Jeremy Duncan: I think that often what all of us really fear is that no one is listening to us. And so maybe for Zechariah, it's only after that fear can be confronted and put to bed that he can even begin to move toward the hope that Christmas is then meant to build for us, for the world. This week, we are gonna pick up with Advent the musical part two. Now this name is, of course, a little bit of a fun play on all of the various songs and prayers that are offered to us throughout the Christmas story. Last week, we looked at a song called the Magnificat.
Today is the Benedictus. Next week, the Gloria, and finally, the Nukedimitus before we head into Christmas Eve. And these are all just the fancy Latin names for all the songs or sometimes called the canticles that are offered specifically in the Gospel of Luke as he narrates the Christmas story for us. I think it's a kind of a fun way to think about Christmas. There really is no other holiday that is defined by its music the way that Christmas is.
Whether you grew up harking the Herald Angels or ringing in Rudolph's nose, we all probably have a favorite Christmas song. And last week, Bobby walked us through one of my absolute favorite Christmas songs. One of the most beautiful, the most powerful, and one of the most political songs anywhere in scripture. That is Mary's Magnificat. Now if anyone tries to tell you while you're home for Christmas, it's not the time to get political.
You tell them to take it up with Mary because she did not heed that advice. This song is Mary's words about her soon to be born son. A song that is deeply inspired by, really embedded in the imagination of the Hebrew prophets. Mary sings about God scattering the proud, bringing down rulers from their thrones, sending the rich away empty while the humble are lifted and the hungry fed. It's a manifesto really for the kind of kingdom her son would inaugurate.
And part of the beauty of this song is not just how it pulls thematically from the prophets, but also how it really seems to echo the form of Hebrew poetry. Scholars and pastors and faithful students of the Bible have recognized the importance of this song for centuries, which unfortunately sometimes means it kind of has been analyzed to death. But one of the really interesting things is that if you really get into the weeds of the analysis, is you can actually see Hebrew grammatical constructions coming through in the Greek poetry. For example, the opening of Mary's song seems to follow something we call valv consecutive, which is a very distinctive Hebrew syntax. And this construction, the conjunction and is used a lot to indicate that a story is continuing.
Granted, that part's not too strange. We do that in English as well. But the vav constructive or consecutive then flips the verbs in the story to take on the tense of the first verb in the story. So when Mary begins her song and we read, my soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. If you actually go look at Greek, the verb in the second line rejoices should probably be in the past tense.
But the thing is, translators and scholars look at this and they say, oh, we see what she's doing. We flip it to match the first line because we say, she's writing like a Jewish person. She's thinking like a Hebrew prophet. And not only that, she's alluding to Hebrew scriptures, Psalms, and prophets, and Torah throughout her song. And yet what's really beautiful is none of it is a direct quote.
It's all her own creative work. She pulls from the themes and the styles. She pulls it all together, and I think that's why Bobby nailed it last week when she asked us, where do we think Jesus got his theology from? Well, that Magnificat is Mary's hope for divine reversal, which is perhaps exactly why God would trust her to care for the Christ who would turn the world upside down. And so, especially at Christmas, maybe we're we're reminded that God came helpless as an infant.
It's probably good for us to remember as well that the Christ child needed more than just someone to keep him warm and well fed. Jesus needed someone to raise him right. And for that, we owe Mary a great deal. Now today, we are gonna move to the second canticle of Advent. As we pick up with the story of Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah.
First though, let's pray. God of coming love, giver of glorious, simple, and unexpected gifts. As we walk through this season of waiting together, anticipating the coming of Jesus in the stark simple stable of Bethlehem. Might we cast aside our anxiety and busyness for a moment, the pressure to smile, and instead open ourselves to the profound presence of your son with us today. Help us to be quiet enough to hear your voice, and get eager enough to catch every word of grace that you speak.
For those of us who have heard this Christmas story one too many times, those who may have lost that childlike sense of anticipation for this season, would you help us to look past the decorations and through our obligations? Help us to reach past hurts or disappointments, even maybe a bit of disenchantment in order to hear the voice of your spirit that calls joy back to the world at Christmas. In the precious name of Jesus whose coming we await. We pray, Amen. Alright.
Today we're gonna look at a song called the Benedictus. And it is the second song in our musical Adventure Through Advent. A song that is offered by Elizabeth's husband, Zechariah. And so we will cover why songs, dark nights, hidden spaces, and finally some renewed hope. But first, let's think about Christmas songs for a second here.
I'm sure you've got a favorite. Maybe we already sung it this morning. All of those memories flooding back in. As I said earlier, some of us grew up parking Herald Angels, others relishing in Rudolph's red nose, but music really is probably for a lot of us, a big part of Christmas. And I think that makes sense.
At its core, Christmas is a pretty simple story. A young couple whose birth plan doesn't go to plan. But then, of course, the implications that story carries are enormous. This child will not only change the world, but forever alter humanity's relationship with the divine. How else do you capture both the simplicity and the magnitude of that story, but with a song.
I mean, I guess you could do a whole series of sermons, but that seems a little contrived. Might as well just sing about it. Well, kidding aside, I do think this is why Christmas has become so deeply intertwined with song over the years. Songs have a way of transporting us somewhere very deep, very quickly. Think about your favorite songs.
Think about your favorite band. Think about why you love Pearl Jam so much. It's probably because you were 13 years old when you went to the store for the very first time on your own to buy a cassette at Music World. And it was their debut album 10, and you've been chasing that high for thirty years since. That's what music does for us.
Right? It transports us back somewhere. And so, this week when we were setting up our Christmas tree at our house and my wife was blasting Christmas songs throughout our home, and my kids were dancing around like fools as they decorated, my hope is that even those songs would slowly become part of their memory of Christmas. And by the way, since we're on this topic of songs, this is also why we have begun putting some thought and effort into writing our own songs here at Commons. Art has this incredible power to transcend time and place, but art also has the ability to reflect the particulars of a time and place.
And so while we are always going to invite songs from the larger church and tradition, particularly at a time like Christmas, we've also already developed two songs in house. We probably sung them faithfully and restore my soul, both beautiful songs. But our intent is that over the coming months and years, you'll see more of our local expression of Christianity reflected in the songs that we write and sing here at Commons for ourselves. This is an incredibly creative community filled with creative people. We write our own sermons.
We create our own kids curriculum. I think it's time we write our own songs as well to reflect our story. So who knows? Maybe Commons the musical will be a series we can do somewhere down the road. Who do I wanna keep in mind?
All that said though, we should probably look at our song for this Sunday. Song of Zechariah called the Benedictus. And to get there, we're gonna roll forward just a couple verses from where we left off with last week's Magnificat. And if you recall, Mary has found out she's pregnant. She has, perhaps fearing the incredulous response of her neighbors, fled her hometown, and she's traveled to her cousin Elizabeth's home, who also happens to be pregnant.
And just a few months later, Jesus' cousin John, you might know him as the Baptist, he is born. And it's on that occasion that his father offers us this song. Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. As he said through his holy prophets of long ago, Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
To show mercy to our ancestors and to be remembered in his holy covenant. The oath he swore to our father Abraham. To rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all of our days. And 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, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. Because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness.
And in the shadow of death, to guide our feet back onto the path of peace. That's Luke one verses 68 through 79. Yet another song to guide our advent preparation this year. But, what's going on with this song? Well, for that we're gonna need to gather up a bit more of the story.
Because just as their son, John the Baptist, would become the forerunner to prepare the way for Jesus, the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth actually begins back before the story of Mary. And I wanna talk about something here. Because there are actually a lot of secondary characters in the Christmas story. Mary's story, of course, is all about her strength and faith. We saw that last week in Bobby's sermon.
Elizabeth's story is really about her welcome and support offered to Mary. Zechariah's story though is largely about his fears. And that's important. Because Christmas is a time of year where maybe the overarching metanarrative of the season can feel a little claustrophobic at times. Everything coming at us, TV and media is telling us to be happy and thankful and present to family, and all of that is beautiful.
It really is. Right up until it isn't. Right? And so to recognize the stories on the edge of Christmas, both stories here in our midst that are not particularly hallmark made, or maybe stories like Elizabeth and Zechariah that are characterized by a lot of struggle and weight. I think all of that is important.
It gives space for our stories to be our stories, to be valued for what they are and not the way that we spin them into gold for each other. If Christmas for you this year means maybe some anxiety or strained relationships, maybe memories of someone you've lost recently. Maybe for you Christmas is just a little bit lonely this year. Perhaps this season is tinged with reminders of things that it's pretty easy to push aside most of the year, but now all of that seems a little bit harder. First of all, I want you to know that there's room for all of that in the Christmas story.
We're gonna see that today in this story. But also, I want you to know there's room for all of that in the way that we move through Advent toward Christmas together. In just over a week, Bobby mentioned it, December 18, right here in this room on the edge of the winter solstice, we will gather for our darkest night service that we do each year. And we do that intentionally to give space to what can feel like a very dark season and to give voice to the light that we know is on its way toward us. Maybe this year has been hard.
Maybe you wouldn't even go that far, but still you just feel the mix of emotions this season brings. What I'd offer is a welcome to come, to listen, to light a candle, to welcome the Christ child to meet you in every part of your advent waiting this year. That's why we do these types of events together as community to give voice to the whole story all the way through. Now in that, I'll admit here I kind of gave away the punchline here. So let's go all the way back to the start of Luke's gospel.
Back to verse five to find out why Zechariah is so sad this Christmas. This is what we read. In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah. Wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. And both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord's commands and decrees blamelessly.
Now, right here from the start, this story is setting us up to have certain expectations around this couple. Zechariah is a priest. He's a Levite. He's a member of the order of Abijan. That means he is a direct descendant of the first high priest of Israel, Aaron.
And not only that, his wife is also a descendant of that same Aaron. Now that's not a rule, by the way. Priests could marry whoever they wanted, but this detail is absolutely here to make us pay attention. This family is religious royalty or at least adjacent. Like, are legit.
All the credentials they've got. In fact, we're even told that they are quote, righteous in the sight of God. They observe all of the Lord's decrees blamelessly. I'm not even sure you can legally claim that scripturally. Paul famously says, no one is righteous.
No, not one. Luke says, well, actually, get a load of these guys over here. Not only are they righteous, they are blameless to boot. And all of this is meant to be hyperbolic. Right?
Like it's an over the top introduction to set the stage for what comes next because in the next verse we read, but they were childless. Because Elizabeth was not able to conceive and they were both very old. Now, before we go any farther, we gotta understand this is the setup for the whole story here. We just came through the story of Sarah and Abraham this fall. And, we just witnessed all of the shenanigans that resulted from that delayed fertility story.
This is a trope in scripture. This assumption culturally that fertility means blessing and God is on your side, and therefore infertility must mean the opposite. A sign of disobedience. And so over and over again, we see the same story showing us that's not the case. That's not how God operates.
That wealth, children, power, whatever thing it is that you think you want, none of that is a direct correlate to your standing before God. It's actually pretty fascinating to think about how many times this one story is told over and over again in scripture. There's Sarah. There's Sarah's daughter-in-law Rebecca. There's Sarah's granddaughter in law Rachel.
There's Samuel's mother Hannah. There's Samson's mother. There's the Shumannite woman in second Kings. Now there's Zechariah and Elizabeth. It's all the same story.
Almost like we need to hear it a few times to let it sink in. By the way, sometimes I'll tell a story probably about my kids and you're probably thinking yourself, I'm pretty sure I've heard that one before. Yeah. I know. I've only got so much material.
And if God can keep recycling the same plot over and over again throughout scripture, maybe there's something to it. So strap in. Yes. Still sadly, I think these kinds of external markers were as much a part of first century imagination as they are today. And so when you're a priest and you serve God professionally and you're married to a woman from the priestly line of Aaron and you check all the boxes, and you are still childless.
There was undoubtedly a stigma that came along with that, a suspicion that you must have done something secret to cause that. In fact, later in the story, when she does become pregnant, Elizabeth will say, in these days God has shown favor to me and taken away my disgrace among the people. Now, that may have been heard a particular way by those standing listening to her. I think as readers, what we're meant to understand is the disgrace never had anything to do with Elizabeth. The disgrace was always the way her neighbors had looked at her.
And our narrator Luke knows all this, which is why he goes out of his way to make sure that we don't jump to any of those unfounded conclusions ourselves. They are righteous in the sight of God. They observe the Lord's commands blamelessly. And sure, this is all the setup for the story. But before we keep going, I do wanna pause here to think on this, to internalize this just a little bit here.
Because maybe for you, you read the story, it's not infertility, that's not your issue. Maybe for you, the sickness or depression or success or lack thereof for what you expected in your life. Please remember, even for the blameless, faith is not a transaction. And so when you struggle, because we all do, this is not because God blames you. That is to misread your story the way that their neighbors misread Elizabeth and Zechariah's story.
This story is about how God is with us in the midst of everything we encounter. So the story continues. Verse eight. Once Zechariah's division was on duty, and he was serving as the priest before God. And, he was chosen by lot according to the custom of the priesthood to go into the temple of the Lord and burn the incense.
And so, when the time came for the burning of the incense, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside, but an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing at the right side of the altar. And when Zechariah saw him, he was startled and gripped with fear. But the angel said, do not be afraid Zechariah. Your prayer has been heard. Now, what's gonna happen here is that the angel is going to explain that Elizabeth and Zechariah are gonna have a baby, and that baby is going to be filled with the spirit of God and go on before the Lord to lead the way for Jesus.
That's what Zechariah's song is all about when he sings. Zechariah, however, is incredulous about all this. First, because he and Elizabeth are very old. But second, I imagine because talking to an angel seems like a fairly uncredible thing to put your stake in. And so he says back to the angel, are you sure?
And the angel says, one, yes, and two, I don't like your tone. And so just for that, you will not be able to speak another word until that baby is born. A bit of a strange story, granted, but I do want to point something out here. This birth is promised, but it's not necessarily miraculous, like not the way that Mary's pregnancy was. So it is amusing to me to imagine that Zechariah had to go home, consummate this promise with his wife without being able to say anything about it.
Charades for foreplay is just kind of funny to me. So I'm gonna write that one down, keep it for later. And with that image perhaps stuck in your mind as we do, I do wanna come back to the angel for a moment in a second. Because I think there's something really important to understand here in what happens to Zechariah between this angelic encounter and when we finally catch up with his tongue untied for the Benedictus. Because the angel said to him, do not be afraid Zechariah.
Your prayer has been heard. One of the decisions here in the NIV translation was to stick a little semicolon between the two phrases. That's fine. There are other options available though. For example, one of my favorite translations right now, the n r s v u e, which stands for updated edition, replaces that semicolon with the word for.
And that's because there is a Greek word there. It's the word deity. And what it means is that these are not two separate thoughts. The second is the result of the first. What that means is that the angel is saying something very specific here, and the angel is not saying, do not be afraid of me.
Now that would be a reasonable assumption. Angels seem to be somewhat terrifying throughout the scriptures. I would certainly be terrified if a large winged man came to speak to me at my workplace. This angel however, terrifying as he might be, doesn't really seem to care if Zechariah is scared of him. The angel is concerned with whether Zechariah is afraid he's been forgotten.
That's what the story is about. That's what the angel is here for. That's the divine vice in the story. The one that says to us, despite all evidence, you have not been forgotten. You're not on your own.
God is always listening. In fact, God is listening to you for you right now. Zechariah, you do not have to be afraid anymore that your prayers have gone unheard. That's what the angel said. And my conviction is that God sees always into the deepest, most hidden parts of who we are, all of us.
Those parts that we rarely share with anyone, Those parts that we are often too afraid to name even for ourselves. Those parts that we all of us take great pains to keep covered up and tucked away out of sight, nobody sees them. And here, if Zechariah and Elizabeth really have been living under this cloud of suspicion, wondering if they could have possibly done something wrong to be childless for this long, then I wonder if even in all of their righteousness, All of that rigorous relentless commitment to the rules, their hyper vigilance against ever being blamed. I wonder if all of that externalized hopeless holiness wasn't at least in part the result of the fact that they had still a lot of internalized shame around cultural expectations. That's what we do.
Right? All of us. When we don't think we measure up, we don't rely on grace, we work ourselves even harder, and sometimes that makes it all worse. And so that is exactly what the messenger of God zeros in on here. You have worked so hard, Zechariah.
You have felt so insecure for so long. You do not need to be afraid that your prayers have gone unheard. I think that often, more than we're afraid for our reputations and more than we're afraid for our relationships, sometimes even more than we're afraid of being hurt all over again, what all of us really fear is that no one is listening to us. And so maybe for Zechariah, it's only after that fear can be confronted and put to bed that he can even begin to move toward the hope that Christmas is then meant to build for us, for the world. Like, I don't know.
Maybe Elizabeth and Zechariah's story feels a little too distant for you. That's fine. Truth is, for a lot of us Christmas is hard for a lot of different reasons. Family is difficult sometimes. Celebrations do surface painful memories.
Sometimes you don't get what you wanted under the tree. What I'm saying is that this story is about the fact that God is present to all the stuff that we think only we know about. And sometimes, what we need is to be reminded of that before we can push ourselves to celebrate anything else. Before God wants you to put on a brave face at Christmas, before God expects you to sing a song like the Benedictus, what God really wants is for you to know that God is listening to you. God knows your story, and God is there.
And here's why all of that is important, because I think it's only from that kind of place of safety and welcome, this growing conviction that God is not just powerful, but good. I think it's from that place that Zechariah can then begin to slowly shift his gaze from the limitations that have felt like they humbled him toward the kind of hope that he begins to share for all of us. You see, to sing of salvation from those who hate, or rescue and the ability to serve without fear, to believe that your child will prepare the way for salvation, and to name God, shining light on those living in darkness and death, or guiding our feet back onto the path of peace. Before any of us could ever think anything like that, I think we need, like Zechariah, to be able to trust that God is for us as well. And I really do think this is why a story like Christmas wants to root itself in our songs.
Because sometimes before we can ever believe big stories, we have to learn how to trust in small ones. And rhythms of hope that take up residence within us in songs that we sing before we can even believe in salvation. If you've ever had a sense that you are supposed to celebrate that God is for us, for the world at Christmas, and yet you've struggled to believe that God is for you this Christmas? Maybe you wanted to sing a song like the Benedictus with Zechariah. Maybe you wanna join in on all the songs that everyone else sings at this time of year, but you find that hard.
My prayer is that you would first hear the voice of God reminding you not to be afraid because you are not forgotten either. And that's where Christmas starts. Not in the salvation of the world, but in the birth of a little boy. In the smallest story that comes to find us first and then grows into what we hope for each other. Let's pray.
God, this Christmas, we want to believe big things, and we want a hope that is big enough for this whole world. And yet, we know in the midst of that that first we have to have a sense that you care for us as people and individuals who are going through our own things in our own time, trusting that we have not been forgotten, and that you continue to listen to us even now. Now, we pray that your spirit would be near to each of us just as we need this week so that that conviction could slowly build like a snowball into something big enough to encapsulate the entire world. The way that peace is being born even right now in us and in your creation. In the precious name of the one we await, we pray.
Amen. Hey, Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website, commons.church, for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community.
You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week.
We'll talk to you soon.