What came bursting forth. It's been nine months of God humbling him by saying you will not hear or talk. And what is the first thing he does? He does not curse God, like, you just made my life miserable for the last nine months. Think about all the things that change for him. No, he bursts forth in Psalm, in a song, in a prophecy.
Remember, we're talking about Zechariah. He was a high priest. I mean, he knows his Old Testament. He knows his Bible. He's been steeped in it. The Bible says, he's filled with the Holy Spirit, and what comes out is chock full of Old Testament imagery. In fact, I heard someone say there's over 33 illusions to the Old Testament in this one prophecy. We don't have time to touch on all of them. We just need to hit the high points. We're just going to try to hit the main points of each verse of this song. And so that's where we're going to go now. So let's get into the song.
Remember that there are two parts, so we're going to get the intermission in verses 75 through 76. For now, let’s begin in part 1 verse 1: God, in Jesus, fulfills his promise to David (68–71). What we'll see in this promise fulfilled is Jesus is the King who rescues his people from their enemies who are oppressing them. And Jesus finally comes and saves. Let’s begin in verse 68:
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,” (Luke 1:68–69 ESV)
Let's pause there. First thing I want to point out is that this part of the prophecy is very clearly not about his son, John the Baptist, but about Jesus. The reason you know is Zechariah and John the Baptist are not from the house of David. This is clearly not about John the Baptist but about the baby that Mary is carrying.
Notice also how Zechariah’s faith has grown. Listen to how he uses the present tense verbs: “has visited” and “has redeemed.” Mary still had the baby in the womb. Jesus has yet to be born. But Zechariah speaks with confidence, saying, “God has visited his people God has redeemed.” I want you to know this morning, when God has made a promise, it is sure. It is not going anywhere. You, like Zechariah, can stand up and say in the present tense what will be fulfilled. Heaven is mine. Eternity belongs to me. If you're in Christ, you can speak with that much confidence. What's the confidence that he has? Well, he describes in 69–70:
“and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,” (Luke 1:69–70 ESV)
Let’s look at this promise of a king, a Davidic King, given in 2 Samuel 7:1:1
“The LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Samuel 7:11–13 ESV)
That's the promise given thousands of years earlier to David. Now here is that Zechariah stepped in the Old Testament, and now he is this baby in Mary's womb, he is the horn of salvation from the house of David. It's no surprise where he goes next. Listen to what he says verse 71:
“that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us;” (Luke 1:71 ESV)
Notice how there's kingdom/throne language. God’s people are in this moment being oppressed by the enemy who sits on the throne. The Promised One will take that throne and no longer will the oppressors rule. There will be freedom from enemies.
In the middle of this passage, you hear this imagery that's not super familiar for us — this “horn of salvation.” Yet again, you get the image of this Savior who rescues. Let’s look at each two quick examples so you can get a picture of what this means. Let's look at Psalm 92:9–10:
“For behold, your enemies, O LORD, for behold, your enemies shall perish; all evildoers shall be scattered. But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox;” (Psalm 92:9–10 ESV)
The horn here, it's not like a trumpet. It's like a horn on an ox or a bull. These horns in this image are rock solid. You can see it again when 2 Samuel uses the same language:
“my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation,” (2 Samuel 22:3 ESV)
I remember as a kid — I was a city kid. I had this season where I loved cows, which is kind of like a city kid thing to do, you know? I actually had a buddy of mine make me a wood carving that said, “Don loves cows.” I had no idea what cows were really like. I thought they were cute and cuddly. Let me tell you, cows are not cute and cuddly. In fact, I had a rude awakening that cows, especially bulls are not your snuggle buddies.
When we were living in Nicaragua, they did the running of the bulls. All the people and the bulls go running down the main drag, and everyone sits on the side and watches. Anyways, it’s an incredibly dangerous event for many reasons. But we went to watch. Well, we are sitting on our patch of wall and one of the bulls decides to go off course. He hops into the park and charges straight at me and my friend. He got incredibly close to my buddy. I mean we really thought this bull was going to nail us. We have no place to go either because if you jump over the wall, that's where everyone's running. But on the other side is a bull with it’s huge horns on a rampage. These things got way too close, and it’s strength was obvious.
That’s an imperfect image, the image is even greater, but you get the idea. The picture is of a strong Savior, this horn of salvation, that will crush those who oppress God's people.
Now, Zechariah probably didn't understand all the implications of what that would look like. He probably didn't picture Jesus's version— that the one ruling and reigning would be a suffering servant who would come to die. He would first conquer the enemy of death, and then he would come back and totally conquer in a second coming. We don’t know how much Zechariah knew, but we know what this means
What this means is that for all those who are oppressed, who all feel their enemies are rising against them, Jesus is a rescuer. Just like in those moments of feeling trapped — when I'm trapped in the bathroom, or a bull is charging me — those are physical realities. But there's the spiritual reality of being trapped, feeling hopeless, feeling separate from God. And here's the promise of this baby, through the eyes of Zechariah, we see he's coming to rescue. He's coming for freedom from sin. When that bull was charging, the only thing I wanted was safety. I realized that even this week I want peace. I long for rest. I long to be rescued.
I think deep in every one of our souls is this desire to be safe. We are longing to be in a shelter, in a refuge, that will not be shaken. We want to be under and guarded by one who cannot be defeated. Zechariah has shown, rightly, that this can be found in one place, and only one place, Jesus. Now that he has introduced us to these promises fulfilled in Jesus, he is going to move onto verse 2 of the song—God, in Jesus, fulfilled the promise given to Abraham (72–75). Let’s begin in verse 72:
“to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham” (Luke 1:72–73 ESV)
This time, let’s go to Genesis 12:2–3, just one of the promises given Abraham.
“And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2–3 ESV)
Here, Zechariah says that in the coming of Jesus we find this fulfillment of the promise given thousands of years earlier to Abraham. The promise is that God’s people will be a great nation. Right now they are scattered and of no significance. Jesus changes all of that.
This is also a rescue with a purpose. And here's the purpose—verse 73–75:
“to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” (Luke 1:73–75 ESV)
Maybe you grew up in church, and maybe this is like your 20th Advent series that you've been through. You're like, man, I heard I hear about this mercy and grace and Jesus a lot. But what do I do with that? I don't think the Bible pictures God's lavish incredible mercy; it's just something you receive and then you're just like, “Ah, sweet. Chill, bro. I’m just going to sit here because I'm so fat and happy with this feast of mercy.”
The way the Bible sees this mercy is fuel that propels obedience. The mercy you hear about on Sunday changes our Monday. How? Here's how I picture this in our constant fight of faith, a fight to pursue holiness.
How does mercy help us? Well, imagine you are in the middle of a struggle. Maybe you want to invite a coworker to the Christmas service, but you're nervous, you're kind of scared. You don’t know how the conversation is going to go. And so here's how I pictured this. You pause and you think back on the good, tender-mercy, grace-filled God who's poured out his mercy on you through his son. You remember that and you let it light up your heart as you remind yourself of God's mercy. Then you let that move you to give you the fuel to go without fear, because it doesn't matter if this goes well or doesn't go well. Here's the thing — God's mercy will still be pouring down on you. So you go forward and you invite them to the Christmas service.
Or maybe you're sitting there, and you're struggling as the holidays are upon us because you don't get along with family. Maybe in a few weeks you're in the middle of a conversation and you are starting to lose patience. What do you do? You preach to your soul that God has poured out mercy on you. Then you pray, “God would You help me to serve you in righteousness and holiness in this moment. Help me to reflect the kind of mercy that you showed me”. Those are just two examples of how God’s mercy fuels right living.
Okay, let’s get to the second part of the song. We broke it up into two more verses of a song. Let’s begin by hearing verse 3 of the song about John the Baptist (76–77). I find it so interesting too that we have made it this far into the prophecy given on John the Baptist’s birth, and we are just now getting to the part about John the Baptist. He gets a total of two verses directly about him. The rest are not about him. That seems fitting though for his ministry. Here's what Zechariah says:
“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,” (Luke 1:76–77 ESV)
What a moment! It's been 400 years of silence. No prophecies. The nine months when Zechariah was deaf and mute pale in comparison to 400 years with no word from God. Now, this is the moment. John the Baptist kicks it off. He's been given a mission. Not to be a Messiah. It's to go before the Messiah. What he is going to do is give me knowledge of salvation in forgiveness of their sin.
If you came in this morning, and maybe the Christmas story is new for you. Or maybe you've heard this story, but you've never said, “I believe. I trust in this rescuer.” Maybe you are just curious about this and wondering where do you start? Here's where you start. You got to start here, which is with a knowledge of salvation that begins by understanding a need for forgiveness of sin.
The idea is that before a holy God, you fall short. You’ve offended him and have not lived up to his perfection and you never could. But there's a rescue. There's an answer, but you have to acknowledge that you need a rescue. If someone runs over to your window with a ladder calling fire, but you don’t see or feel any fire, you will not be grateful. If your room is ablaze and you have no way out, that ladder is great news.
The idea is, unless you know you need rescue, the good news doesn’t sound so good. It begins, as John the Baptist announces, with the need for rescue. If you haven't come to Jesus, I want to say, you need to be rescued, you have no hope. When you stand before God, and you know this intuitively, you can't live up. And I want you to hear this. You don't need to. Because He sent His Son for you. And if you would trust in His Son, and receive the forgiveness of your sins, you now stand before a holy God not condemned. That's where you need to start.
Now let's look finally at verse four of the song—the final passage, the grand finale of this song. Look at verses 78–79:
“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.” (Luke 1:78–79 ESV)
I pictured it this way this week. One time in college, we backpacked into the middle of nowhere in the winter to build igloos and sleep for the night. I worked for this outdoor company, so this was not an optional trip. I remember digging in the snow that night, quite scared. It was dark and cold at night. I didn’t sleep well. But after a while, the sun came up. The sun broke through the dark bringing light, warmth, hope, and rescue. This is the grand finale. This is the image, the final, big chorus sung by Zechariah in his song, “because of the tender mercy of our God.”
This is our God, the heart of our God is a God of tender mercy. It didn't have to be that way. Right? He didn't have to be a merciful God. Imagine what it would have been like if our God was not a merciful God. He can look at those who are in the shadow of darkness. there's just a little bit of light, and he could have snuffed it out. That's what we deserved. We rebelled against him. We turned our backs on him.
But that's not who our God is. Our God is a rescuing God. Our God is a merciful God. Our God is one who lavished on us mercy and grace. Here's how Ephesians 1:7–8 describes it:
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight” (Ephesians 1:7–8 ESV)
It wasn't just a little bit. He wasn't like you know what, I'll just give you a little bit of a sample of mercy and grace. No, this God is overflowing with mercy, and he's just lavishing it on us.
I want to close them with this story. I heard the connection from a pastor named Jonathan Parnell who highlighted the story like this. It’s the story in Luke 15 that you probably know as the story of the prodigal son.
What happened? One of the sons cashes out his inheritance, gets his money, and he goes and spends it all — living a rebellious life. Finally, as he's out of money, he is eating the food given to pigs. He decides to go home, and if you remember the story, he doesn't go home thinking I'm going to go home and finally get back to just being my dad’s son. No, the speech he is preparing to say to his dad on the way home is, “I’m not worthy to be your son, but would take me back as your slave.”
So the moment comes where he's walking back to his dad's house, and he turns the corner to see the house in the distance. And this is the moment. What is going to happen? How's the dad going to respond? Hear Luke 15:20:
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20 ESV)
Compassion, that’s our same word—mercy. And he ran to him. He didn’t welcome him as a slave. But as his son.
That's our God, overflowing with mercy. Whatever you're bringing in this morning, good, bad, ugly. Here's God's response—mercy. His response was mercy in sending his Son to make sure you could be welcome home just like this prodigal son. I want you to taste and see the goodness of that mercy today.
“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.”” (Luke 1:78–79 ESV)