Prepared For Christmas

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"And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Luke 1:17

Main Readings: Luke 7:18-50 & Luke 1:1-38

Supporting Readings: Psalm 130 & 1 Samuel 1

Let me ask you a question: Has Christmas gripped you yet this year?

Christmas is hard to ignore, isn’t it?

Every year seems to be a pledge to self not to let December get too out of hand. And then before you know it, the diary’s full, the pressure’s on, and the time for Jesus at Christmas is all gobbled up by a thousand demands for your attention.

And that’s why I like to start Christmas sermon series early.

I want to get your attention just at the point that our culture is vying for it most aggressively – and I want to speak into it the beauty of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want our minds and your hearts to be filled up with the truth about Christmas, as we move yet another week deeper into this season.

Here we are – it’s the first Sunday in December and we’ve got open bibles in our laps. That’s good! May God speak real Christmas to us through his word.

And with that open bible, we’re starting with the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist. Which is where Luke starts his gospel – with, what can only be described, as a lot of detail!

Why start the gospel account with John and not Jesus? Matthew, Mark and John start with Jesus.

Why does Luke start with such a detailed account of John’s birth and not Jesus’ birth?

And the answer is, to set us up for Jesus. So that when we get to the announcement of Jesus’ birth next week, we will be well prepared to receive it.

And since Luke thought it wise to prepare his readers for the arrival of Jesus into the world, using John’s birth story, I’m going to do the same this morning.

My aim is to get every one of our hearts prepared for Christmas this morning.

And if the Holy Spirit is pleased to do it, then it might change Christmas for us this year.

It might transform Christmas into an experience of encountering ‘God with Us’ in Jesus. And all that means for us – for our futures, for our relationships, and for our joy this Christmas.

A few weeks ago, I went to the opticians and was told that my vision had got substantially worse. Not something you want to hear, but something you absolutely know.

Nothing to worry about apparently, but I probably shouldn’t drive home without glasses!

Not being a great fan of glasses, I decided to give contact lenses a go. Which after, what seemed like a dangerously long wait, I received this week.

Now they are hard things to get into your eyes. If you’ve never done it before, you won’t know. So, you’ll have to take my word for it.

But boy are they effective! No one would know you had them in, and yet you can see everything with the kind of clarity you once knew, and now is gone!

What a wonderful thing, to be able to look through a lens and see clearly!

Well, that’s what John is for us this morning. He is a lens through which Luke is going to show us Jesus. He is the lens that Luke uses to prepare us for the reality of Christmas.

One day – and I often look forward to the day – I will get new lens for my eyes from God. And I won’t have to put them in! They will just be forever perfect and so will my vision. What a day that will be!

And just like that, John is only a temporary lens. Next week we’ll move closer to Jesus. And the week after that closer again, until we can see him with face-to-face clarity as it were. But for this morning we’re looking at Jesus through the lens of John.

What I want to share with you is five ways to prepare for Jesus through John. And to help you remember them, I’ve got them all starting with ‘R’.

The first is Recognise the season we’re in.

The second is Receive the good news.

The third is Respond in faith.

The fourth is Rest on the promise.

And the fifth is Rejoice at the miracle.

And you may have noticed that all the ‘R’s are verbs or doing words. I’m calling on you this week to prepare for Christmas by Recognising, Receiving, Responding, Resting and Rejoicing.

Which means that some intentional mind and heart work is necessary to rightly receive Christmas.

And I hope to show you from this passage that these verbs are present here in the passage in some form, and that I’m not just making it up.

My prayer is that, seeing that they are here will encourage you to have confidence to take these five ‘R’s on board and run with them in preparation for Christmas.

So that’s my plan set out. Prepare for Christmas this way – I really believe in it; and I really want it for you. I just know your Christmas’ will be all the richer for it.

Last week we were 400 years earlier than we are now.

And that’s because we were in Malachi – who was the last of the Old Testament prophets.

400 years ago, was the last time God spoke to the people!

That’s a long time!

And yet, some of God’s people were still faithfully waiting on him as we open up here in Luke.

Two of those faithful ones were Zechariah the priest and his wife Elizabeth.

Despite knowing nothing but God’s silence the whole of their lives, Luke says that they were ‘righteous in the sight of God’. And this was because, they faithfully continued to do all that God had commanded them to do (v.6).

And as an even deeper expression of their faithfulness to God, they continued to do all that God commanded despite having suffered the tragedy of childlessness. And now, being, as they were, in ‘old age’ Luke says, any hope of being able to conceive, had long since gone.

I suspect you know the challenge of continuing to walk steadfastly with God when he feels distant.

I suspect you know the challenge of continuing to find your delight in him when your life is beset with hardships.

Know then that you’re not alone. That’s what Zechariah and Elizabeth knew too. And they remained faithful to God.

Let that encourage you this morning.

Well, then one day Zechariah goes to work – he’s a priest – and the lot is cast like normal, and his name comes out!

The lot determines that he’s the one today, to go into the temple and burn the incense.

That’s a once in a lifetime privilege – and that day Zechariah got it.

And so, in he goes – this aged man; no children to his name; no word from God, ever.

And as he’s stood at the altar, out of nowhere the angel Gabriel appears.

Nothing like this had happened for over 400 years!

He’s startled and he’s gripped with fear – as you would be if you saw the angel, Gabriel.

But Gabriel stands to the right of the altar, not the left, which is good – because to the right always conveys favour from God, not judgment. So that’s comforting.

And then Gabriel speaks. And he speaks words of comfort to put Zechariah’s mind at ease: ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah, your prayer has been heard’.

No word from God for 400 years and now, at this very moment that you’re chosen by lot to do the most honoured thing a priest can do, God speaks via one of his holy messengers – the angel Gabriel. That’s big!

The word of comfort is, ‘don’t be afraid, God has heard your prayer’.

What had Zechariah been praying for? A child maybe? Doubtful. Not for a long time now, surely. Elizabeth was well past child-bearing age after all.

So, prayer for what? Well, given what Gabriel tells him next, it seems obvious what he’d been praying for: the Messiah.

The prophets of old had promised a deliverer for Israel, and Israel hadn’t heard from God in 400 years. And what’s more, they could do with some deliverance!

So, it’s pretty obvious what Zechariah had been praying – it was the promises of the Old Testament.

For God to deliver them through his Messiah.

And now an angel from God was on the scene, telling Zechariah that his prayer for the Messiah had been heard! That’s big news!

What is God about to do? How loaded is this moment? How pregnant with meaning is it? It’s surely massive!

And since we know that the Messiah came through the promises toIsrael but appeared for our deliverance – which he did – how big is this news for us! It’s massive for us too!

So, the first preparation to make for Christmas is Recognise the season.

Zechariah’s day at work marked a new and profound moment in the history of Israel. And shortly, in the history of the world too.

He was prepared for it because he was faithful to God. He experienced it because he was desirous for the appearing of God’s Messiah.

And that can be us too.

Be faithful to God in this season. And be desirous for the appearing of Jesus in the remembrance and celebration of this advent.

At the end of verse 19 the angel Gabriel calls everything he just told Zechariah, ‘good news’.

Which, if you recall, is the same phrase the angel who appeared to the Shepherds used to describe the birth of Jesus in chapter 2.

So how is the birth of John ‘good news’ and how does it become the lens through which we can see THE Good News of Christmas – namely Jesus?

Well, let’s not miss the fact that as far as Zechariah’s concerned at this point, God has heard his prayer but that’s as far as God’s purposes regarding him go.

But, in fact, that’s not the case. The angel Gabriel delivers news to Zechariah that is beyond the scope of the laws of nature. He says, ‘Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son’.

It’s a sentence that flies directly in the face of verse 7 where Luke records that Elizabeth had not been able to conceive and they were both ‘very old’ by now.

In other words, it’s totally implausible that what the angel Gabriel just said, could come true. It would take a miracle for it to happen.

And yet, Gabriel continues as if exactly what he has said is going to happen. He begins to give a detailed account of God’s plan for this child’s life.

He says to Zechariah, ‘you are to call the child John’. Now wheneverGod told someone what to name a child, it was because that child was a key in his unique plan to redeem people.

Not always a good key, but a key, nonetheless. Not all keys get named like this, but some do – like Isaac for example.

So, we’re meant to know – Zechariah would have known – that John will be used of God in God’s great plan to redeem his people.

And there’s no doubt about how God used him. He is the one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord - who we know is Jesus. And it’s our precious Jesus who goes on to redeem God’s people from their sins.

Gabriel also expects John to be a source of joy not only to his own parents – and you can see how that would be the case for two people who had never been able to have children – but also for many others too.

The angel Gabriel in chapter 2 said to the Shepherds, ‘I bring good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord’.

By John’s name giving, we know he was set apart by God to serve God’s plan to redeem God’s people. John pointed to the redeemer.

And according to the angel, that is both good news and great joy to all the people.

But how is John for the joy of the people? And it is by pointing to the Messiah who redeems God’s people from the sorrow of their sins and translates them into the joy of relationship with God.

Jesus said about John: ‘amongst those born of woman, none is greater’. Which is a sweeping tribute to John. The angel Gabriel says, ‘he will be great in the sight of the Lord’.

So, God and Jesus agree about John. What he came to do, and what he did, was exceptional.

But if he had come pointing to Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg – or even if he had come pointing to Elijah or Moses – he would not have been exceptional.

The thing that makes John exceptional is that he is chosen to point to the exceptional Saviour of the world! That’s why he’s great.

And he was set apart by God to do that.

Jesus said that no one born of woman was greater than John, but then he said this right on the back of it, ‘yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he’.

He didn’t mean that John wouldn’t be in the kingdom of God, he meant that He, himself, had come to launch the kingdom of God in the hearts of God’s people by redeeming them, and John came before that.

In other words, God esteems those whom Jesus has died for greater than he did the one he appointed to come and point to Jesus – namely John.

In God’s estimation, you are greater in God’s estimation than John was when God sent him into the world – that’s how exceptional Jesus is who translated you into God’s kingdom. And how exceptional his redemptive work is. And how precious we are to him in Jesus. Amazing!

John wasn’t the first to be missionally consecrated to God from birth, Samson was too.

And like Samson, John was set apart visibly by God when Gabriel said he was never to take wine or any other fermented drink.

Devoted to God, that was John’s call.

And it was for the purpose of fulfilling his mission to point to Jesus that it was to be so.

God’s not going to allow any mind befuddling drink to stand in the way of a mission this important.

In fact, so important was this mission that God saw fit to fill John with his Spirit even before he was born, Gabriel says.

Such that, John’s ministry would be full of the spirit and power of the greatest Old Testament prophet – the prophet Elijah.

Very effective. But more than that, very self-effacing.

John, like Elijah, was all about drawing attention to God with powerful words and courageous talk, not to himself.

There’s no shying away from the radical message about Jesus in John’s ministry.

He must have sounded ridiculous to most people – heralding the dawning of the Messiah – but that didn’t diminish the zeal and determination John had to point up Jesus.

John was too convinced by Jesus to be cowed by jeers. And that was the spirit of Elijah, and the power that he went in.

The spirit and power that John will minister in, will bring many in Israel back to God, Gabriel says.

And that’s because he went ahead of Jesus who came specifically to accomplish that very thing.

Only Jesus can, in the fullest sense, bring people back to God. John foregrounded that reality in preparation for the execution of the work that needed to be done to accomplish it.

And this is how: The spirit and power that John ministered in, Gabriel promises will turn the ‘hearts of parents to their children’. And will turn the ‘disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous’.

Broken relationships are a chief product of sin you know.

And they reflect the one big broken relationship which has been there since Genesis – that of our broken relationship with God.

And the thing that broke that relationship with God in the first place was disobedience. And so, disobedience is a feature of our lives too.

John’s ministry, by the power of God – not his own power – is going to have the effect of restoring some human relationships, ‘parents to children’. And it’s going to cause some people to reform their behaviour so that they walk in the ‘wisdom of the righteous’.

These effects of John’s ministry are the foretastes of the two radical effects Jesus’ ministry of redemption will have when he comes into the world and goes to the cross.

Jesus will so radically transform his people that he will turn the heart of the Heavenly Father to the children because their sins will be removed, and God’s wrath will be satisfied.

And he will create a new heart in his people so that they hate to disobey God and delight to do his will.

Jesus, to whom John is pointing, has made you right with God so that you can enjoy your Heavenly Father in peace.

And he has radically renovated your heart so that you can serve your Heavenly Father in the new way of the Spirit – the way you were designed to in the first place.

The tangible effects of John’s ministry, then, are the first fruits and the foretastes of the radically life-changing effects of Jesus’ greater and more perfect ministry of redemption.

In short, just like Gabriel says, John’s ministry is designed to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Everything he did and said would be signposting Jesus.

So, as we encounter John in his birth announcement, the idea is not to terminate on John but to follow the signpost that is John, to Jesus.

All of John’s life purpose and ministry, according to Gabriel, is telling us something amount the Messiah and our Saviour, Jesus Christ.

So, the second ‘R’ is Receive the good news.

And I would say, not the good news of John, but the good news of Jesus. That’s what God wanted for us. And, I dare say, it’s what John would tell us this morning, if he were here.

Receive the good news of God’s redemptive plan in Jesus for you.

Receive the good news of great joy to us through Jesus who has taken our, frankly, appalling sin away and given us peace with God.

Receive the greatness of belonging to God’s kingdom through the work of Jesus on your behalf which he could only do by coming into this world of ours.

Receive the good news of return to God and revival for God – God reconciling us to himself and reviving our love for him.

Receive the direction of John pointing us to Jesus. And be prepared for him this Christmas season.

What I really mean by receiving is: in faith responding in your hearts to all that God has done for you in Jesus – and therefore, why Jesus’ birth is so precious to you and so worthy of your attention and worship.

The third ‘R’ is Respond in faith to the birth of Jesus this Christmas.

When Gabriel had said all that he had about John, to Zechariah, Zechariah made a response. He asked the angel, ‘How can I be sure of this?’

And on face value, that’s not a surprising question. After all, there’s the infertility thing with Elizabeth and there’s the age thing with both of them.

However, it is an angel that is making these outlandish promises to Zechariah – a servant of the most high God.

So, the really important question about Zechariah’s response is this: does it spring from a heart that wants to understand, or from a heart that doesn’t believe?

Because that makes a world of difference!

Mary, the mother of Jesus, asked a really similar question of the angel in verse 34. And we know that her question was springing from a heart that wanted to understand more. Not from a disbelieving one.

We know it because the angel gave her more information about how she would be found to be pregnant when she was a virgin.

In the case of Zechariah, we know his question sprung from a place of unbelief because Gabriel’s response to the question was rebuke in the form of a disability – Zechariah was unable to speak for the duration of the pregnancy – and it was chastisement saying, ‘you did not believemy words, which will come true at their appointed time’.

Faith was missing for Zechariah.

Don’t let it be missing for you this Christmas.

Attend to your heart.

Saturate your heart in the gospel narratives about the birth of Jesus.

Saturate your heart in the Old Testament prophetic words that anticipated his appearing hundreds and thousands of years before he came.

Saturate your heart in the New Testament letters that show the purpose for which Jesus came into the world.

Show your soul every good reason to believe in the birth of Jesus for the redemption of your life.

So that, you won’t make the same mistake Zechariah made. Respond in faith to the Christmas story this year.

The fourth ‘R’ is Rest in this truth about Jesus because God’s word cannot fail.

Gabriel comes to Zechariah as a messenger from the most high God to speak God’s words to Zechariah. And Zechariah didn’t believe them.

He should have, but he didn’t.

Gabriel stands – and this is true even now – in the very presence of God, he says.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that angels are ministering spirits like Hebrews says? You should. Gabriel says, ‘there’s an appointed time, Zechariah, when all this will take place’.

The reality is, that if Zechariah had rested in the fact that Gabriel was an angel sent by God, from God, with the words of God, he wouldn’t have doubted about the outcome of Gabriel’s promise.

God’s word about Jesus is firm and sure. He planned Jesus’ arrival into the world, and he planned everything Jesus would do to accomplish his purposes to redeem us for himself.

So, we can rest this Christmas. We can rest in the knowledge that God has seen to all the details of our redemption. We can rest in the finished work of Jesus, started in Bethlehem.

And resting means meditating on, enjoying the reality of, pondering – like Mary did – all these things in our hearts. That’s where rest comes from – delighting in Jesus.

Which leads me on to the final ‘R’ – Rejoice.

Rejoice in the miracle of Jesus’ birth.

Zechariah completed his time of service in silence and then he returned home. And Elizabeth – in her old age – became pregnant, just as Gabriel had said she would.

This is how she responded to that amazing miracle: ‘The Lord has done this for me…in these days he has shown his favour and taken away my disgrace’.

And I think that would be an easy verse to learn this Christmas and a worthy one. Because it applies to every one of us who knows Jesus.

The Lord has done this for me. In these days he has shown me his favour and taken away my disgrace.

And so he has!

My sins he has removed. My disgrace he has turned into delight. The Lord Jesus has done this for me!

Let’s be like Elizabeth this Christmas and rejoice in the miracle of Jesus’ birth and all that means for us!

Recognise, Receive, Respond, Rest and Rejoice this Christmas time – even this week brothers and sisters.