December 2, 2007 Sermon

God Sets the Table
Luke 1:5-25

When Luke wrote the story of Jesus he had to decide where to start. The answer might seem obvious: start the story of anybody with his or her birth. But it turns out the story of Jesus has no beginning or end. John’s gospel begins with evocative poetry that claims Jesus, as the Son of God, has existed since before time began. Mark says nothing about Jesus’ human birth, plunging instead directly into his adult ministry. Matthew chooses to start with Jesus’ genealogy, but then glosses over his birth and boyhood. Luke had a complicated and meaningful choice to make. Where to start in Jesus’ story, and why?

Luke started with the prediction of the birth not of Jesus, but of his cousin John. I believe Luke took this approach in order to teach non-Jewish readers that God had been planning for a very long time to save the world by sending His son to live, die and live again in it. We are non-Jewish readers. We can learn a great deal from how Luke tells the story of Jesus. God planned it. We still live in the midst of the plan. God plans. We respond.

Luke opens with a date stamp: “in the days of Herod, king of Judea.” The New Testament refers to at least four minor kings named Herod; this one, the “king of Judea”, sat on his puny little throne, courtesy of his Roman masters, for nearly 70 years. His reign ended in 4 B.C. (This verse from Luke has helped scholars decide that Jesus was actually born about five years earlier than our system of year numbering would indicate.) Luke next introduces us to Zechariah and Elizabeth, an aging married couple. Both trace their ancestry to Aaron, Moses’ brother. Like his famous forebear, Zechariah serves as a priest. In fact, he works at the high temple in Jerusalem. Luke tells us both were righteous, meaning they carefully observed God’s laws. Yet they have no children. This contradicts Jewish thought of the day, which held that since children were a blessing, childlessness was a punishment from God for sinful living.

Each day the priests “on staff” at the temple decide who will have the privilege of burning incense at the high altar with a little game of chance. Perhaps they throw dice. Perhaps they draw sticks. We do not know exactly how they did it, but Luke tells us Zechariah won the lottery on one particular day. He enters inner circles of the temple, places average Jews—much less Gentiles like us—never saw, and prepares to do his duty. But an angel stops him. The word “angel” means “messenger”; this messenger’s first message matches the opening words of virtually every angel mentioned in the Bible: “Fear not!” Maybe this seems blindingly obvious but we will note it just the same. If a being constantly has to say, “Fear not!” it must be a fearsome being. Zechariah certainly trembled before him.

The messenger continues. He predicts the miraculous birth of a baby boy who will play a critical role in accomplishing God’s purposes. He will be “great before the Lord”. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit from birth. He will inspire mobs of people to turn away from their sins and turn toward obedience to God. He will prepare a people for the Lord. And he will not be Jesus. He will be John—John the Baptist. The angel reveals that Zechariah and his barren old wife Elizabeth will have a son and he tells them to name him John.

How would you respond to such amazing news? Zechariah cannot believe it. We probably would not believe it, either. Often the news we receive is worse than we expected. Often it is about what we anticipated. Rarely do we hear something that blows us away with its wonder and blessing. And when we do, we almost cannot believe it. When a student gets a fat envelope from a college she never thought would accept her, she might not open it right away, fearing that colleges have suddenly started sending rejections, not acceptances, in the big packages. When a man learns the spot on the x-ray was scar tissue, not cancer, he questions whether he can trust the specialist. When an aging childless couple discover they’re expecting, they hide the pregnancy until they can no longer doubt it—or until they cannot hide it any longer.

Zechariah questions the angel. The angel reacts with what reads like anger. “I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God . . . behold, you will be unable to speak until the day these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words.” Sure enough, Zechariah loses his ability to speak. When he goes back out among the crowds he must use hand signals to try to communicate what he has just experienced. Soon enough, however, the message gets out. Elizabeth does conceive. Though she goes into home seclusion for five months, eventually her condition becomes known. Meanwhile, she consoles herself with the fact that she has indeed become pregnant. Luke relates that she feels this “takes away my shame.” Again, if childlessness was a sign of God’s condemnation, childbearing would be a sign of God’s favor.

Thus far have we taken the story of Jesus. And make no mistake: though we have not named him since I started this sermon, it is the story of Jesus. John the Baptist would perform all the duties the angel predicted for him. He would become a strange, charismatic preacher who would call the Jews to obey the Law of God—and who would relentlessly point the way to the Messiah he knew would appear at any moment. John had knowledge, prophetic knowledge, the kind of knowledge the angel Gabriel displayed when predicting John’s birth, that empowered him to expect the Messiah. Here we have a predictor’s birth being predicted. God has planned it all from before the beginning. God’s plan has always existed, so far as we human beings can comprehend its relation to time. God’s plan addresses every detail and every contingency. God’s plan is eternal, irresistible and incredibly complex. God plans. We respond.

But,” somebody usually wants to know when thinking about God’s plan, “if God has made such a powerful and comprehensive plan, do I get any say in it? Do I really have the freedom to choose to live as I please, or do I just play out the role God has decreed for me? God plans, but I am not so sure I can respond.” But take a look at how Zechariah responded to the announcement that he would father a son. He disbelieved—despite the fact that God sent quite the impressive messenger to predict it. He had the freedom to disbelieve and he did. As John Calvin, spiritual father of the Presbyterian Church I serve, put it: God foreknows everything, but God does not foredetermine everything. God plans. God knows how we will respond to every episode in that plan. Yet God does not make us respond in predetermined ways. It remains up to us to respond.

How will you respond to the birth, death and resurrection of the Messiah John the Baptist predicted would come? How will you respond to the One predicted by one whose own birth God predicted? The plan still plays out. How will you choose to respond to it?

Donald MacCleod, the crusty Scot who taught me (along with an entire generation) how to preach, often said that any sermon that failed to call its hearers to respond to Jesus with faith was no sermon at all. So I choose to respond to his call by taking this opportunity to ask you: how will you respond to God’s plan? God planned to send a Son to save the world by dying for its sins, then rising from the grave. Do you believe this? God plans. We respond. How do you respond to the story of Jesus?

In his adulthood John the Baptist challenged those who came out into the wilderness to hear him preach to repent. He called on them to turn away from their sins and to turn toward God. Do you repent of your sins? Do you wish to turn away from your disobedience to the law of God? God plans. We respond. How do you respond to the call to turn away from evil and toward the perfect goodness of God as seen in Jesus Christ?

God plans. We respond. We genuinely have the freedom to respond. Our problem is not that we lack the freedom, but that we lack the grit, to respond. How do you respond? Let it be with faith in the risen Jesus. Believe in the One whom John the Baptist insisted would come to save us from ourselves.