Presented to Swift Current Corps, 09 December 2012. Based on Luke 1:68-79: Next Year in Regina: The Waiting Game.[1] Presented to Swift Current Corps, 06 December 2009. By Captain Michael Ramsay
Advent. Last week was the first week of Advent. Does anyone know what Advent is? Advent is waiting. Who here likes to wait? Our Saskatchewan Roughriders are the most popular team in the CFL and fans have become somewhat accustomed to waiting. Football fans here have been referred to as living in ‘next year country’. Next year will be the year we bring the cup home to Saskatchewan. Next year would be a great year to do it to, because next year the game is in Regina. Next year in Regina: this rallying cry is not entirely dissimilar from the rallying cry of the early Christians. The early Christians could greet each other with the phrase, ‘Next year in Jerusalem’. The idea being that Christ will return next year and the Christians will all celebrate the victory that he won between the cross and the empty tomb next year in Jerusalem.
The Israelites long before the advent of Jesus, during the exile, actually began using this expression - ‘next year in Jerusalem’ – in their Passover meal to express their hope that next year they will no longer be exiled, next year they will be restored to their homeland. “Next year in Jerusalem” was the rallying cry of the exiled Hebrews just like “Next year in Regina” can become the rallying call for the avid Roughriders fans as they wait and hope to celebrate their next Grey Cup victory here.
Advent – in the Christian calendar – is a time of waiting to celebrate that victory, that restoration achieved between the cross and the empty tomb. Advent recognizes two times of waiting:
1) A remembrance of that waiting for the penultimate arrival of the Christ, who was born in a manger around 2000 years ago – Advent is waiting for Christmas.
2) Advent is waiting for Jesus to ultimately return in all of his glory at the eschaton: next year in Jerusalem.
Next week, The Salvation Army is preparing the community Advent luncheon. They’re Thursdays at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church. One year I heard Greg Kiel, one of the Lutheran pastors, speaking. He told this joke about waiting:
A fellow was speaking to God and he said, “Lord, I have two questions for you, I was wondering if you could help me: 1) A Millennium, a thousand years, is a long time to us – how long is that time for an eternal God?”
“It is just a second”
2) “God, on another note, there is a lottery draw coming up next Saturday and I was wondering if and when you could help me win the lottery?”
“Just a second.”
Advent is a time of waiting. We are now waiting for the new Jerusalem to descend from the heavens to earth like it says will happen in Revelation 21 (Revelation 21:1-8; see also Matthew 24:29-31, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, Revelation 1:7). We are awaiting Jesus’ return and the future resurrection of the dead. We are waiting. Maybe next year the earth and the heavens will be made anew (Revelation 21:1-8). Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we spend next year in the new heaven and the new earth with our new bodies in the new Jerusalem with our Lord and Saviour? Next year in the new Jerusalem. That would be even more wonderful than spending next year in Regina watching the Riders hoist the cup: spending next year with Christ at the final victory…but waiting is never easy. And waiting is what Advent is all about.
Today we are looking at a part of Scripture referred to as the Benedictus – it is called this because the first word of this section in Latin is ‘Benedictus’ (meaning ‘blessed’).[2] This pericope in Luke is quite interesting. The person who is speaking here is Zechariah. Zechariah is John the Baptist’s father. We know about Zechariah: He is a Levite and he is a priest and - I don’t know if you remember the story but he was struck mute and possibly even deaf as well after he was told that he would have a son and who his son would be (Luke 1:5-25, cf. Luke 1:19, 22, 62; Daniel 10:15-16). [3] Zechariah remained mute from the time he found out that his wife was pregnant until eight days after his son was born (Luke 1:59; see Genesis 17:9-14). The Benedictus, this speech, is comprised of Zechariah’s first words not only after the birth of his son but also his first words after he has been cured of not being able to speak for over half a year. As per Elisabeth, can you imagine if your spouse couldn’t speak for almost nine months? What would be their first words? Can you imagine if you couldn’t speak for almost nine months? What would be yours? These were Zechariahs’ (as spoken by the power of the Holy Spirit, Luke 1:67),[4] Luke 1:68-79:
68 Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come and has redeemed his people.
69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71 salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
72 to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.
This speech really addresses the who, what, why, and how of Salvation. But before we look more at the answers here provided for these questions, we should probably ask ourselves the question, what is Salvation? What does ‘Salvation’ mean? Salvation simply means to be saved. Verses 71 and 74 of our text today refer to Israel being saved from her enemies. This is what was expected of the Christ/ the Messiah when he came: he would save the people from their enemies and then those who were exiled along with everyone else would celebrate this Salvation, ‘next year in Jerusalem’
The people of Israel were waiting for the Messiah to deliver them from Rome at the time of Jesus’ incarnation. They have had many enemies through the years. The Kingdom of Israel fell to invaders in 720 BCE; The Kingdom of Judah fell in 586 BCE. The land of Palestine was conquered by the Assyrians, then by the Babylonians, and then by the Persians.
In many of these conquests more Israelites and more Judeans were deported. Those deported were known as the Diaspora: they were exiled Israelites living abroad. They were longing to have their right to return recognized. They were longing for their conquerors to leave the occupied territories. They were longing to spend next year in Jerusalem.
Many people’s grandchildren did later return as the Hebrews fared well under Persian rule. But the Persians were eventually defeated by the Greeks; the Greeks and the Judeans didn’t get along quite so well. The Greeks (Ptolemys then Seleucids from 198 BCE) saw the Jews revolt (the Hasmoneans a.k.a. the Maccabees). The Greeks weren’t too happy with this and so they (under Antiochus IV) even intentionally defiled the Temple in Jerusalem (The Second Temple, the Herodian Temple; cf. Ezra 6:3-4; 1 Esdras 6:24-25; Antiquities 11.4.6; 99; Apion 1.22,198-99; cf. also 1 Maccabees 4.36-51; Antiquities 12.317-18). In a violent struggle that followed, the people of Palestine eventually obtained independence for a very short time (140-37 BCE). Only to be conquered again this time by General Pompeii and the Roman forces (63 BCE).
So now in the time of our Scripture today, as we well know from the Christmas story, Palestine is under the authority of Caesar Augustus (AKA Octavius, Julius Caesar’s adopted son) as Palestine is still an occupied Roman territory (Luke 2:1). Palestine, Israel, Judea by this time – except for a very few years – has been conquered and militarily occupied for four to five hundred years – this is much longer than its entire existence of Israel as a united kingdom many years prior to this – that only lasted about 100 years (1050 or 1010 to 931).[5] The United Kingdom of Israel was only ever a country for less time than Canada has already been a nation!
Israel up to the point in history where our story today is taking place has been waiting for a leader known as the Messiah or the Christ to save them from their enemies.[6] It is in the midst of this long list of successive occupations that Luke here speaks about Salvation –surprisingly to some maybe- by not a warrior king but by a Prince of Peace (Luke 1:79; see Isaiah 9:6).[7] Luke is telling us in his story that this Messiah is Jesus and he has not come to merely free Israel from her earthly enemies – as indeed her military occupation carried on for millennia after Christ – Jesus came to save Israel and the whole world (including the Romans) from Sin and Death (Genesis 12:1-3, 13:2; Romans 1, 2). That is our real enemy. Our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers (Ephesians 6). This passage today contains a glimpse of the history of the expectation of Salvation.
God, as recorded in our text before us today, through Luke and through Zechariah tells us even more. He tells us what Salvation really looks like.[8] At the first coming of Christ, Jesus’ incarnation (birth), death, and resurrection it was the beginning of the Kingdom of God; it was the first blossoms of the Spring of Salvation about which we spoke last week (Luke 21:25-26).[9] We are in the proleptic Kingdom of God when we are in the presence of Christ. And when we experience His Salvation, this is what it will look like: God tells us through Luke who tells us through Zechariah that when we are saved we will show mercy to our fathers (Are you listening girls? You should be nice to your dad it says…). When we are saved and the Kingdom is fully realized we will be freed from our enemies (Luke 1:71,74) SO THAT we can show mercy to our spiritual and covenantal fathers (Luke 1:72; cf. Malachi 3:3); when we are saved and the Kingdom is fully realized we will be freed from our enemies SO THAT we can serve God without fear (Luke 1:74); when we are saved and the Kingdom is fully realized we will be freed from our enemies SO THAT we can serve God in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives (Luke 1:75). This is what Salvation is (in part) and this is what we are waiting for in Advent – the eschaton, the ultimate coming of Christ: next year in the Jerusalem. As we annually await the celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus, we remember too this second coming for which we are ultimately waiting.
When Christ came the first time to a Galilean working class family paying their taxes in Bethlehem, we saw the first glimpse of this Salvation that was definitively won between the cross and the empty tomb. When Jesus returns we will see its culmination and all this is what Zechariah is proclaiming with the birth of his son (Luke 1:68-75). This is what Zechariah has to say after not being able to say or maybe even hear anything for months. He tells us of the glory of Salvation! This is exciting! And God has planned all of this since before the creation of the world. Zechariah’s son – that little eight day old baby who is no doubt crying as he is being circumcised in our passage today (Luke 1:59) – this little eight day old baby is being given the privilege to tell the world about Jesus. Little Johnny here, Baby John is to be the Herald of the Good News that goes before the Christ. He is to be the voice from the wilderness proclaiming the Word of the Lord (Luke 3:4; see Isaiah 40:3; Malachi 3:1, 4:5; Matthew 3:3; Mark 1:3; John 1:23). Zechariah knows – at least in part – that his baby boy will go in the spirit of Elijah pointing everyone to our Messiah, Jesus, who is the Christ (Luke 1:17; see Matthew 11:14, 17:10-12; Mark 9:11-13). Zechariah is obviously both a proud and humbled papa today as he proclaims the Good News of Salvation to all who will hear him.
He tells us what he knows of this baby being circumcised today: John will be a prophet of the Most High (Luke 1:76). John will let people know of the Salvation that they will receive through the forgiveness of our sins (Luke 1:77). John will tell the people of God’s tender mercy by which God sends his own Son to shine as a light in the darkness; a light even in the very shadow of death (see Luke 1:78-79; Isaiah 60:13). Zechariah is honoured to announce that his son John will declare the arrival of the Lord for whom everyone is waiting. This little baby, John, will announce the impending arrival of the King of Kings, who is indeed the Prince of Peace.
This is not unlike our calling today, 2000 years later. As we await Christmas this Advent season and as we celebrate the arrival of Jesus as a baby in a manger, we must not forget our great commission to tell the whole world the glorious news that Jesus lived, died and rose again so that we can all have eternal life if we simply follow Him. Just like the prophet John, we are to proclaim the Good News of the arrival of our Lord and Saviour; and just like the apostles twelve, we are to let everyone know the rest of the Good News of Advent and that is that Jesus is coming back and Jesus is coming back soon (Matthew 28:16-20).
Let us this Advent season succeed in this task. While we are waiting for Christ’s return, may we all be as bold as John (and his father Zechariah) to tell anyone who will listen to us that indeed Jesus is coming back and he is coming soon and we all can be saved if we so choose (TSA doc. 6). And who knows? Maybe we’ll all meet again at the eschaton, next year in Jerusalem.
Let us pray.
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[2] Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox, 1990) p. 32.
[3] Walter L. Leifeld, The Expositor's Bible Commentary. Pradis CD-ROM:Luke/Exposition of Luke/II. Birth and Childhood Narratives (1:5-2:52)/B. Birth Narratives (1:57-2:20)/1. The birth of John the Baptist (1:57-66), Book Version: 4.0.2: The Greek word for unable to hear (kophos) can also mean "deaf". Cf. R. Alan Culpepper, The Gospel of Luke (NIB IX: Nashville, Tenn., Abingdon, 1995), p. 58 and Wayne Grudem and Thomas R. Schreiner, ESV Study Bible notes (Crossway Bibles: Wheaton, Ill., 2008) p. 1946.
[4] Cf. Alyce M. McKenzie, ‘Between Text and Sermon: Luke 1:68-79’, Interpretation 55 no. 4 (October, 2001): 413
[5] ESV Study Bible on-line. Old Testament Timeline: United Monarchy. Available on-line: http://www.esvstudybible.org/articles/chart-ot-timeline
[6] Cf. Loveday Alexander, ‘Luke's Political Vision’, Interpretation 66 no. 3 (June 2012): 283-293.
[8] Eduard Schweizer, The Good News According to Luke, trans. David E, Green (Atlanta: John Knos, 1984) 43: “The ultimate purpose of God’s salvation presupposes deliverance from the enemy but is in fact undisturbed worship.”
[9] Captain Michael Ramsay, Luke 21:29-31: the First Sprigs of Spring. Presented to St. Stephen the Martyr Anglican Church Swift Current, Saskatchewan, 29 November 2009 and Swift Current TSA Corps 02 December 2012. Avail. on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2009/11/luke-2129-31-first-sprigs-of-spring.html
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