“And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit,
and prophesied, saying: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited
us and accomplished redemption for His people, and has raised up a horn of
salvation for us In the house of David His servant— as He spoke by the mouth of
His holy prophets from of old— salvation from
our enemies, and from the hand of
all who hate us; to show mercy toward our fathers, and to remember His
holy covenant, the oath which He swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that
we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.” (Luke 1:67–75, NASB95)
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel….” Similar to Mary’s
Magnificat (or magnifying) in verses 46-55 of Luke 1, we have here what is
known as Zechariah’s Benedictus. This is a Latin word coming from the
first word “blessed.” Think of the songs that we sing such as “Blessed be the
Name” and of the many things that we can point to as blessings from God. We
return to Him praise because of who He is and what He has done. Zechariah does
this as he speaks the praises of God to the people, and as he does this he
fills his words with Old Testament quotations and references.
As a Jew, he specifically identified God as the One who had
a special relationship with them as His people. He was the God of Israel, and
of that there was no doubt. God had selected them as a people through Abraham
and He had made many promises for which He was eternally faithful. Though
Israel might rebel, God would never forsake them. We read of David’s looking on
his son Solomon after giving him the throne as his successor, “Blessed be the LORD,
the God of Israel, who has granted someone to sit on my throne this day, my own
eyes seeing it.” (1 Kings 1:48, ESV) We read of Ezra raising blessing to God
for moving King Artaxerxes to restore and beautify the temple of God. “Blessed
be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the
heart of the king, to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem,”
(Ezra 7:27, ESV) Men of God knew the hand of God and readily sang His praises
knowing how blessed they truly had been by being chosen by Him. Zechariah was
no different in knowing that God had visited him and his wife to give them a
child in their old and barren years.
Like the blessings of old, Zechariah followed this statement
of raising the name of the Lord by pointing to that which God had done and how
He had blessed them as His people. He went on to say, “for He has visited and redeemed
His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His
servant David….” The concept of being visited and redeemed by God is nothing
new. This term was used by Moses to describe his being sent to the people of
Israel in bondage under the Egyptians. Their response was, “And the people
believed; and when they heard that the LORD had visited the people of Israel
and that He had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.”
(Exodus 4:31, ESV) What an appropriate thought for Zechariah to lift praise to
God as he had been told by the angel that his own son was to be sent as one to prepare
the way of the Lord. God had once again visited His people and was showing to
them His hand to deliver them. And as He had redeemed them from the hand of
Pharaoh so was He sending His Only Son to redeem them of their sins. Through
John the way was being prepared for God’s redeemer. The prophet Isaiah wrote,
“”And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from
transgression,” declares the LORD.” (Isaiah 59:20, ESV)
Zechariah was not saying anything new here about God, but
was praising Him for His faithfulness to His promises of old. There are so many
challenges to the reality of Christ and what people say about Him today. There
are people who deny, challenge and twist truth in order to suit their own
fancies or agendas. But the reality is that Jesus is real, and the Bible itself
is an incredible proof of this reality. The prophecies alone which were written
hundreds of years in advance and which were fulfilled completely in Him should
speak to this. As a young Christian I was impressed with the words of Peter
Stoner who wrote on the probabilities of just eight of these prophecies being
fulfilled in one person. According to his calculations the odds are 1017. That
is 1 in 1 quintillion, or 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 which is 10 with
another 17 zeros following, and that’s just looking at 8 of the 48 selected
prophecies.
Zechariah was praising God that the prophecies of old that
they had placed their hope in were being fulfilled against all human odds, and
the only reason that this could happen is that it was not up to man. God was
the One doing this and He is infinite in all ways, including His ability to
foretell what He was going to do hundreds of years in advance and then do it
exactly as He had said. This is exactly what Zechariah recognized when he said,
“as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old….”
In the midst of speaking these things about God Zechariah
brought it home to their present time saying, “that we, being delivered from the
hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear…” Think of the great comfort
in knowing that God has your back. He not only has your back, as those who
believe in Him and who are saved He has us totally encapsulated in His
infinitely powerful hands. As it is true for us, it was true for the Jews to
who Zechariah spoke. God was faithful to His people. He had repeatedly
delivered them and would continue to do so. He was holding on to them in a way
none of us can possibly imagine doing in our own strength.
Zechariah finished his praises to God and his prophetic
words from God to the people with how it is that they are to live their lives
as a result of who God is and what He has done for them. Beyond living without
fear, he added that they were to live “in holiness and righteousness before Him
all our days.” Their proper response to God was to live holy or set apart lives
as the special set apart people that they were, and that these lives were to
exemplify the character of God which is righteous or exactly right for all of
their days. This was not just an expectation of the Jews. Even to the mixed
church in Rome Paul wrote, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies
of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to
God, which is your spiritual [reasonable logikos] worship. Do not be conformed
to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing
you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and
perfect.” (Romans 12:1–2, ESV)
Think about this: these are the first words of Zechariah
after he had heard first hand from the angel of the Lord what was about to
happen. These are the words that he had to wait what I suspect was nine months
to speak. As such these words must have come with great excitement and emotion.
(Note: This is a portion of the text from a sermon given on
December 7th. The audio and text for the sermon can be found through
the links on the Sermon Links and More page of my blog.)
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