The Difference A Child Maakes: Zechariah Discovers Hope

Good morning. My name is Zechariah. I understand from your pastor that you observe this day as the Second Sunday in Advent and that you are preparing yourselves for the birth of the Messiah. Well, I was there when God was first preparing Israel for the Messiah. And so your pastor asked me to tell you about what things were like just before he was born. I enjoy talking to your pastor. He and I see a lot of things alike.

I have to say I’m a bit overwhelmed by just being dropped into your world. It’s so cold here. And last night I looked out at this street, and it’s so smooth and clean and wide, and these incredible bright lights came flying down the street. Your pastor explained to me that’s called a car and you can ride around in them with windows closed so you don’t feel the cold. But it was going so fast. Your pastor said that at the speed it was going it could probably go 25 miles in just an hour. That’s dangerous. I wouldn’t travel so fast if I were you. But there is one thing I really like about your world. These eye things come in awful handy for old eyes.

Well, I’m here to tell you my story. In those days I lived in a small village in the hills of Judea, not far from Jerusalem. Most of the time I lived at home, tending a few grape vines and olive trees and a small flock of sheep. But, because I am a descendant of Aaron, I was a priest by birth. That meant that I had to go to the temple for each of the high holy days to assist people in presenting their sacrifices to God. And besides the high holy days, twice a year my turn would come up to serve for a week in the temple.

I suppose that life was pretty good in a lot of ways. It was an honor to be a priest. God blessed me with a fine woman as my wife, Elizabeth. We shared the same faith together and were very careful to observe all the laws and customs of our people. She was a wonderful partner.

We weren’t rich, but with the food we raised for ourselves and the priest’s share of the sacrifices from when I worked in the temple, we were comfortable.

Since the Romans had set up Herod as king, he had built up the country quite a bit and most everybody was more prosperous than their grandparents had been. The most exciting thing was that Herod was building a grand, new temple for us where we could worship God. He started when I was a boy and every time I went to Jerusalem I would watch as it took shape. That was exciting!

I shouldn’t have been ungrateful for these blessings. But I have to say that I was often sad in those days. Sure, everyone was excited that King Herod was rebuilding the temple. He even went there to worship a few times. But we all knew he was no King David. He had no love for God. He had no care for God’s people. He only wanted power. He would worship any god any time that he felt it would give him more power over people.

And when I read about my ancestors and the glory of their worship, I would nearly cry for what we had done to ourselves. You see, God once did great things among our people. He made a covenant with our people to bless us above all nations on earth. He gave us his commandments and his ordinances to live by. He gave us the beautiful temple in which to worship him. He gave us priests and prophets to guide us. We had peace all around.

But we squandered it all. We lost it. We broke God’s covenant. The beautiful first temple was destroyed. We lost our national freedom. We lost our unity in serving God. Our worship was corrupted. Israel was only a shadow of what we had been when we had God’s blessing. I hope you are all reading the story of our mistakes from what you call the Old Testament. Don’t ever take God’s blessings for granted. Don’t ever take God’s blessings for granted.

All that happened a long time ago. By the time I was born it had been nearly 400 years since God had spoken through a prophet. Where was God? We were poor. We were discouraged. Some people gave up on God altogether. I loved to serve in the temple, but sometimes it broke my heart as right in the temple the other priests took advantage of the people. When there was an animal sacrifice, there were certain parts of the meat that were dedicated to God and a generous part for the priest. But they stole God’s portion, right there in the temple. How could God bless Israel when such things were going on?