We Interrupt Your Slumber For This Important Announcement

We Interrupt Your Slumber for this Important Announcement!

Luke 1:67-80

It had been a long time since Israel had heard the voice of God speaking through one of His prophets. It had been 400 years since Malachi, the last of the prophets had spoken. This prophet had spoken of a restoration of Israel. A messenger would come to announce this new restoration. But Israel waited and waited. The voice of God had been silent. Was God dead? Even in Malachi’s day, the voice of God was rare. Ezra and Nehemiah are centered around Yahweh and his covenant, but nowhere is there an oracle. You can see the hand of God at work, but God is vocally silent. You can see the same in Esther, where God isn’t even mentioned.

The voice of God had seemed to have gone silent before. It seemed to go silent when the children of Israel were in Egypt for 400 years until Yahweh came to Moses at the burning bush and there announced to him that He had heard the cries of His people in Egyptian bondage. Then again it fell mostly silent during the time of the judges. The light in the tabernacle was about to go out and it is said that the voice of Yahweh was rare in those days. But just at the time all seemed lost and anarchy was the rule, the voice of God came of Samuel. Samuel was called to be the voice of Yahweh. The situation was the same in the days of Zechariah. There was talk about Yahweh, but Yahweh Himself was silent.

The words that were spoken by Zechariah was the first public oracle from Yahweh through the prophetic voice in 400 years. When the angel came to Zachariah when he was burning incense to announce that he and Elizabeth were to have a child in old age, he did not believe the message and was struck dumb. Everyone saw that Zachariah had had a vision, but the voice of Yahweh was not heard. And Mary had spoken the oracles of God in the Magnificat earlier, but that was in private to Elizabeth. That is interesting in itself, that it was by the mouth of a woman filled with the Holy Spirit speaking to another woman filled with the Holy Spirit that the long silence of the oracle of God was ended. But the public voice of Yahweh waited to this day when John the Baptist was born.

Zachariah’s responsibility was to name the child. This was important as it was the man’s declaration that he was the father of the child and was assuming responsibility for his care. But he could not speak. His next of kin tried to speak for him and name the child after him or one of his relatives as was the custom. However, Elizabeth strongly objected and said that his name was to be called John. Finally Zachariah asks for a writing tablet and writes: “His name is John.” It is at the time his tongue is loosed.

Zachariah had been silent for nine months, just as it seemed that the voice of Yahweh had been silent. It says that He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Why the lectionary does not include verse 67 is totally beyond me. It shows that the firstfruits of his new-found voice was to speak the Word of Yahweh. The prophets of old had not spoken their opinions about God, but through the same Holy Spirit had spoken the words of Yahweh.

The prophetic oracle was usually framed in Hebrew poetry. Luke has done a wonderful job preserving this poetry in his translation of words which were probably spoken in Aramaic or Hebrew. God’s voice is not only powerful but is beautiful as well. The translators of the King James were aware of this poetic element of the speech of Yahweh and strove to make the English translation preserve this sense of beauty. Unfortunately, many modern translations reduce this poetry to ordinary prose which reduces the majesty of the prophetic voice. Yahweh was speaking, and all who heard it knew it, not by some sort of halo or visible manifestation on Zachariah, but rather by the beautiful words which He spoke which set it apart from common speech or opinion.

The first words which come out of His mouth are: “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel.” This is different than our prayer in which we ask God to bless us. It is the assertion that God is to be blessed for who He is and then for what He has done. The fact that John is speaking in the third person and not delivering the oracle from Yahweh in the first person does not reduce the fact that it is Yahweh who has inspired this speech.