Luke 1:68-79: Next Year in Edmonton: The Waiting Game

Presented to Swift Current Corps, 06 December 2009
By Captain Michael Ramsay

See also Luke 1:68-79: Next Year in Jerusalem. http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2012/12/luke-168-79-next-year-in-jerusalem.html

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 have to wait until next year to play for the Grey Cup in Edmonton. Hopefully they will be playing in the game and hopefully they will be redeemed – next year in Edmonton.

The Israelites during the exile began using an expression in their Passover meal - ‘next year in Jerusalem’ – 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 rally cry of the exiled Hebrews just like “Next year in Edmonton” is becoming the rallying call for avid Roughriders fans. Advent – in the Christian calendar – is a time of waiting for that victory, that restoration. Advent recognizes 2 times of waiting actually: 1) A remembrance of waiting for the arrival of Christ, who was born around 2000 years ago – advent is a waiting for Christmas. 2) It is also a waiting for Jesus to return in all of his glory.

I was at the Advent lunch this week (they’re Thursdays at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church) and Pastor Greg Kiel, one of the Lutheran pastors, was speaking there. 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, there is a lottery draw coming up next Saturday and I was wondering if I could help me win the lottery?”
“Just a second.”

Advent is a time of waiting. We are waiting for the new Jerusalem to descend from the heavens to earth as 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 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 new Jerusalem with our Lord and Saviour? Next year in the NEW Jerusalem? That would be even more wonderful than spending next year in Edmonton 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 that is the first word of this section in Latin.[1] This section of Luke is quite interesting. The person who is speaking here is Zechariah. Zechariah is John the Baptist’s dad. He is a Levite and he is a priest and - I don’t know if you remember the story (Luke 1:5-25) but he was struck mute and possibly even deaf as well[2] (cf. Luke 1:62; Luke 1:19, 22; Daniel 10:15-16) after he was told that he would have a son and who his son would be. Zechariah remained a deaf mute from the time he found out his wife was pregnant until 8 days after his son was born (Luke 1:59; see Genesis 17:9-14). This 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 and possibly not even able to hear for over half a year. Can you imagine if you or your husband or wife couldn’t speak for almost nine months? What would be their first words? What would be yours? These were Zechariahs’ (He did this by the power of the Holy Spirit, Luke 1:67), Luke 1:68-79:

68"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come and has redeemed his people.
69He has raised up a horn[a] of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
70(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
72to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76And 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,
77to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace."

This really addresses who, what, why and how of Salvation. But first we should probably look at salvation in general. What does salvation mean? Salvation means to be saved. Verses 71 and 74 refer to Israel being saved from its enemies. This is what was expected of the Christ: that he would save the people from their enemies.

The people of Israel – who were waiting for the Messiah, of course – have had many enemies through the years. We spoke about the first Diaspora; we spoke of the exile earlier when people were longing to return home. 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. Israel fell to invaders in 720 BCE; Judah fell in 586 BCE. The land of Palestine was conquered by the Assyrians, then by the Babylonians, then by the Persians and in many of these conquests the people were deported. Many people returned as the Hebrews fared well under Persian rule but the Persians were eventually defeated by the Greeks and the Greeks (Ptolemys then Seleucids from 198 BCE) saw the Jews revolt (the Hasmoneans / Maccabees). They weren’t too happy with them and the Greeks (under Antiochus IV) even intentionally defiled the Temple in Jerusalem (The Second or Herodian Temple; cf. Ezra 6:3-4; 1 Esdras 6:24-25; Ant. 11.4.6; 99; Apion 1.22,198-99; cf. also 1 Maccabees 4.36-51 and Ant. 12.317-18). In a violent struggle that followed, the people of Palestine eventually obtained independence for a short time (140-37 BCE) – only to be conquered again this time by General Pompeii (63 BCE) and the Romans and as we all well know from the Christmas story, in the time of our scripture reading today, Palestine is under the authority of Caesar Augustus (AKA Octavius, Julius Caesar’s adopted son) as it is still occupied by the Roman forces (Luke 2:1). Palestine by this time – except for a very few years – has been militarily occupied for four to five hundred years – this is much longer than its whole previous existence as a united kingdom – that only lasted about 100 years (1050 or 1010 to 931).[3]

Israel has been waiting for a leader, known as the Messiah or Christ - to save them from their enemies. It is in the midst of the long, successive occupations that Luke speaks about salvation by not a warrior but a Prince of Peace (Luke 1:79; see Isaiah 9:6).[4] Luke is telling us in his story that this Messiah is Jesus and he has not come to merely free Israel from earthly enemies – as indeed this occupation carried on for millennia after Christ – Jesus came to save Israel and indeed the whole world 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 is a glimpse of the history of the expectation of salvation.

God, here in our text before us today, through Luke and Zechariah tells us even more. He tells us what this salvation looks like.[5] With the first coming of Christ, Jesus’ incarnation (birth), death, and resurrection it is the beginning of the Kingdom of God; it is the first blossoms of the spring of salvation (Luke 21:25-26). We are in the Kingdom of God when we are in the presence of Christ and when we experience this 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 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); we will be freed from our enemies SO THAT we can serve God without fear (Luke 1:74); we will be freed from our enemies SO THAT we can serve Him 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 – be it next year in Edmonton for a foretaste of what victory feels like or next year in the new Jerusalem for the fullness of Christ’s victory. This is what we are waiting for in this Advent season.

When Christ arrived the first time, to a Galilean working class family paying tax in Bethlehem, we saw the first glimpse of this salvation that was definitively won between the cross and the empty tomb and when Jesus returns we will see its final culmination and 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 hear anything for months. He tells us of the glory of salvation! This is exciting! And all of this that God has planned since before the creation of the world, Zechariah’s son – that little 8 day old baby who is no doubt crying as he is being circumcised today (Luke 1:59) – that little 8 day old baby is 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 all for the record here what he knows of this baby that is being circumcised today: he says he 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 through which God sent his own Son to shine as a light in the darkness and even the very shadow of death (see Luke 1:78-79; Isaiah 60:13). Zechariah is honoured here 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. As we await Christmas this Advent season and 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 follow him. Just like John, we are to proclaim the good news of the arrival of our Lord and Saviour and 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 that task. While we are waiting, may we be as bold as John (and his father Zechariah) to tell anyone who will listen that indeed Jesus is coming back and he is coming soon.

Let us pray.

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[1] Fred B. Craddock, Luke (Interpretation: Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox, 1990) p. 32.
[2] 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.
[3] ESV Study Bible on-line. Old Testament Timeline: United Monarchy. Available on-line: http://www.esvstudybible.org/articles/chart-ot-timeline
[4] Cf. R. Alan Culpepper, 60.
[5] 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.”