"So Much To Say"	December 6, 2009
Psalm 126, Luke 1: 68-79	2nd Sunday of Advent
Colesville Presbyterian Church	Pastoral Associate Aaron D. Frank

 

This morning’s scripture continues to help us prepare for Christmas, for the birth of Jesus, for our future as a congregation. Luke presents for us the song of Zechariah. Before we read the text, I want you to take a moment and think about an important phone call that you need to make. Think for a moment about a conversation you want to have with a friend or a loved one. Think for a moment and settle in on that important statement you want to make. [PAUSE] Have you settled on that idea, that conversation? Now, you have to wait—wait and ruminate on that idea. I want us to consider what it means to wait. Let’s wait for one full minute; one minute in which no one can speak. One minute in which even if you are inclined to blurt out your statement, you are not allowed; you must be silent. Ready. Go. [WAIT]

 

One minute can seem like a long time. Consider not being able to speak for 9 months. Maybe, 10 months or a year. Consider being deaf at the same time. All the while, formulating your statement, knowing that you want to have that conversation, that you need to say something, only you can’t.

 

That was Zechariah’s situation. He was a priest in the Temple and was someone whose the townspeople greatly valued. His vocation was to listen and to speak. He and his wife Elizabeth were older and had not had children. In a miraculous moment an angel, Gabriel, appeared to them and said that they would soon have a child and that he would be named John. Zechariah scoffed, and the angel struck him deaf and mute. He stayed that way, for 9 months, 10 months , a year, until the birth of the boy. When the baby was presented at the temple, Zechariah’s voice was returned to him and Luke tells us he was he was filled with the spirit. He spoke, he sang, this prophesy. 

 

[Read Luke 1: 68-79]

 

Zechariah was so filled with joy at the birth of his son, at the gift that God had given him and Elizabeth, at the return of his voice and hearing that he literally sings. I imagine he also leapt for joy in this moment. He was ecstatic with joy.

 

We sat silent for a single minute, a minute in which we thought about conversations that we’d like to have. Zechariah was forced to be silent for months, watching the world pass him by; he spent months pondering the idea of having a child in his old age, pondering the name John. In Hebrew, John means, “God is gracious.” Unable to speak, unable to hear, Zechariah was stuck inside his own head, living with a disability, thinking of that name, “John,” knowing the meaning.  “God is gracious.” I suspect that Zechariah’s reaction to literally losing his senses was fear, if not terror. What was he going to do? How could he provide for his family? How would he live out his vocation? And numerous other questions, all filling his days.

 

In those months of waiting, not knowing whether his voice would ever return, if he would hear again, Zechariah was slowly transformed. Smelling dinner, he remembered, God is gracious. Putting on his liturgical vestments, he remembered, God is gracious.  Seeing the children of the village, he remembered, God is gracious. Having lost two of his senses, he learned to see, smell and touch in new ways. In the graciousness of God, his fear changed into love, into joy. 

 

When Luke first introduces Zechariah, he is portrayed as a curmudgeon. He takes his work as a priest very seriously; the laws and ritual of the temple consumed him. But in these months, pondering the mantra, “God is gracious,” he is made new. Pondering those words, looking in silence at the world, his vision is transformed. He is filled with joy, filled with the spirit of the Lord. And, he sings.

 

The recent months here may have been a time of fear—a novice, a departure, an arrival. You may say that these days are still filled with fear. Fears about the past, about unresolved relationships and grudges. Fear over what will come of this place. Luke presents us with a recipe for joy in this time, in our preparations for Christmas. We may not be literally struck silent or deaf in this time of transition, but we are invited to think and to look in new ways. Scholar Robin Gallaher Branch posits that during his ‘time-out,’ Zechariah may have read the scrolls, immersing himself in the Psalms and the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah. He certainly pondered what new thing God may be doing in forcing this silence. When he is released, he is filled with joy, filled with the spirit of the Lord. How will Colesville be transformed in this time of observation and pondering? What will your song be?

 

God’s grace was given to Zechariah in the form of silence as he waited for his son to be born. Colesville has been blessed with an opportunity to contemplate a new chapter in its history. In this season of Advent we too are waiting, we are watching for the coming baby Jesus. There are still a few weeks until Christmas arrives. And yet we are inundated with songs of Christmas, with the sounds of cash registers ringing, with the voices of people talking about what gifts they want, as well as laments about what the economy has done to our ability to provide gifts for our family members. 

 

In these holy weeks of waiting before Christmas, Luke invites us to seek out times of silence, times of reflection. Luke, through Zechariah begs us to remember the ways in which God has been gracious to us. In Zechariah’s song, we are reminded of the joy in which we can be filled with when we truly internalize this grace, when we consider the miracles God performs in our own lives. 

 

Zechariah shouts for joy as he remembers the oath that God made with Abraham promising him a multitude of generations. His song is filled with transformations – from darkness to light; from fear to holiness; from promise to reality; from sin to forgiveness; from captivity to freedom. Verses 76 & 77 are the crux of these transformations. “And you, [John], 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 by the forgiveness of their sins.” Out of these words, comes the Zechariah’s attempt to voice the change that has occurred in him in his silence, as he watched the world around him. “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” 

 

In this season of Advent we wait for the coming Christ, but this waiting is not a time of idleness. Rather, we are called to prepare, to observe, to gather our thoughts, as we consider the dawn that is soon to break upon us, guiding us to new beginnings.

 

As we walk through this Advent season, let us seek out silence, so that we can more deeply understand God’s grace, and so that we can more fully sing out with joy.

 

Amen.