The Questions of Christmas (1)
The Question of Zechariah:
How Can I Be Sure?
Scripture Reading: Luke 1:5-25
A great philosopher once said,
“Somewhere deep below the surface, the story of our lives as human beings is one long, hopeful quest for certainty.”
That philosopher’s name . . . is Bob Hostetler.
Good morning. I’m Bob Hostetler, and I made up that quote, because I was sure some wise person had said something like that, but I couldn’t find it! So, as a man who makes his living writing books and articles, I thought, if I can’t find a quote that says what I believe, I’ll make one up. And so I did.
Let me give it to you again:
“Somewhere deep below the surface, the story of our lives as human beings is one long, hopeful quest for certainty.”
I thoroughly believe that to be true.
We all want to know
that there are some things we can know.
We all long for certainty in life;
we crave some assurance that the things we’ve been told are true,
that the things we believe are real;
we long to say, in the words of the Jars of Clay
song, Liquid, “This is the one thing,
the one thing that I know. . . .”
or, for you Baby Boomers, as the group Spandau
Ballet sang, “I know this much is true. . . .”
And we are not alone in that desire.
This morning at Cobblestone Community Church we begin a new four-week series of messages from the Bible, entitled “The Questions of Christmas.” And through the course of those four messages, we’re going to encounter some of the most basic,
most searching,
most revealing
questions that any human being has ever asked.
So, if you would, please turn in your Bible to the Gospel of Luke, the 3rd book of the New Testament
—Matthew, Mark, LUKE—
Luke, chapter one,
and we’re going to meet a man named Zechariah, and discuss the question he asked,
a question that has been a part of the Christmas story for two thousand years now . . .
Now, let me pause briefly here to say,
if you worship here regularly, I encourage you to get in the habit of bringing your Bible with you so you can read for yourself
with your own eyes
from your own Bible
what’s being taught up here at the front.
If you’re here without a Bible of your own this morning, please feel free to use on of the copies we provide for you in the center of each table.
And if you don’t own a Bible of your own, please take one of ours home with you. . .
free of charge,
no strings attached,
no obligation,
no money down,
no interest charge,
no payments—you get the idea.
So, where was I?
Oh, yes, that’s right,
Luke, chapter one,
It’s on page ___ if you’re reading from one of the
table Bibles today . . .
And our study of God’s Word this morning will extend from the fifth verse of that chapter through the 25th. So I invite you to follow along with me in your Bible as I read aloud from mine, beginning at Luke 1:5:
In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. Both of them were upright in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren; and they were both well on in years.
Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.
Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
Zechariah asked the angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well on in years."
The angel answered, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time."
Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.
When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. "The Lord has done this for me," she said. "In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people."
Now, I know that’s a rather long passage, but did you catch the question of Zechariah? It was in verse 18. He asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this?”
Now, I want to be sure you catch the full impact of what’s going on here. Get this:
In this preamble—or “prequel”—to the Christmas story, Zechariah the priest was carrying out his sacred duties in the Temple, when suddenly an angel appeared just a few feet away, and spoke to him in his own language, assuring him that his elderly wife would give birth to a son, who would be the forerunner of the Messiah who was to come.
And Zechariah looked at the angel,
listened to the angel,
and then responded,
“How can I be sure?”
What a hoot!
I think that’s hilarious!
Most of us figure,
“God, if you would just show me a sign,
send me an angel,
something like that,
I’ll never doubt you again!”
But here’s ol’ Zechariah—
when an angel appears to him,
he looks at the angel,
hears what the angel has to say,
chews his Wrigley’s Spearmint gum for a few seconds, and says, “How can I be sure?”
And you know what?
If you read your Bible, you’ll find out
that’s pretty much how it seems to work.
Remember Abraham? God appeared to Abraham, who was childless in his old age, and promised that his descendants would be as numberless as the sands on the seashore. And Abraham answered, “O Soveriegn Lord, how can I know?” (Genesis 15:8).
Remember Gideon? When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon under the oak tree in Ophrah, and promised that God would use him to deliver the Israelites from their Midianite oppressors, Gideon said, “Give me a sign!” (Judges 6:17).
So we shouldn’t be surprised that,
when an angel appears to Zechariah and tells him some “wild and crazy things,”
that he should ask, “How can I be sure?”
That’s just a reflection of what all of us want.
We want certainty,
we want assurance,
we want to know
that there are some things we can know.
And you wanna know something else?
If you read your Bible, you’ll also find out
that time after time after time,
God supplies the certainty
his children ask for. . .
Not enough to make faith unnecessary,
but enough to make it more than possible.
But how can we be sure?
Can we have any assurance that these things we
read in the Christmas story are really true?
Do we really have grounds to believe that, as the Bible says, God became a man and lived among us?
There is. Because just as he did for Zechariah, God has provided us with an answer to the question, “How can I be sure?” And he has done it in several ways. First, he has done it in . . .
1. The Fulfillment of Messianic Prophecy
Imagine agreeing over the phone to meet a distant business acquaintance—someone you’ve never met in person—at a large business convention.
“How will I know you?” you might say.
“Well,” your associate might suggest, “I’ll be carrying a briefcase.”
“All right,” you reply, then think better of it. “There will probably be a lot of people carrying briefcases. Not everyone, but a lot. What color is it?”
“Black.”
“That might narrow it down some,” you say, “but not enough.”
“I’m a redhead,” your associate offers.
“That helps,” you answer. Redhead carrying a black briefcase. Still might not be specific enough. “What will you be wearing?”
Your friend says, “A brown blazer. How’s that?”
“Okay,” you say, “But just to be sure, can you wear red tennis shoes?”
“Very funny,” your friend answers. “I’ll just make sure I have a name tag on my blazer with my name in big bold letters.”
“That should do it,” you answer. “I should be able to recognize you from a distance, and your name on the tag will seal it.”
Now imagine God, several millennia ago, devising the plan to send his only Son to earth to be born as a human infant.
If we could have spoken down the corridors of time, we might have asked, “How can we be sure? How will we know him? How will we recognize him as the Eternal, Incarnate Son of God?”
God might have responded, “I will cause him to be born as a Jew, a descendant of Abraham” (Genesis 22:18, Galatians 3:16).
“But,” we might have protested, “Abraham’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars!”
“Then I will narrow it down to only half of Abraham’s lineage, and make him a descendant of Isaac, not Ishmael” (Genesis 21:12; Luke 3:23, 34).
“That will help, but isn’t that still an awful lot of people?”
“Let him be born from Jacob’s line, then, eliminating half of Isaac’s lineage” (Numbers 24:17, Luke 3:23, 34).
“But—”
“I will be more specific. Jacob will have twelve sons; I will bring forth the Messiah from the tribe of Judah” (Genesis 49:10, Luke 3:23, 33).
“Won’t that still be a lot of people? We still may not recognize him when he comes.”
“Okay. Look for him in the family line of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1, Luke 3:23, 32).
“All right, that’s helpful, but—”
“And from the house and lineage of Jesse’s youngest son, David” (Jeremiah 23:5, Luke 3:23, 31).
“Still, that could amount to quite a few people,” we might have objected.
And God could have answered, “Then I will tell you where he will be born: Bethlehem, a tiny town in the area called Judah” (Micah 5:2, Matthew 2:1).
“Can you tell us when?”
“During a time of great and bitter weeping, when mothers are crying over the slaughter of their innocent children” (Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:16).
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to have someone announce his coming?”
“He will be preceded by a messenger, who will prepare the way and announce his advent” (Isaiah 40:3, Matthew 3:1, 2).
“Still, Lord, there might be many people who claim to be the Messiah from time to time. How will we know which one is ‘the Lord’s Messiah?’” (Luke 2:26, NLT).
“He will begin his ministry in Galilee (Isaiah 9:1, Matthew 4:12-17); he will teach in parables (Psalm 78:2, Matthew 13:34-35), and perform many miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6, Matthew 9:35).”
“Okay. . .”
“Oh,” God might say, “I’m just getting warmed up. He will ride into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9, Luke 19:35-37), and will appear suddenly and forcefully at the temple courts (Malachi 3:1, Matthew 21:2) and zealously ‘clean house’ (Psalm 69:9, John 2:15, 16).”
“Wow! That should make it easier—”
“In one day I will fulfill no less than twenty-nine specific prophecies spoken at least four hundred years earlier about him!
“Even after all that,” God could say, “I will show him to be my Holy One by raising him from the dead (Psalm 16:10, Acts 2:31), causing him to ascend on high (Psalm 68:18, Acts 1:9), and seating him at my right hand in full majesty and authority (Psalm 110:1, Hebrews 1:3).”
That should do it, wouldn’t you think? The fulfillment of more than sixty major messianic prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled in one person, Jesus Christ, all of which were made over four hundred years prior to his birth, goes a long way toward answering Zechariah’s question, “How can I be sure?,” don’t you think?
The fulfillment of one messianic prophecy after another in the birth,
life,
ministry,
death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ
ought to fill us with awe and wonder, and convince even the most skeptical among us that Jesus of Nazareth was—and is—God Incarnate, the One who was and is and is to come.
But that’s not all. Because God has provided us with an answer to the question, “How can I be sure?”in yet another way, and that is in:
2. The Testimony of Jesus’ Miracles
You see, even with the fulfillment of all those messianic prophecies in one man, Jesus Christ, it’s still possible that some of us might be less than thoroughly convinced.
So if we had the chance, we might go to God and say, “I don’t mean to be difficult, God, it’s just that, you know, I think if I were God, I, uh, I would probably want to make it a lot clearer to people that, you know, that this is the Son of God!”
“And how would you do that?” he might answer.
“You know,” we might say—and we could be sure that He really does know— “I would give some sort of sign.”
“Some sort of sign…” He echoes, and even though it sounds like He’s thinking, we realize that He knew the answer long before there was any question. “Do you mean something like a voice from heaven, saying ‘This is my beloved Son; listen to Him?’”
We might well sense what’s coming. “Uh, yeah, I guess so.”
“You mean the sort of thing I did at Jesus’ baptism, when my Spirit descended like a dove from the sky and my voice thundered from heaven, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I love’?”
“Well, yeah,” we might answer.
“Or do you mean when my Son was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, and with their own eyes they saw Him standing with Moses and Elijah, talking with them? Is that what you mean, when I said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’ Is that what you mean?”
“Well, yeah, but that was just Peter, James, and John,” we might protest. “Wouldn’t it be better to do that kind of thing in front of more people?”
A slight pause. We can’t tell if He’s thinking…or giving us a chance to think. “Hmm,” He says at last. “I see what you mean…something like turning water into wine at a crowded wedding feast, or healing sick people left and right, in town after town, through the length and breadth of the countryside. Is that the sort of thing you mean?
“Or maybe you would bring about a miraculous catch of fish in front of a crowd of people. Or are you talking about healing a demon-possessed man in a crowded synagogue? Or holding a healing clinic in front of an entire town? Or restoring a paralytic in a house that is so crowded his friends have to tear the roof apart and lower him down into the room?”
By now, of course, we’re feeling more than a little sheepish. But God seems to be on a roll, and it doesn’t seem wise to interrupt now.
“If you had planned the coming of the Incarnate Word, you would probably have arranged for Him to raise a widow’s son from the dead in front of a large crowd, wouldn’t you? Or maybe have him feed a crowd of more than four thousand—no, better, five thousand people!
“And if you really wanted to make it possible for people to recognize the one and only Son of God, you would perform signs for people from all over, from every walk of life, wouldn’t you? Like a Canaanite woman, a Roman centurion, a servant of the high priest, a synagogue ruler, people like that, right?
“In fact, you would want to make the signs of His coming so plain and prevalent that His followers would someday be able to point to them and say, ‘These things were not done in a corner!’ Isn’t that true?”
At this, we might manage a feeble nod, but we can’t think of anything to say; we feel a general queasiness coming on.
When God speaks again, His voice is quieter, infused with gentleness and mercy. “Take heart, my child. One reason the news of Jesus Christ has survived for twenty-one centuries is that I heralded His coming—with many miracles, signs, and wonders—in a way that ought to convince anyone who encounters the evidence with an open mind.”
“But some modern people,” we might say, suddenly finding our voice again, “might say that all those miracles are recorded in documents written by Christians, so they shouldn’t be taken seriously.”
“I suppose some people would be happier if I had somehow used a few unbelievers to write the Gospels,” He answers, and we get the sense that He’s being really patient with us. “Don’t you see, my child? Most people who witnessed Jesus’ miracles became believers; and anyway, their accounts should be considered more reliable—not less—because they were convinced because of what they had seen and heard.”
“Yeah…”
“But even so,” He continues, “the Gospel writers are not alone. The first-century Jewish historian Josephus acknowledged that Jesus was ‘a doer of wonderful works.’”
And even his most vehement critics, the Jewish commentators in the Babylonian Talmud, acknowledged his miracles but called them ‘sorcery.’ They could have said, ‘Look here, this Jesus never performed any miracles!’ But they didn’t; they had to explain his miracles somehow, so they they attributed his power to sorcery.”
“I see,” we might answer.
“You’re starting to,” our God might well reply. When He speaks again, His voice is filled with compassion and reassurance, like a verbal arm draping over our shoulders. “My child, I have never left myself without a witness; if you’re willing, you can be sure.”
Now, that conversation with God is largely out of my imagination, but the point is
that if any of us here came into this room
asking the question of Zechariah
— “How can I be sure?” —
it’s possible to leave here
with your question answered . . .
not by me, but by God himself,
as revealed in his Word, the Bible,
AND as revealed by His Spirit
to your individual heart.
So, in the closing moments of this celebration, we’re going to worship together with the help of the worship team, and as we do so, I want to invite each of us prayerfully to consider the claims of Christ on our lives.
If you came here this morning seeking certainty about Jesus the Messiah, he can come to your heart and meet your need, if you’ll just reach out to him in prayer, and there will be counselors up here at the front to help you do that.
If you’re experiencing any struggle,
any uncertainty,
any fear,
in your life right now, we’d love to talk and pray with you about that, too.
But whatever your need,
as we approach God in worship,
feel free to join any one of us in prayer,
or to pray with someone else at your table,
or to seek out a friend,
or to respond in any way that God’s Spirit leads you . . . .
