The Birth of John the Baptist
57 When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.
59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, 60 but his mother spoke up and said, "No! He is to be called John."
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." 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65 The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. 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.
Zechariah's Song
67 His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
68 "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
69 He has raised up a horn [c] of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71 salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
72 to show mercy to our ancestors
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace."
80 And the child grew and became strong in spirit [d]; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.
Dig Deeper
"But you promised.” I’d be willing to bet if you’re a parent you’ve heard those words more than a couple of times. It seems that there is nothing more important to a child than if they believe that you promised something to them. In fact, I’ve learned to be very careful with anything that you tell them will happen or that you will do later because they are likely to take it as a promise, and to children a promise is a promise, end of story. You will not find any mercy in the heart of a five-year old when it comes to extenuating circumstances. If you said it, you had better come through. Adults are much more forgiving when you think about it. You can promise something to an adult and then apologize your way out of the situation pretty easily and most adults will let it go without much of a second thought. Perhaps we don’t hold others to their promises so much because we don’t want others to hold us to ours. When you think about it, maybe the kids are on to something. Maybe we should take promises more seriously. Kids seem to know that when it comes down to it you are only as good as your promises. If you keep them you can be trusted. If you don’t then you can’t and someone who doesn’t keep their promises cannot be trusted for anything important.
The first couple of chapters of Luke set the stage for the remainder of the gospel of Luke but also for the second half of his extended work, the book of Acts. The primary theme of these early chapters has everything to do with promises. Going all the way back to Genesis, God made some pretty lofty promises to Abraham and his descendants. Those promises weren’t just left with Abraham either. They were passed down from generation to generation and held on to tightly. The Israelites believed God’s promises and they held him to them. They absolutely expected him to come through on them and make good. After all, they knew that it wasn’t only people that were as good as their promises and their ability to keep them. That applied to God as well. That’s one of the main themes in the gospel of Luke and Acts. God gave very serious promises to bless the entire world and deal with sin through Abraham’s seed and God has finally acted. In a sense, Luke’s gospel is an answer to a question. You want to know what kind of God you have? Look at his promises and then look at how he gave a resounding yes to every single promise through the life of the Messiah (2 Cor. 1:20). This is the kind of God that we have.
Luke has subtly set the pattern for John’s role as a forerunner to the Messiah as he has consistently set a pattern of John first, then Jesus. First came the birth announcement of John and the reaction to that. Then came the birth announcement of Jesus and the reaction to that. Now we have the birth of John the Baptist and the reaction to that. Luke has not only given us certain historical facts in a fairly chronological manner but he has prepared us for the coming birth of Jesus as well as preparing us for the concept of John coming first as a sign that Jesus would soon follow.
The birth of John the Baptist shows us through Zechariah’s actions that even righteous men need to learn new things constantly from God. When Gabriel first came to him his response was one of skepticism and questioning God’s word. Now he has learned his lesson well. He had learned from his long period of silence and was now ready to burst forth in belief and praise of what God was doing. I think it’s a fair assumption to believe that Luke wants us to see that in some ways Zechariah is representative of what had been happening to Israel as a whole. Prophecy had been absent from Israel for some time by Zechariah’s day. God had been silent for hundreds of years but now he was acting and fulfilling all of the promises from long ago. How would Israel respond? Would they burst forth in jubilant praise of God and embrace that although he was working in a way that they never expected, this is how he was undeniably working?
Zechariah demonstrates that he has learned to trust the promises of God. Even though the people that have gathered around fully expect Zechariah to contradict Elizabeth’s puzzling name choice of John, he does not. It would have been unusual and quite against custom and their culture to choose a name that was not from their family ancestry but Zechariah has had enough of going with the expected norm. No one would have expected him and Elizabeth to be blessed by God with a child at such an advanced age, so if God wanted the child named John, then John it would be. Immediately following this demonstration of faith, the silence ends. Again, we can’t help but see a hopeful expectation that the same will be true for Israel. For those who respond in faith, the silence will be over. Zechariah’s faith led to his immediate praise of God, which was quite likely the song of praise that Luke gives us after giving us the response of those who heard it. Zechariah’s song is in response to John’s birth fills the crowd with awe and wonder at what God is going to do next.
If we look at the world of Zechariah’s time from his perspective the content of his song takes on fuller meaning. Things in the world were just not right. Israel had passed down the ancient promises from God that Abraham’s descendants would be his people and that someday the whole world would be blessed through that family. But Israel was hardly experiencing anything of that nature. God’s people were being oppressed at the hands of the pagans. How could that be right or just? Israel had been sent off into exile hundreds of years earlier and even though they had returned to their physical land they knew that the presence of Yahweh had not returned to the Temple. They were still in a spiritual exile and were waiting for God to return to his people. When you’re under the thumb of oppression like that, the only thing that keeps you going is hope. Hope that one day things will change; the wrongs will be righted and the upside down will be turned right-side-up.
As Zechariah looks down at this baby all of that hope that he had been storing up, pondering, and wrestling to maintain comes bursting forth through the inspiration of the Spirit. This song is all about God finally acting. The promises that God had given Abraham were so important to the Hebrew people, that those who responded in faith and saw in the birth of this child and the one to come the very movement of God fulfilling his promises, couldn’t help but respond in joy.
We simply don’t know how much of this speech was of Zechariah’s own understanding and how much came from the inspiration of the Spirit but we do know that most Jews of Zechariah’s time were looking for a political and military Messiah. They wanted someone who would, like Maccabeus a century before, raise up an army and gloriously defeat the Romans, bringing freedom to Israel and hoping that God would again return to Israel to set up his kingdom. Zechariah’s song certainly speaks of being redeemed and receiving salvation from enemies but his song repeatedly looks beyond the normal expectations and hints at something more. God would deliver his people and make good on his promises. He would raise up a mighty horn (a symbol of power) to save his people. He would answer the promises made to Abraham and through the prophets long ago. He would remember his holy covenant.
But Zechariah looks deeper than the normally expected solution of his day. God’s mercy would extend to rescue his people from the real enemies of sin and death. It wouldn’t be the Romans who would be defeated but death itself. God’s people would be rescued and able to stand in his presence without fear. What God was about to do would bring lasting holiness and righteousness to the people of God. At long last God would have a people who would truly keep his covenant and whose sins would be forgiven.
The prophets had declared that when God did finally act and send a new David, one that would enact an everlasting kingdom, that a prophet would come and prepare the way for him. John would be that prophet to make way for the Messiah. It is in God’s actions through these two boys that the ancient promises and the coming fulfillment would be held together. This would not be just a temporary action on God’s part but the Messiah’s coming will have everlasting implications. John will prepare the way for the rising sun (literally “morning star” which is likely an allusion to Num. 24:17 and Isa. 11:10) and so the Messiah will not just be a king but will be light. He will be powerful, yes, but more important than that, he will be the light of the world (Lk. 2:32).
Luke ends this section with a personal note about John. Once again, he has not lost sight of the intimate human stories encapsulated within the larger picture of God at work in the world. John was a real person. He was a joy to his parents who, no doubt, took great pleasure in watching him grow in stature and in the way of the Spirit. The fact that he lived in the wilderness demonstrate that John was likely very connected with people of Israel. Just as they were led through the wilderness following God’s Spirit, so was John. He could identify with Israel. Some have claimed that his location in the wilderness might be a clue that John was part of the Essene community at Qumran, at least for a time. It is quite possible that the Essenes of John’s time believed that they were the last generation before the Teacher of Righteousness came, so this group could very well have been a good training ground for John and his coming role in God’s redemption plan but there is no hard evidence of that and even if John was part of the Essene community that does not limit him or Jesus to their peculiar beliefs. These little personal touches and glimpses, however, constantly remind us that is not just some dry religious tale but the very real story of God coming himself as a baby to rescue his people.
Devotional Thought
Zechariah learned obedience, trust, and submission to God’s will even in his old age. What lessons do you need to learn today from God? Are you open and ready to whatever God might call you to do? Are you pushing your expectations aside and waiting for God to work in your community in whatever ways he desires to work through you? Pray this week to be humble and to be open to God’s will in your life and see if he doesn’t call you to do something you never expected.
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