Bible text: Luke 1:57-80
Luke 1-2 are great stories we get
to hear during Advent, as we wait for the coming of the promised Messiah. These
stories are not found in the other gospels, but, as we heard last week, Luke
wants to make the point that Jesus is
the savior from the very moment
he is born—even from the moment he’s thought of by God and announced to Mary by
the angel. So Luke uses this first chapter to tell the story that establishes
Jesus’ lineage: he comes from a good but humble Jewish family, which makes him
eligible to be the Jewish Messiah. This first chapter, full of miracles—women
getting pregnant when that ought not be possible; angel appearances; speech
taken away and restored—also sets us up to notice that this whole thing is God’s
idea, and God’s doing. The people, as good and wholesome and righteous
as they are, are merely the instruments through which God does these amazing
things—including saving all of creation.
These stories, and the way he uses
them, are unique to Luke. In these first
2 chapters there are 4 liturgical hymns—perhaps your Bible offsets them to look
like poems or psalms, so you noticed them. Mary, Zechariah, the angels, and
Simeon speak these words, but we have set them to music and use them in our
liturgy: the Magnificat (Vespers), the
Benedictus (Matins), the Gloria in Excelsis (opening liturgy), and
the Nunc Dimittis (post-communion
canticle). [When Phil was a child, he thought the phrase “Nunc Dimittis” meant
the service was almost over, because it came at the end of the service and his pastor-dad
always announced, “Now we sing the Nunc Dimittis!”]
These 4 hymns serve as a sort of “overture”, setting the
tone for the rest of the story, giving us a hint of what will come in this
gospel. The words of these hymns hearken back to Hebrew scripture, which would
have been noticed by Luke’s Jewish audience, and further establish this story
as rooted in Judaism. The words tell of God’s promise to Abraham, the covenant
given to all generations; they mention the Messiah that will come from the
house of David, who will make the world right again, turning it upside-down, bringing
in mercy and justice according to God’s definition.
The song we heard today is
Zechariah’s response to John’s birth. You recall that when he didn’t believe
the angel, that his wife Elizabeth who was past childbearing age would bear a
son, Zechariah was struck dumb, unable to speak until the angel’s words came to
pass. When Zechariah breaks tradition by naming his son a name no one in his family had, even a name that is not Jewish or Hebrew but a
Greek name, which the angel told him to name the child—then finally he can speak again, and the first words he
utters are this song. Zechariah’s song, the Benedictus
(these songs are known by the Latin words that begin them; so benedictus =
blessed) has two parts: in the first, he remembers the promise God made, to
send a savior, to save us from our enemies like the prophets told us, to keep
the covenant made with Abraham. Then he starts to speak to his child, John, whom
we will know as the Baptizer, and he switches to future tense, telling his
child what he has been born for: to go before the Lord, to prepare the way, to
forgive sins, to announce the way of the Lord. These, too, are talked about by
the prophets, but now one is born who will do what the prophets foretold. Most new parents think about their baby
learning to roll over and crawl, but Zechariah has big plans for his son.
What I really like about these
songs, this tradition, is how big the picture is they paint. This birth
is a moment in time, but it pulls together the promises of the ages, all the
way back to Abraham; and looks to the future, when God, always active in the
world, will fulfill those promises, again and again. And I love the daring with
which both Mary and Zechariah envision that future: they get very specific
about what salvation looks like. The hungry are fed, the lowly are lifted up, the
people are forgiven, redeemed, they will serve God without fear, God’s light
will shine on all who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and we will be guided
into peace. When I look around the world, I see that we need some of that, and
right now!
We know that God gives us something
to sing about, every single day—just a moment some days, but God is present
among us. God does fantastic things in this world that needs more “fantastic”.
Luke reminds us that people are the way God does these things—Mary,
willing to carry the son of God in her own body. Elizabeth, wanting to be
pregnant even late in life. Zechariah, speechless from this wonder but very
articulate about what God is doing in this son. They remember what God has
done, so they can clearly see what God will do. And also with us—we
remember what God has done, in our lives and in the world around us. Times when we were hungry and someone fed us;
times when we fed someone in need. Times when we were in darkness and someone
lit a candle; times when our light shone for another. Times when we were
speechless at the wonder of God, and times we couldn’t help talking about what
God is doing. One of the “reasons” for Jesus is so that God could be tangible, accessible
in a way God hadn’t been before. We are those bodies and minds that are
recognizable to others, many of whom are not looking for God and so will never
see God. But they do see us and know us. Telling this story isn’t a
matter of liking to meet people, or not; or wanting to be an evangelist, or
not. We are part of something bigger, past, future, and present. God is at
work, right here and right now—the savior has come! Let’s find our story, our
song, our speech, our service—our own ways of getting the message out. May our
lives be an overture, giving a hint of what is yet to come in this life with God. Amen.
Thanks to Mark Alan Powell for the image of “overture” and
the description of the liturgical hymns in Luke 1-2.
Powell, Mark Alan. Fortress Introduction to the Gospels. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998.
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