Sunrise from above

“What Will This Child Be?”

(Luke 1:57-80, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, Dec. 23, 2007)

Luke 1:57-80 ⁵⁷ Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. ⁵⁸ And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. ⁵⁹ And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, ⁶⁰ but his mother answered, "No; he shall be called John." ⁶¹ And they said to her, "None of your relatives is called by this name." ⁶² And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. ⁶³ And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, "His name is John." And they all wondered. ⁶⁴ And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. ⁶⁵ And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, ⁶⁶ and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, "What then will this child be?" For the hand of the Lord was with him. ⁶⁷ And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, ⁶⁸ "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people ⁶⁹ and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, ⁷⁰ as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, ⁷¹ that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; ⁷² to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, ⁷³ the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us ⁷⁴ that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. ⁷⁶ And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, ⁷⁷ to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high ⁷⁹ to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." ⁸⁰ And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

Introduction – Who is this coming King?

God had been preparing His people for the coming of Jesus Christ for centuries upon centuries. From the opening pages of the Bible, the Lord had announced the coming of “the seed of the woman,” the descendant of Eve who would overturn the work of that serpent, the devil. Through a great many signs and through the words and deeds of so many prophets, priests, and kings the Lord had already prepared the way for the birth of His Son. Yet the actual coming of the Messiah was of course the most important event known to man, and there was a need for one final forerunner. His name was John.

Elizabeth gives birth (57-58)

John, known to us as John the Baptist, would announce the coming of the ultimate miracle baby, yet his own birth was also a miracle, and a great mercy of God to his mother Elizabeth. That’s what all the neighbors and relatives said. Elizabeth had never been able to conceive, and now she was an older woman, beyond the age of child-bearing. The birth of this boy is an amazing fact. The Lord had shown great mercy to Elizabeth, and that’s enough of a reason to celebrate, but is there more mercy here than the kindness of God to Elizabeth and Zechariah in the Lord’s provision of a child for them? Is there something here for us?

Zechariah spoke (59-66)

The circumcision of the baby was a public event. The neighbors have already decided on a name for the boy. There is no evidence that it was customary for friends and extended family to name a child for the parents. Also it was not customary for parents to wait until the day of circumcision to name a baby. The name that both parents knew months before (through the words of an angel) has apparently been withheld from the others until this point of his public reception as child of the covenant. Elizabeth boldly says, “He shall be called John.” Back when the angel visited Zechariah, he was given a sign that this miracle gift of a child would take place: Zechariah was told that He would not be able to speak. Now that the boy has come, his father asks for a writing tablet. “John is his name.” Two things to notice in the Greek here: 1) The name “John” appears first in an emphatic position. 2) Zechariah does not say, “His name will be John.” He says, “John IS his name.”

The people wondered about all of this. We know that the boy’s name is John because of the instruction from an angel. The angel did not come up with the name, but only announced it, since God’s angels deliver messages that originate from God. God named this child John. There must have been a reason for the name. The name John has something to do with a “gift” and also with God as the giver. When John began his public ministry years later, he would draw attention to the sin problem in Israel, but the fundamental purpose of His life, and the reason that he even preached about sin, was to point to the wonderful gift of a savior who rescues us from sin and death.

At the revealing of this name John, the mouth of this new father is suddenly opened, another sign of something wonderful from the Lord. He immediately spoke words about God, blessing the Lord. The people were amazed by what they heard and saw that day, and they knew that this had something to do with this special baby, John. From before his conception, the hand of the Lord was with Him as the final forerunner of the Savior of the world, but what is the answer to the wonder of the public that day in the hill country of Judea? What is all this about? What will this child be?

A Horn of Salvation (67-75)

John is too young to speak for himself at present. His father, filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks inspired words from God. His words are not first about John, but about the Savior. Jesus is “the horn of salvation” from the house of King David. The horn was a symbol of power in the ancient world, and particularly the power of a king. If you combine this with the idea of salvation, you have some important information about the meaning of the coming of Jesus Christ. He is the powerful answer to the problem of sin, a mighty force of the grace of God.

Zechariah also speaks of redemption. Redemption often involves the rescue of prisoners or slaves by purchase. Through Jesus, God Himself would visit his people and buy them back from the slavery of sin. Our Lord would defeat enemies much more frightening than the old adversaries of Egypt or Assyria. Jesus would defeat evil, and the prince of evil, that serpent of old. Zechariah is indicating that the coming One will be the long-expected seed of the woman, who will deal decisively with evil, crushing the very root of it. This would be the fulfillment of God’s great promise to Abraham. By the Spirit of God a great people (the spiritual descendants of Abraham) will serve the Lord of grace in holiness and righteousness forever. The redemption He will accomplish will involve a price. No longer will the blood of ceremonial lambs put on the doorposts of covenant homes accomplish the task of redemption. That picture was adequate in the days of Moses, but the coming of Jesus is always about more than symbolism. In Him we have the genuine article. The true cost of redemption is paid in the blood of the Messiah.

The Prophet of the Most High (76-80)

Zechariah now speaks of his son John in the final verses of this chapter. This child will be called the prophet of the Lord Most High. We would expect that of any true prophet. The Lord is the source of the message and His prophets are the messengers, but Zechariah is saying more than this. He is saying that John will “go before the Lord.” John will announce someone who is coming after him, and the one coming after him will be the Lord. John will prepare the way of the Lord. The blood that actually atones for our sin will be more than the blood of a great prophet or King – more than the death of an Elijah or a Josiah. The blood that rescues us will be the blood of the Son of the Most High. His death will bring the actual forgiveness of sins through the tender mercy of God.

John will be like the first glimpse of light after a very long, dark night. He will announce the coming of the sunrise. Sometime last winter I went out early in the morning with our two visitors from Ukraine to show them a beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean. It was one of those mornings that keep you guessing as to where the sun will actually burst forth over the broad arc of the horizon. There were enough clouds that it was not immediately clear where the sun itself would rise. We could see that the light was coming, but we had to wait for the bright and beautiful sphere at the water’s edge to appear through the cloud cover. John the Baptist was the light of the coming sunrise that tells you that the time is right now, and that the place is right here. He was not the sun itself.

There were people in Israel who were looking for the sunrise, but they were looking in the wrong places and they were looking for a different kind of Savior. The true sunrise of heaven was just about to make His great visit to earth, “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Long before Christ was born, many careful observers noted the amazingly regular annual pattern of the sunrise and sunset. Two days ago was the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. From that point on, though the sun still rises later in the morning into the early days of January, since it has already started to set later in the day since about December 10^th, the end result is that between about December 17^th and December 26^th the time between the sunrise and the sunset reaches its annual low point in our latitude, yielding the shortest days of the year, approximately 9 hours and 1 minute. From this point forward we can expect more hours of light every day.

This is probably more information than you wanted to know this morning about the sun, but since the text speaks of coming of the Lord using the analogy of a sunrise, we ought to consider this amazing display of God in the heavens; that at a particular point, in small degrees perhaps, but in a predictable and decisive way, the light takes over. The birth of the Lord is something like that. Many would not have noticed, but the horn of victory had come. John would have the privilege of announcing that best of all sunrises. The light has dawned for us in Jesus Christ.

The coming of Christ as our strong redeemer was an expression of God’s tender mercy toward us. His was a gift so important that it demanded one final forerunner to prepare the way for the King. The great gift of Jesus Christ has decisively resulted in the defeat of darkness and sin. With the solid expectation that comes through faith, let us follow the Light, and eagerly seek the final culmination of God’s covenant promises in the Lord’s second coming.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. Why did the neighbors say that the coming of John was a great mercy?

2. What made them suspect that there was something special about the birth of John?

3. What do we learn about Jesus from the words of Zechariah?

4. What do we learn about John from the words of Zechariah?