021 - The Sunrise Visits Us

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, did you know that the same angel that visited Mary, the mother of Jesus, had already visited somebody else first? What? You mean someone before Mary? Who did he visit?

Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. No way. How did that go?

Well, not as well as it went with Mary. Well, let's go take a look. Let's talk about that today.

More Than Ink. Well, a wonderful December Christmas morning to you. Oh, Merry Christmas to you. Good morning. This is Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we are continuing our look at some of maybe the lesser known, lesser parts of the Christmas story that you don't hear too much about. But we think especially today, especially today are probably the most core, the core passage that you really want to focus on in Christmas.

It's a big deal. Yeah, because what's with John the Baptist? You know, as a kid, I always wondered, what part did John the Baptist play in the story? Why is, Luke devotes a huge amount of his text to John the Baptist. Yeah, and how come he's not got a statue and all these crushes? Right, and he doesn't show up in our Christmas carols.

No, no, he doesn't figure. But when Luke compiles his story about Jesus, he says, hello everybody, in Luke 1. And then the first thing he talks about is the birth of John the Baptist.

He's the forerunner, yeah. And it's tightly connected into the birth of Jesus, tightly connected. And you get a viewpoint into the birth of Jesus in a way you never would before. So we're going to jump into this narrative about why John the Baptist figures in with the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist's parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth, and what that has to all do with it. Last week we saw how Elizabeth's pregnancy was kind of a confirmation for Mary. But we're going to work our way, we're going to go back to the beginning and find out how that came to be and why it figures in such a prominent way. So when Luke starts off his story in Luke 1, he starts off with the whole quandary that Zacharias and Elizabeth have, which was they don't have any kids and they've gotten old enough.

And they're old and publicly recognized as barren. Right, and he's professional. He's a guy who goes into the temple and does priestly kinds of things. So there's actually a very special honor of a thing you can do going into the temple that's only given to a couple people.

And he actually draws a short straw. It fell to him at this time of year. Going to the temple. So he figures, now I've got a private audience with God. Maybe this would be a good time for me to come to God. This is the best chance I'll ever get and say, God, can you help us out?

We don't have any kids. And so that's exactly what he does. And his task is to burn incense, which represents the prayers of the people. So he's offering prayer for himself and his wife at the same time that he's representing the prayers of the people.

So let's pick up the story. We're not going to read the whole thing, but we need to read this very important part of Luke 1. I'm going to start reading in verse 11. And it is he who will go as a forerunner before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. So the angel is saying to him, he's placing this child squarely in the prophetic word of Malachi.

The last word of the Old Testament was, I'm going to send this one, the forerunner in the spirit of Elijah, before Messiah. And he's going to have a message of repentance that will turn the hearts of fathers to the children and children to the fathers. That's a reference to the covenant being passed, father to son. They're going to all become aware of the need for repentance because of the message of this child. So he's really laying the groundwork for what Jesus is going to do in his three-year ministry. And John the Baptist comes and gets people's hearing straightened out because the issue is not by his might conquering Rome.

The issue is the dealing with your own sin and the fact that there's redemption and there's forgiveness for those sins. And the way into the kingdom is through repentance and forgiveness. This was just a thought that just was not part of their whole Messiah thinking. So that's what John the Baptist did. So here Zacharias is in the temple and he's asking for a baby and this angel says, you will have a baby.

Guess what surprised this baby? Is that forerunner who's going to go before the Messiah. He's not the Messiah, but he's going before the Messiah to kind of talk about. Actually to pave a highway, in the words of the Old Testament, to make his path straight and even so that the Messiah can come and get the most repentance. Right, that people are ready for repentance. Exactly.

Yeah. So that's his job. So Zacharias doesn't believe actually. He doesn't believe.

Because he asks the question, well how would I know for certain that's really going to happen? And the angel says, well, I'm Gabriel. I'm the one that's standing in the presence of God and I am the one tasked with letting humankind know Messiah is on the way. Right. That's who's talking to you.

Right. In fact, this is kind of a name dropping from the Old Testament. You know, how many names of angels do you know from the Old Testament? Not very many.

Not very many. But Gabriel, he's prominent in Daniel when Daniel's talking about the coming Messiah. He's always associated with Messiah. There is Gabriel.

So he's really dropping a name that should kind of make Zacharias quake in his boots. So you can read this text by yourself, but the response of Gabriel says, you know, because you didn't believe what I told you, you'll be silent and unable to speak until the birth of this baby. Well, that implies not only was he not able to speak, he was also unable to hear. He was in silence. And we find that out later when they have to make signs to him to find out what the baby should be named. Right. So for the whole gestation of this baby. He was silent.

Right. He's going to be silent. So that's kind of what's going to happen because he didn't believe. But the pregnancy is going to go on and this baby is going to be born and the forerunner is going to come out.

So this is super duper important as we move on through this. Now, as we skip forward in the text after the baby is born, finally born, they ask him during this process. They say, so, you know, a couple of days after the birth, they have to go in and they have to name the child as well as circumcise.

But the naming is formal. And since, you know, he can't speak, they're figuring, well, you know, what you do is the first child you always name after the dad, they're going to name him Zacharias. So they make signs to him and give him a tablet so he can write on it. And instead he says, nope.

He writes on the tablet, nope. His name is John. His name is John, which blew everybody away. So read about that because that's in Luke 1 in the 60s verses, which come right before. His mouth is opened in praise and all he has to say is how great God is because of what he's done.

So it's a good point. If you were Zacharias, I mean, what would you have said right after having your speech come back and after kind of showing verbally in a way that you're buying into the program because you're not naming him Zacharias. You're not naming him after yourself. You're naming him. He believed and obeyed and named the child John.

Exactly. So what's the next thing out of your mouth and this is what we want to focus on because this is an extraordinary view into the big picture about the birth of Jesus as well as John the Baptist. So we pick that up when you get around to verse 67. And Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. So here again we have the Holy Spirit giving us something of an eternal view of the importance of what's really going on here. It's the first things out of Zacharias' mouth. And he says in 68, blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David his servant. Oh, David's house again.

David's house, the house that God was going to build for him. So before we go on past that, notice the tense of the verbs again. It's all past tense, isn't it?

Past tense. God has visited. He has visited. God has showed up.

Yeah. And Jesus is not born yet. John the Baptist is. So these are all done deals from God's perspective for why it's in the past tense. And notice too we talked about the name Immanuel which means God with us. God with us. He's visited us. That's it right there. He has visited us and he has redeemed his people. Redeemed always talks about buying someone back at a price.

And this is like a done deal from this perspective as well. And then in 69 he says he's raised up a horn of salvation. And this horn is not a car horn. This is like a horn on an animal. So when you see a really powerful ox or something that has one of these big goring horns, that always is a picture of power and might in ancient days.

And it's a very dangerous one. So it's a nice picture of power and ability to bring salvation. He's raised up a mighty horn of salvation for us.

Not ineffectual but powerful. Okay but that same horn is also what they would blow the ram's horn. That's right. The shofar which would announce.

Eventually. It's announce and gets your attention. Something is happening.

And so it really, it does both things. God is calling attention and that's what John the Baptist was going to do. Go before Messiah and call attention and say, you know what, there he is. Repent and get ready because the kingdom is here. The king is here.

And that's what he was meant to be was to be kind of a horn to kind of pronounce what's going on. In the house of David his servant. So we're back to the eternal throne of David.

There it is. And so and he goes on to reminisce in 70 and as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets of old, which we just did two weeks ago, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Okay let's stop there for a second because we can interpret that as just as being saved in a military fashion from our human enemies but from an eternal perspective we are saved from our old ancient enemy death and sin, our enslavement to sin. We're saved, brought out from the power of the enemy. Yeah the real enemy, the real battle is not flesh and blood, Paul says.

That's right. It's with angels and principalities. You know it's this bad guys who are out for your bad.

They're not out for your good. And so these invisible warring agents are going to be vanquished right here. He's the one who's going to save us from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant.

So what is that? What was the mercy promised to our fathers and the holy covenant? Well what was the oath that he swore to Abraham? I'm going to make a people.

You're going to be the father of a huge number, a numberless number of people. And we know from the New Testament, Galatians says, all who are of the faith of Abraham are children of Abraham. So no we saw with Mary last week that when Gabriel spoke to her she believed him.

Right. The problem with Zacharias was when Gabriel spoke to him he didn't believe him. He didn't believe him like oh yeah right.

But he does now. He says God has promised to our fathers to remember his covenant, the oath that he swore to our fathers to Abraham to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all our days. How do we get holy? How do we get righteous?

Well the scripture says back in Genesis 16 Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And Paul and the writer of Hebrews picks that up as well. And in fact this reminds me of an event that's going to happen much later in the life of John the Baptist. He's out there at the Jordan River and he's baptizing people and the Pharisees come out to say you know what's going on out here and he calls them a brood of vipers. I mean he's pretty brutal with them.

Pretty fiery stuff. But what he does is he confronts them with the fact that they're thinking that since they think that they are children of Abraham they've got a freebie into the kingdom of heaven. Because they're genetically, they have this genetic heritage. And he kind of takes them down on the spot because they're not catching the fact that there's an issue about forgiveness and sin that needs to be dealt with and being just genetic sons of Abraham is not cutting it for you. So he actually says look you know if God needs children of Abraham he can make these stones.

He can make them out of rocks. So the issue is faith, faith in God and faith in God's solution to the problem of our sin. Blood of Abraham just doesn't figure too much. So that's what's kind of interesting here because also when God talked to Abraham he says that not only will Israel be blessed but all the nations.

All nations, that's us. And the only qualification to participate in that is the same faith that Abraham had and that's what makes you a son of Abraham is the faith in God's solution to the problem of our sin through Christ. So as he swore to our father Abraham to grant us, I love the picture, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, like they're not going to bother you anymore.

Which will leave you free to do what? Serve him. Leave you free to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness.

Before him all our days. So I mean what we're basically saying is God promised us that we could be a nation and we would be unmolested in this place and God would take care of us. And we just want to live here with God. And God says okay well that's what we're going to do. We're going to live here with God. That we might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

That's the point. So this is what this one who is coming, this Jesus is going to accomplish on our behalf. And according to how Zacharias quotes this, he's doing it in the past tense. It's like it's a done deal. It's a done deal from the beginning of the universe. It's a done deal what Christ has done on our behalf in order to fulfill his covenant promise not only to Israel but to those who are sons of Abraham through faith as well.

That's fascinating. And then he turns his attention to the baby. Yeah he hasn't talked about John the Baptist yet. And that's, you know all the people standing around him are just gobsmacked about the fact that they're not naming him Zacharias. They want him to find out what's going on.

He hasn't talked about John the Baptist at all. Right and he's just praising God for what he's done. Yeah this magnificent thing that's happened. So we take a slight detour into the life of John the Baptist in verse 76. It's not slight. It's the focus. And you child, verse 76, will be called the prophet of the Most High for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.

We have to stop right there. Right. That's his purpose. The knowledge of salvation that comes through the forgiveness of our sins not through offering enough sacrifices, not through obedience to the law, not through the parading of our righteous behavior by repentance from our sins.

Right. So again the issue is he needed to prepare the ears of the audience that would hear Jesus eventually. And that the way they need to be prepared is to understand that they are in need of salvation but not salvation from Rome and the people who occupy them. They're in need of salvation from their sins. Forgiveness of their sins. And this is what the Messiah is coming to conquer is the consequences of our sins.

Because of the tender mercy of our God whereby the sunrise shall visit us on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace. He has pulled together prophecies from Isaiah, from Malachi, from I guess it's mostly Isaiah and Malachi are in view there. But it's just amazing. It's one of my favorite sections of scripture. Boatload of stuff. Yeah.

What's your favorite? My favorite scripture. Because in this you notice he talks about his son John the Baptist in 76 and 77. But then he says because here you need to get people prepped for this message and here's the message.

Here's the message. There is salvation through the forgiveness of sins. Well I didn't know I had a problem with sins. Well you do. And forgiveness is God's way of fixing the problem.

And why? Because God's driven by his tender mercy for us. He sees our condition. He understands the fact that our sins are killing us. And by the way I tell people all the time I'm not a big fan of sin or sinful behavior because it's self-destructive. Sin is self-destructive. It may promise a lot but in the end it's self-destructive.

And it also enslaves you. So what he's saying right here is because of God's tender mercy he is taking the initiative to fix the imprisonment we have to sin and to fix the self-destruction that's coming from sin and the path is forgiveness of those sins. God is taking the initiative to establish a new covenant. Exactly. Not like the one they broke in the wilderness.

The one they couldn't possibly keep. But a new covenant as Jesus said in the blood of Jesus which is all about the forgiveness of sin. You should go to Jeremiah 31.

31 yeah. 31 to 34 and read that account of what God says. I'm going to establish a new covenant and you will know me through the forgiveness of your sins. And they'll all know me. They won't be going around telling each other you need to know God because everyone will know him. From the greatest to the least to the most humble like Mary. So this forgiveness for sin is accessible to all. You don't have to be in the entitlement camp. You don't have to be a religious authority.

You don't have to be a member of any nationality. God says they will all know me because I'll forgive their sin. Our sin is what separates us from God Isaiah says. And yet the most resistant ears in Jesus' time were the Pharisees. Who thought of themselves as righteous. They thought they were righteous.

They were informed about the law and doggoned it. They were doing it perfectly. And they were entitled to God's favor because they did everything right. We're doing everything right. We understand God's commands right. And on top of that we have the blood of Abraham on our veins.

We are in. And what did Jesus call them? Whited sepulchers. Right?

That's right. Filthy. They clean up the outsides but the insides are filthy. The insides are filthy.

Full of unclean things. They weren't listening to this and that's why they didn't sync with John the Baptist when he was out there doing this thing. They did not receive that message. They just didn't get it.

Because they just missed the boat that the issue is one of the heart right. That's the thing with the new covenant. God says I'm going to write it on your heart. It's not going to be imposed on you externally by a stone tablet anymore. It's going to be written on the living tablet of your heart based on whether you believe me or not.

It's internal instead of external. Yeah. And it's written in your heart's motivations and desires and loves. Do I love what God loves?

An integral part of who you are rather than applied from the outside. And that's something God will do. God does this.

God does this. And I love this language. The sunrise shall visit us from on high. Oh it's so beautiful. So something is coming from the outside and it's coming here, coming down to here.

Jesus says I'm not from here, I'm from there. Sunrise, and I love the fact he doesn't say we're getting visited from on high. We're having a sunrise. No a sunrise. What happens when the sun comes up? It's the beginning of a whole new day.

Exactly. And great hope. I mean everything with a sunrise. Again we're back to Malachi because the last few verses of Malachi say and he'll rise like the sun, the sun of righteousness with healing in his wings.

Healing in his wings, yeah. So sunrise will visit us from on high. And the other thing I like about too about the whole idea of light and we talked about this in John was the fact that light gives you an understanding of the way things truly are. And before there's light you're just guessing at the way things are. I mean it's just dark, it's just dark. And when we have all this artificial light we seldom think about that.

Light reveals things. But in this particular case it's not just the blinding hot light of a hot sun, it's a sunrise. It's a new day. It's the beginning of a new day that God has planned and Jesus himself is this visit from on high, this sunrise from God. One new day in understanding God's provision for our sin through Christ. Well and Peter, actually Peter picks up that beautiful symbolism, let's see if I can find it.

Oh yeah, that's right. When he says that, oh shoot, I'm in the wrong Peter. I look at it second, I mean second Peter. Second Peter.

Second Peter, 119. When he says, and so we have the prophetic word made more sure. And he's talking about having been on the mountain with Jesus at the transfiguration. To which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star, the sun, the morning star arises in your hearts. You do well until the day dawns for you.

Right? And at the end of Revelation 22, 16 Jesus says, I am the offspring of David. I am the bright and morning star. I'm the beginning of God's new day in the light.

That's right. So all of that is in view in what Zacharias is saying back here. Coupled together with the natural beauty of a sunrise, the natural hope of a sunrise.

I mean all that is, that's why this language is so great. This is a sunrise that's from on high. And a day that will never end. Yeah, right. And he says, here's what the sunrise will do, 79, to give light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Oh.

Isn't that awesome? To guide our feet into the way of peace. Not peace, well peace with one another, but peace with God. Peace with God. Ephesians 2 says, He is our peace.

Yep. And when we talk about peace in the New Testament, we always think about reconciled relationships is what this peace is about. It's not just the cessation of a war and hostilities, it's about whatever separated you from someone else, peace brings you back together again. So this is peace with God. This is peace with God. And why were we not at peace with God?

Because of our sins. Yeah, it's not that the arm of the Lord is so short that he cannot save, it's us who've sinned against him and we've walked away. But God now is taking the initiative, Zacharias is saying. God is taking the initiative with the sunrise and he's going to bring light to this miserable people who sit in darkness in the shadow of death. That's Isaiah 9. That's the beginning of Isaiah 9. Isaiah 9.

Yeah. And God is the one who's fixing it. He's going to bring light to those who sit in darkness in the shadow of death. And now he's going to guide our feet with that light. Into the way of peace.

We know where we're going. We know where to go in order to pursue peace with God, to guide our feet into the way of peace. You know, that's what God had always wanted.

I keep coming back to the Aaronic blessing and I want to do probably a whole conversation about that in the New Year because the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you. God's intention from the very beginning was that his high priest would speak over the people, I have my face toward you and I'm going to establish you in peace. Well Romans 5.1 says, being justified by faith we have peace with God through this faith in which we, the grace in which we stand by faith. So when we believe God, that is the means by which we can be established, settled, founded in this peace. Right, how we participate. By believing what he has said to us about our savior, his son. Yeah, how we participate in his plan that he's executed on our behalf. We just have to say okay.

Kind of like Mary did, said well, okay, I'm in. Not in Zechariah, I have all that in view when he's just overflowing in this praise. Well perhaps not in the moment, but he sees the whole picture.

Yeah, he sees the whole picture. So as we kind of round this off, if someone asks you what Christmas is all about, and this is what I go to every single time, what is the big picture of what Christmas is all about? Really, and I'll tell them, the birth of Jesus is a sunrise that has visited us from on high, who's given light for us, who just sit in darkness and shadow of death, and he is now guiding our feet into a way of peace.

That's what Christmas is all about. He is the sunrise from on high. The beginning of a whole new day. The beginning of a whole new day. Before that it was darkness and shadow of death, and now there's light, and he is that light. He is the light. And that's what I say, this is what Christmas is.

This is what Christmas is, it's that point in the timeline of all mankind's history. Well and we've been reading through the Gospel of John, and I just would remind you about John 1.14, and that word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, right?

When you see a son come up, it's glorious. His glory is the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. So it comes back to, do we believe that God spoke himself into our existence in this human baby who was born, who was the word become flesh, to show us the glory of God. Emmanuel, God with us. God with us. He visited us. He's in our midst. And accomplished our redemption, and established us in peace.

This is the God who initiated this rescue mission through Jesus. For our benefit. Are you ready for Christmas now? That's why we love Christmas. Well we're glad you've been with us today, and I hope it changes your viewpoint on Christmas some.

Oh my gosh, what a gift. Just tremendous, just tremendous. And next time we're actually going to dive into how you can be hopeful looking into the New Year, because many of us don't think there's much to be hopeful about.

Oh I do, we have a hope in Christ. So this is Jim. And this is Dorothy. And we'll see you next week. Thanks for joining us. Merry Christmas. Bye bye. More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City, and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. That's pretty good. That's pretty good, isn't it?