The Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 18

ZACHARIAS' JOURNEY

Luke 1:5-25; 57-79

Today, we see the Journey taken by Zacharias, who was the father of John the Baptist. Now, typically, when we think of taking a journey, we imagine the journey to start with movement. Zacharias, however, starts his journey with stalling, and by this stalling, he learns a valuable lesson that we can all benefit from. Let’s take a look.

In Luke 1:5-25, we see that Zacharias, a priest, is chosen to go to the temple to burn incense to the Lord. Luke tells us in verse 11 that, while he is in the Holy of Holies, he is visited by an angel of the Lord, who explains to him that his wife, Elizabeth, will have a child, and that he is to name him John (later to be known as John the Baptist, the one who prepared the heart of the Jews for the Lord). When Zacharias hears this word from the Lord, he immediately starts to throw out questions for the angel, questioning the validity of the angel’s statement, explaining to the angel that he and his wife are “well advanced in years” in years, and that his wife is barren… Do you see what he is doing? Talking, questioning, talking, stalling, and not moving. He is doing what we often times do when we hear from God: start asking questions, wanting to know all of the details before we move, instead of just stepping out in faith and taking the journey. And we see that God punishes this stalling by giving Zacharias a very precious gift…yes, I said a gift—the gift of silence!

After Zacharias' speech is taken away, he no longer has the ability to ask questions, probe for more details, or stall any longer by talking. The only thing that he can now do is to stop talking and start walking! How many times have we not believed God’s Word because we have “questions”, or because we need more details for it to make sense in our minds? How many times have we gone to prayer with a list of things to pray about and just spend the whole time talking instead of listening to God? Would we not learn more if we would just shut up and listen? Zacharias sure learned a lot in his silence! He had nine whole months of silence when he could do nothing but listen to God, and ponder His words. I’m sure this was an uphill struggle, since it would be difficult to not have the ability to ask questions or to voice his own opinions. He just had to believe and keep walking. We see this journey reach it highest point in Luke 1:57-66 when, after Elizabeth gives birth, Zacharias' relatives are debating (i.e. talking, talking, talking) about what to name the child. Zacharias ends all of this debating by making the loudest statement of all, yet does not utter a word. He simply writes on a piece of paper: His name is John! The Scripture then tells us that “immediately his tongue was loosed, and he spoke, praising God”! How blessed are the words of praise to our Lord!

When we find ourselves questioning God and idly speaking, remember the lesson of Zacharias: stop talking and start walking—in faith! Then our speech will be the words of praise to our precious Lord!

~ Eric Frantz