Hope in our Burdens
Hope in Our Burdens
Luke 1:57-66
Did you walk into this sanctuary today carrying a burden? Like Zachariah and Elizabeth, has your burden eclipsed your blessings in your mind?
What is your burden today?
• Is it a physical infirmity?
• Do you have a broken heart?
• Is there a broken relationship?
• Are you experiencing loneliness?
• Are you defeated?
• Have you experienced a great financial setback or a disappointment?
• Have you lost a loved one?
If you have a burden today, then take heart, because today’s lesson is about hope for a burden-lifting day!
In Luke 1 we see that the thrill of curtain opening in God’s prophetic timetable: Prior to the actual birth of Christ, we see God was preparing the groundwork for what He was about to do to the world through His Son, Jesus. Before God does something, He always paves the way beforehand. God is a mighty God—And He’s also a God of order and foresight.
So far, we’ve seen these preparations through the life of Zachariah and Elizabeth in vv.5-25. Then we’ve also seen that in the Annunciation of Mary in vv.26-38. Now we will jump to vv.57-66 in the narrative concerning the birth of of the last and probably the greatest prophet of the Old Testament age, John the Baptist. John would be part of this preparation, for it was he who would prepare the way for the Lord.
Today’s passage will teach us the basis of our hope to lift us up of our burdens.
I want to start from the last verse of our passage today.
All who heard them kept them in mind, saying, “What then will this child turn out to be?” For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him. (v.66 NASB)
That last comment of the people really does set the stage for what I want you to see in this account:
"For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him.”
This is a simple narrative: A known old and barren woman gives birth to a son. Neighbors and relatives were there. They felt that it was appropriate to name him after his father. But his parents indicated his name was to be John. A miracle occurred that gave back to Zechariah his hearing and his speech and wonder-filled everyone about what this child would become.
A very simple story, but there's something here that jolts us in the final statement: "For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him." As much as the story appears to be about Zechariah and the miracle that loosed his tongue, as much as the story might appear to be about Elizabeth, giving birth in her old age, as much as the story might appear to be a story about the child John, the great significance of his life and ministry, the story is really a story about God. God is the main player in this drama. God is the main actor. It is the hand of the Lord that Luke wants us to see here.
This is a story of God being our burden-lifter. What do you feel when a burden is being lifted? You will be happy. You will rejoice. You will give thanks. You will praise God.
Remember back in vv.5-25, we first met this righteous couple with a burden—they were barren. They were childless. It was a very heavy burden for couples at that time. It was considered a social stigma, a spiritual curse.
Then that burden was lifted when angel Gabriel came and announced to Zechariah that his persistent prayers were heard by God, that his wife Elizabeth will conceive and soon give birth to a son. But Zechariah was perfidious (faithless). That is why God disciplined him by not being able to speak and hear. He immediately became dumb and deaf. And for nine months, Zechariah is going to carry this burden. Of course, Elizabeth will also carry the same burden for the next nine months. How is she going to explain this to her neighbors and relatives? But they did not lose hope because God is our burden-lifter. Amen?
Now as we study the passage before us, God puts Himself on display in three ways here. In three ways we see the hand of God as the burden-lifter.
Are you ready for the first one?
1. The Promise of God is Veracious (v.57-58)
Veracious - from the word veracity which means truthfulness or representing the truth. From the Latin “Veritas,” truth.
The promise of God is true, despite Zechariah’s unbelief, and that's what the story shows us. We see the hand of the Lord here fulfilling His promise. When God speaks, He speaks the truth. And when God promises, He fulfills them.
57 When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son.
Notice how verse 57 starts, “When it was time…” The great epoch had arrived, the monumental moment of the birth of John, the prophet who was the forerunner to Christ. Here is the launch event of the coming of the Savior of the world. This triggers everything. The forerunner comes, then the Messiah comes, then the work of redemption comes. Time had come for Elizabeth to give birth. Nine months of pregnancy was completed, she was now ready to give birth. And indeed she did, "she gave birth to a son."
Remember what God promised through angel Gabriel back in v.13-15?
13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.
Exactly as God through the angel Gabriel had promised. The Word of God, as always, is veracious, truthful. And she rejoiced. She rejoiced I'm sure beyond many mothers because of her life-long barrenness and the burden that she had endured through that. She was even called "the barren one," as you remember, a terrible stigma for a Jewish women to bear. And joy beyond even that because the child that she had been given was not just any child, he was great, filled with the Spirit. He was the forerunner to the Messiah.
58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.
Verse 58 indicates that the prophecy regarding others rejoicing also was fulfilled.
14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.
The angel had said from God, you'll have a son and many will rejoice, and that is precisely what happened. And Luke records it with great precision to make the point that God's word is true. He's putting God on display here.
The God who promised is what? faithful (Heb. 10:23). That's important because God also promises salvation to those who call upon Him. God promises that whoever comes to Him He will receive. God promises that when we confess our sins He'll forgive them. God promises forgiveness to those who ask. He promises heaven to those who cry for it. He promises strength to the weak. He promises wisdom to the ignorant. He promises riches to the poor. He promises answered prayer to those who cry to Him. He promises blessings to those who ask. He promises heaven to those who seek it.
Don't you want to know that He keeps His promises? He does. And so we learn in the outset of the story that the promise of God is true, veracious. That’s the hope we need when we have burdens.
2. The Purpose of God is Gracious (v.59-63)
59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah,
Now naming the child eight days after birth on the day of circumcision is not an Old Testament law or rule. It may have developed as a custom among some Jews by this time. They may have followed it from the Romans or the Greeks. And it just may have been that because the Jews were exposed to those kinds of customs around them that they started doing it on the eighth day. It is also true that Moses was circumcised on the eighth...was named on the eighth day, the day he was circumcised. And Abraham's name went from Abram to Abraham on the day that he was circumcised. So there was some Old Testament precedent for that.
Now it wasn't unusual for people to participate in naming. Jews were very closely-knit together in celebrating life journeys like weddings, circumcision and other family customs. And giving babies names are part of this close-knit community gatherings. So everyone gave their suggested names.
60 but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”
In the Greek, ouchi alla, strong Greek emphatic which literally means absolutely not.
61 They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.” 62 Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. 63 He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.”
Now remember back in v.13 that the specific instruction from the angel was to name the child John.
“Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.
Why John? Why not Zechariah junior? Why is this such an issue? Why is he to be called John? God doesn't get involved in naming everybody. God got involved in naming Jesus and God also got involved in naming John. What about this? What is the significance of this?
John is a great name. It's a short form of a longer word, Yehohanan. Just gets contracted into John (Yohan). The first part of Yehohanan is Yeho. What's that? God, Yehovah. The latter part means grace. “John” means "God is gracious" and God wanted that child named "God is gracious" because God's purpose through that child and the Messiah is to declare and spread His divine purpose of being gracious to sinners. What you see in the story then is God telling us that His promise is veracious and His purpose is gracious. And He'll fight for that name because it identifies His purpose.
Here’s a funny thing in v.63. Notice that Zechariah, who is unable to speak and hear, ask for a tablet (iPad?). The word "tablet" here (Pinakidion) is what Greek scholars call hapax legomena, meaning, it’s the only time it ever appears in the New Testament. It's a wonderful little word and it's very descriptive. It describes a piece of wood, a board, and what they would do is they would take a piece of thin board and then they covered it with wax and they would literally have a sharp object like a stick or maybe a stone in which he could write on the wax.
So they gave him a pinakdion and he wrote as follows, “John is his name.'" No explanation, period. And they were all astonished. I mean, they didn't get it. They didn't understand why. It just didn't... Where did it come from? And there was not given to them here any particular explanation. And the Greek always puts the emphatic in the first place in the sequence of the sentence. This boy was named by God and his name was going to be John because through Him the grace of God would explode on the world. Amen?
Brethren, listen. The greatest burden of man is not finances, sickness, but sinfulness. The mother of all our burdens is sin. Sin puts so much weight in our soul as well as in our bodies. But hope is coming. The burden of sin can now be lifted because grace is coming. John’s birth marks the beginning of the age of grace.
What do we see in this particular story again? God’s promises are true, veracious and His purposes are gracious. All of this is about God being gracious to the world. He's sending His grace and John is a key in that sending.
Now we come to the final aspect of displaying His character in this passage comes in v.64. Something happens immediately in verse 64.
3. The Power of God is Efficacious (v.64-66)
64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.
This is an instant miracle. I want you to notice that very important word “immediately.” That's a miracle phrase. You say, "What do you mean by that?" You're going to see that phrase repeated all through Luke's gospel and you see it through the book of Acts. Why? Because it's a testimony to God’s efficacious power.
This then is a miracle noted by the use of that phrase which Luke repeats miraculously, instantaneously. "His mouth was opened and his tongue was set free." And that, by the way, also is a fulfillment of a prophecy in verse 20, "You will be silent, unable to speak until the day when these things take place. And in the day when these things take place, you'll speak." And he did. And again, footnote to the first point, God's promise is true. He began to speak.
And what did he say first? "He began to speak in (what?) praising God." For nine months it had been pent up and the dam burst and he just started praising God. By the way, his praise turned to prophetic praise in verse 67-79 (We’ll look at that next week).
This old priest who can't hear and can't speak for nine months, now instantaneously can hear and speak again. The whole experience was so overwhelming and the power of God was so great and so incredible and so marvelous.
This is God's power on display. The burden of silence of Zechariah has been lifted. Now he can burst forth in speaking and shouting his joy and praises to God’s wondrous works.
65 All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.
People were filled with “Awe,” literally in Greek this is Phobos, “fear,” “terror.” The power of God is wondrous. It inspires wonder. It inspires fear. It inspires awe. Fear in the sense of awe, in the sense of recognition of divine intervention, heavenly action. This was an awe that was a sort of holy trauma, a kind of spiritual shock at what they had seen.
What caused this awe? A miracle conception and a miracle birth, a divinely given name from God and a powerful and instantaneous healing of a deaf and mute old priest. This is all part of the thrill of hope. These awesome things were just the beginning. This is the first time you have a crowd in awe. And frankly, this sets the stage for more awesome things to come as the coming of the Messiah draws so near.
And finally v.66 where we started of…
66 Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.
The miracles happening in the life of Zechariah and Elizabeth has become the main preoccupation of thought among people, and certainly the main topic of conversation as the wonder and the awe began to carry itself through that entire region.
And so we see from this story the promise of God being displayed is veracious. He put His purpose on display, which is gracious. He put His power on display which is always efficacious. And I say the main character here is God. He is our burden-lifter.
APPLICATION
Now, what is God asking us to do after hearing the lessons from this story? I can suggest three things from the passage.
Faith. Strengthen your faith in what God has said and promised in the Bible. Don’t doubt God’s words, but believe them.
Follow. Like Zechariah and Elizabeth, follow to the smallest details what God instructed us to do in His word.
Fear. Let us develop this holy and reverential fear of God. Like the people around Zechariah and Elizabeth who were filled with this holy fear of the Lord as they witnessed the miraculous display of God’s power.
Through Elizabeth, Zechariah, Mary, God was laying the groundwork for what He was about to do through His Son, Jesus. That’s the “BIG Story” behind Luke’s narrative. But behind the Big Story of God weaving the magnificent tapestry of His grace through the birth of His Son is the real, human, personal drama of ordinary people chosen to be part of the thread in this intricate tapestry of God’s plan of salvation. All their stories are a thrill of hope. Amen.
