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November 27, 2005
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God is With Us
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"What did you learn, Zechariah?"
Luke 1: 1-25
November 27, 2005 ""
- Today we begin Advent the season that invites us to be forward looking. We anticipate the second coming of Jesus as we celebrate his first advent.
The real gift of this season is that we begin to tell the story again, from the beginning. The church year begins in December. Beyond the years of prophecy that a child would be born to a virgin, the story begins with real people encountering the very real God. They are encountering a God who remembers the promises he has made and takes action to bring them into fulfillment.
It is the God encountered by people that I want us to concern ourselves with this advent. The God they encountered is good, great, and kind. This is God seen in the person of Jesus and if there is anything that can be said, this God is the kindest "person" we will ever meet. This God meets to transform, he prompts us to pray so that He can answer; He works miracles and surprises with gifts, just to inspire us to praise and thanksgiving.
God - the mighty Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is incredible.
So, we begin today to look at the character of God through the characters of Advent. And today we begin with Zechariah.
Now, I thought Zechariah was going to join us today, but I certainly don't see him. I would expect him to arrive in a robe, but I am the only one thus clad. You cannot count on the saints showing up when they ought to, I have noted. They often have more than one activity planned. The heavenly life I guess is a hectic one.
So, let's await his arrival, and begin with what we know. We have heard Zechariah's story read from Luke 1. Luke was a medical doctor who is known as the greatest of ancient historians. In Luke's description he closely aligns every event of fulfilled prophecy with events in the history of Rome. Thus Christian-Jewish History is set into its greater historical context.
We learn that Zechariah and Elizabeth were upright and faithful people, both from priestly families. As a couple they had one prayer: that they would be given a son. As members of the people of Israel they had only one other prayer, that the Messiah would come.
Today infertile couples can pursue multiple means to seek to have a child, but in their era, to be infertile was a definite mark against them. This is why Luke is careful to note that they were upright in every way, thus saying, the infertility was not due to a withdrawal of God's blessing from them.
Still, they were stigmatized for their childlessness - a fact we encounter in Elizabeth's response to the pregnancy, as she recognizes: "The Lord has done this for me. In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people" (v. 25).
- So Luke has shown that these are righteous folk who have been faithful to God all their days. They are now old so we can well imagine their request for a son has long since ended. Who continues to pray for a son when in their sixties or older? Not many!
However it was in this season of their latter years that the timing was right for that son to be granted them.
As a member of the priestly division of Abijah, Zechariah would have been one of 300 priests on duty at the temple one week, two times a year. The occasion of lighting the incense in the holy place, which occurs in this account, was something that he would get to do only one time in his life.
For perhaps over 40 or 50 years he had hoped but not had the honor of lighting the incense, the symbol in the temple of the prayers of the people going up before the Lord. Meanwhile, the people were praying outside a sentence prayer saying: "May the merciful God enter the Holy Place and accept with favor the offering of His people."
All these people came for this event, and yet, none of them expected that God would literally enter the Holy Place. They were just praying what they knew to pray. They were participating in a worship service, and did not expect to see God.
Zechariah on his part was also thus participating, as a person who had longed to enter the Holy Place and light the incense. He was there, doing his duty before God, showing up for worship, fulfilling this role, but did not expect to meet God there.
In answer to the prayers of the people: God showed up.
In answer to Zechariah and Elisabeth's prayers: God promised them a son.
In answer to Israel's prayers: the promised Messiah would be arriving.
All this in an instant.
Zechariah was met by the angel. He was encountered by Gabriel and was shocked and afraid, a feeling that worsened with the message the angel brought. At this point he may not have even wanted his prayer answered. I mean, it would have been nice some 25 years ago, but now, at this age?
This just confirms that God will show up on the scene when and how He chooses.
- "PRAISE GOD, PRAISE GOD… I MADE IT. Customs between heaven and earth are so difficult! I think perhaps Satan is involved in them! Anyway I am here."
B: John, what are you doing coming up here. We were expecting Zechariah not you.
J: What? I am Zechariah.
B: No you are not! I have always known you as John Towne who sits over there usually next to your wife Janet. And besides that, you don't even have a robe on, so how can you claim to be Zechariah.
J: Actually, heaven advanced to suits a long time ago and no matter who you think I am, actually, I am Zechariah. By the way, nice dress!
B: It's a robe, now, John why don't you just sit down.
Z: John? I know this John Towne. He is a good guy. And you ought to listen to him for he is trying to straighten you out.
B: Okay. You are Zechariah. If so, tell us about this experience meeting with the angle. Why were you surprised? Weren't you expecting God to answer yours and the people's prayers?
Z: Now wait a minute. For 400 years God had not spoken and you ask whether I was expecting God to show up on my one shift? No, actually, I was not expecting God to show. I was expecting that I would be able to light the incense and bow before the holy of holies curtain and leave with no great fanfare. To have an angel show up was a bit of a shock.
B: Well, you showed that.
Z: How much can you expect God to show. I had been serving him faithfully all those years. My obedience was my faith.
B: But you had been praying for years so why did the angel's response to your prayer surprise you? Didn't you and Elisabeth want a son?
Z: Well, we would have loved a son about 25 years earlier but at nearly 80 years old? Hardly. We had given up on that prayer, but God hadn't. I had thought God had said no to that prayer, but the angel showed me God had been saying: 'not yet'. So of course it was a shock and I met it with disbelief. I imagine you would have done the same. Jeanne and Carl I hear you are in this church and Jeanne you are celebrating a birthday soon. IF you told Carl you were going to have a child in 9 months, how would he have responded?
B: Right. But hadn't it been a disgrace to you and Elizabeth to not have had children? Your two names together mean "God remembers His promises" so were not all your relatives hoping for great things from your union. When no children came forth was there some question whether or not you two were as faithful as you looked?
Z: Yes, plenty questioned. People wondered, I wondered if somehow we had offended the Almighty. But Praise God! God had another plan. I think this was one of the ways this whole thing caused me to grow the most. For years I had served God with fear. I was afraid that I had done something wrong and everything fit my fear. I felt I had not been chosen by the lots because God was displeased. I felt we had not child because of the same displeasure. But Elizabeth and I were unable to pinpoint what we may have done wrong.
B: So, the word of the angel carried with it a weight of impossibility! How could God be answering this prayer now and how have I lived believing I had done something wrong for so long and been mistaken!
Z: Yes. And then in addition to the good news about the son there was the answer to the prayer fro the Messiah. Both in one experienced. That alone was enough to have struck me dumb if the angel had not had to silence my doubts!
B: Yes, you were silent for those nine months! What was that like for you Zechariah. Was it difficult for you to be silent for so long?
Z: Difficult! I am telling you. I like to schmooze, talk late to my wife, talk to my friends, talk to God, but suddenly I was silenced. It was tough.
B: What did you do with your time during those months.
Z: Well, since I couldn't speak, I read and since I was a priest and all, I took out the scrolls and read the Word. Some of the verses really impacted me. One in particular from Isaiah. Here let me find it.
B: You use a Bible not scrolls?
Z: Brian, Brian, we advanced beyond Scrolls a long time ago. If I were to have to carry around scrolls they would be this thick!
Here it is: "For this is what the high and lofty One says - he who lives forever, whose name is holy; 'I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite."
When I read this I realized that I had always related to a God who was far away but this was saying, God was near, even near to me.
B: That must have been a transforming piece in your life to see God as near.
Z: Certainly. Not only near but with and in me. God had filled me with His Holy Spirit when I prophesied about my son and His Son. What a privilege and a joy of closeness that was and is today. God is near, we dwell in His presence, we need not ever consider Him far off, away, apart, distant, out of relationship with us.
B: So, that is the foundational learning you took away. You said something about this in your prophetic statement that Luke recorded. You said that you could now serve God with out fear in holiness and righteousness for all your days. Is this what you are speaking of?
Z: Yes. I can serve God with joy now because God is with me, God is near, Praise God. I know the presence of God with and for me.
B: How could you help us too experience that presence of God?
Z: Brian? Are you asking that question really? Okay, tell me, when Jesus died, what happened?
B: Well he died on the cross, the soldier pierced his side, they gambled for his clothes.
Z: Yes, yes, yes, what else?
B: Let's see, oh, there was that earthquake and the curtain that was in the temple ripped in two, from top to bottom.
Z: Yes, and that curtain separated the holy place from the most holy place, it separated the people from God's presence.
B: So there is access for all believers to God's presence.
Z: Exactly. This compares to your own President Mr Bush. Everyone knows there is a president, and knows his name and either likes or dislikes him, but to all he is a distant person. He is not someone who is very accessible and does not know them. However to his own daughters he is known as Dad even though he is yet the president of the US. This is the difference. Whereas before I could have access to God only through the High Priest and through the temple worship, now God was openly available to me all the time. Then on Pentecost the Spirit came and dwelt in each believer.
B: Which is true for us today.
Z: Exactly. So, how do you enter God's presence? You simply stop, you change your thoughts, you think on God, you think on God's word.
B: Like you did for 9 months!
Z: Yes, but you don't have to do it for that long uninterrupted.
B: However, what was the difference about your meditation before and after your encounter with the angel? For you had not had this experience before through the Word, Right?
Z: The difference is the Holy Spirit of God coming and making the Word come to life. And you have the Holy Spirit all the time.
B: So, when we want to experience the presence of God all we need do is stop, and turn our attention to Him.
Z: Stop thinking about the grocery list, the bills to be paid, the needs at the office and ponder the greatness of God who gave Jesus and gives life. Turn your attention to God and you will know God's presence.
For me, when I do this, the presence of God is joy, goosebump time. I meet the presence of God as a long lost friend. What is it like for you?
B: For me, the presence of God is this indescribable peace, that God has all things under control. That is what the presence means to me.
Z: Whatever the experience the reality of God is the same: God's goodness there with us all the time. Praise the Lord! Oh, I have to run. My pass is nearly going to run out.
B: Well, thanks Zechariah for coming and bringing the reminder of the God who is with us today, all the time.
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