November 20, 2016 Luke 1:68-79

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for God has looked favorably on God’s people and redeemed them.
God has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of God’s servant David,
as God spoke through the mouth of God’s holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Thus God has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and has remembered God’s holy covenant,
the oath that God swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we,
being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve God without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before God all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare God’s ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to God’s people by the forgiveness of their sins.
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.”

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What would you have to say, if you couldn’t speak for nine months? What would be the first thing you would say? and who would you tell?

I have always loved those last-minute-on-earth kinds of questions; they get to the heart of who we are. My friend Lisa once asked, “If the world was to end in five minutes and you could call one person, who would it be, and what would you say, and why are you not doing it now?” “If the world was to end in five minutes and you could call one person, who would it be, and what would you say, and why are you not doing it now?”

As lofty as the question is, in it's who and what, the question’s practical counterpart of why aren’t you doing it now, is equally important. That, why you aren’t doing it, calling that person now, that what’s stopping you, is just as big of a question as the who you would call and what you would say.

I would call my sister, and tell her I love her. I don’t do it enough and I want to. I don’t do enough because I get busy and I assume she knows. But assuming she knows isn’t at all like her hearing it.

This scripture is one of those phone calls, but it came after nine months of silence. The story began after years of Zachariah and Elizabeth praying for a child, and finally becoming pregnant with John who would later become John the Baptist. An angel Gabriel came to tell Zachariah the news, and he did not believe Gabriel, and therefore was mute for nine months. During this time, Mary who was pregnant with Jesus came to visit Elizabeth who was Mary’s Aunt. After John’s birth, Zachariah and Elizabeth are taking the infant to the temple for the birth ritual, and Zachariah is finally able to speak again and this scripture are his first words.

After nine months, the first thing he utters is praise to God.

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,”

I wonder, if we were silent for nine months, would this be the first thing we say? I have no idea.

The second thing he says, is both praise and prophesy, prophesy about Jesus from Zachariah’s own words, and also prophesy referencing the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel. Zachariah says,

“for God has looked favorably on God’s people and redeemed them.
God has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of God’s servant David,
as God spoke through the mouth of God’s holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.”

The third thing Zachariah talks about is how God has kept God’s promise.

“Thus God has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and has remembered God’s holy covenant,
the oath that God swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve God without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before God all our days.”

After nine months, the response to God keeping God’s word is to serve God. And then Zachariah looks at John and says,

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare God’s ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to God’s people by the forgiveness of their sins.”

Zachariah’s son John the Baptist will prepare Jesus’s way, baptizing the people, and Jesus himself. Then Zachariah says,

“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 last verse is a two fold promise, both that Jesus will be born and his light will shine in the darkness, and in the shadow of death, and secondly, that light will beam down like when the heaven’s opened when Jesus was baptized and down came a dove, a symbol of peace, and God said, this is my child with whom I am well pleased.

All this, had been waiting, pregnant in Zachariah’s mouth for nine months. I imagine the words slowly coming and changing and eventually refining into this run-on-sentence of praise and prophesy, and I wonder, if we too were silent for nine months, what words and feelings would gestate in our mouths, and what would we come out saying?

I don't know because I haven’t tried it. I am your pastor, and Zachariah was a priest, and even as religious leaders, I have never taken a couple weeks much less a month, or nine, just to be with God. It is too easy to ignore the calling to be silent before God. To be too busy, to take five minutes - to call my sister; or as congregants, as Christians, to be too busy, to call that one person, and if I had to guess, your words too would be some version of I love you.

But this I love you to Diana, my sister, is if I had five minutes. Imagine nine months, imagine a pregnancy of silence with God. This is what is coming. Advent is coming. It starts next Sunday, as we wait for the birth of Christ. And notice that word, “wait.” Wait, wait, Advent, isn’t a count down, it is a time taking. We are given the time to be quiet, to reflect, to sit, to be in the world, to form our words. We have been given time.

We have been given time, we don’t have to do the things we feel pressured to, the Greening of the Church with the parade, the Cookie Swap, the Youth or Women’s Support Group Christmas Parties, the hanging of the Advent Windows, Angel Tree, the Children’s Program, even the Christmas Eve Service. If any one of these feel like something you have to do, don't do them, instead, do that which makes you feel pregnant with God.

We have been given time, we don’t have to do the things we feel pressured to, the Christmas cards, the decorating the house, the cooking and the baking, the shopping, the traveling, if any one of these feel like something you have to do, don't do them, instead, do that which makes you feel pregnant with God.

We have been given time, we don’t have to do the things we feel pressured to, the pain of sitting around a table and pretending all is well when it is not, the looking happy and singing Christmas Carols when its our first Christmas without a loved one. I imagine before this year in scripture, Zachariah and Elizabeth would have found the holidays hard as parents who desperately want kids. I would have told them too, if any one of these feel like something they had to do, don't do them, instead, do that which makes you feel pregnant with God.

And they became so, and so are we welcomed to become pregnant with God. Zachariah turns to infant John the Baptist and says, And you child, will be the prophet of the most high, and likewise, Zachariah turns to us and asks us to also be prophets of the most high. So how will our lives show this prophesy? In business, in distraction, or in the way we take the time to nurture the God within us.

Advent starts in a week, and this is our week to prepare, to clear our schedule, to assess where our hours, our energy, money, and our talents, are going, and to ask ourselves, is it going to make us feel pregnant with God, or farther away. Will our Advent Season, look like calling that person we love, or continuing to do the things which are keeping us from making that call. We have been given the time, You Child have been given the time. Amen.