A recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.
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Today’s gospel (Luke 1: 67-79) is a moment of prophetic
insight and praise, as Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks
words of glory, thanks, and foresight that Christians down the ages will daily
repeat. Looking back to David and Abraham, he recalls all the promises of God
to His people who delivers them from their enemies and redirects them along the
paths of holiness. Lastly, he reflects on his son’s own destiny to be the
prophet of the Lord who announces the tender mercy of God and starts the fire
that will bring light to those in the shadow of death. These are words that
tells us about ourselves but mostly about God.
About ourselves we prefer to believe anything but the truth,
but in truth, we are a sorry lot if Zechariah’s prophecy is anything to go by. For,
who are the enemies from whom God delivers us if not ourselves, our own worst
enemies? We have been the agents of our own shipwreck, and it takes a Divine
Redeemer to right the ship on our behalf. God’s redemption is offered so that
we might serve Him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives for,
by our own lights, we are likely to follow a path of injustice which is at best
enlightened self-interest, and at worst, a careless disregard of the good of
others and of ourselves. And it is indeed God’s tender mercy that we need for
we sit in darkness and the shadow of death. For even when we are redeemed, we
are entirely capable of preferring the gloom to the Lord’s illumination. We
cannot stand too much reality, for we try to bear its weight with our own
strength. The doorway into night is held open by our own hand.
A sombre picture? No, this is the fruit of Zechariah’s nine
months of mute reflection. Gripped by the Lord’s imposed discipline, Zechariah
emerges from his own grand silence to give expression to that least flattering
of the truths of the faith: that God alone can save us. Ours is an existence of
dependency. But Zechariah at the same time gives expression to that most
beautiful of the truths of the faith: that God wishes to save us. And not only
wishes to save us but, to that end, has done everything which stands within His
power to do, short of removing our free will and dragging us home by force.
Instead of which, He has raised up for us a horn of
salvation, He has sworn an oath of deliverance to Abraham, and - most personally
to Zechariah - He has sent the prophet of the Most High to prepare His ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins…
Ultimately that we serve Him without fear, as did Joseph who
walked to Bethlehem beside a beast of burden carrying his heavily pregnant
spouse, who fled the violence of a tyrant king to save mother and child, and
lived a while in Egypt from where he would emulate the great Joseph of Egypt
and lead this flower of God’s new people back home to the promised land.
The tracks of that path from Egypt back to Israel, from
bondage back to freedom, are the way of peace that Zechariah prophesies
here. This path will eventually be the way made straight by the voice of John
the Baptist, the royal road of the cross hallowed by the Lord’s bloody
footsteps, and the only option for the disciples who would follow their Master.
We need not travel all that distance tonight, however. It
only remains for us to hear the words of Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven to
the sinner:
Rise, clasp my hand, and come!
Come out of the shadow of death, out of the darkness of sin, to take our place beside Zechariah, Joseph, and John the Baptist, and cast our eyes on the grace-filled sunrise which begins now in the crooked crib of a newborn babe.
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The blog is now in recess until 6th January.
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