Hooray! Today we begin the New Testament. Not that the Old Testament wasn’t good, it was…but this marks a milestone for us. Let’s dig in.
In one brief chapter of Luke we have the account of John the Baptist, and the Spirit filled responses of both Mary, Elizabeth and Zechariah. This chapter is certainly packed with content!
Note: The temple that Zechariah is worshipping in is the same one that we read about in Ezra and Nehemiah..the one built by Zerubbabel. But you probably wouldn’t recognize it from it’s humble beginnings those many years ago. In the last 50 years or so king Herod has taken an interest in the temple and the temple mount, and has brought enormous improvements to both, making them much larger and far more exquisite. Herod has expanded the court of the Gentiles, and improved upon almost every other area as well. It’s all part of his plan to make Jerusalem a destination city within the empire.
Zechariah is behind the curtain in the holy of holies, but there isn’t an ark there anymore. I’m not exactly sure what the high priest did back there, without the Ark. However they had decided to offer the sacrifices, it was during the ritual that the angel appeared.
This passage reminds me that God isn’t the enemy of ritual. I don’t care much for it, but it certainly has a place in worship.
Comparing Mary’s response to Zechariah’s we find that the old priest had more doubts than the young maid without much formal education. That in itself is rather ironic, isn’t it? You would expect the priest to say “alright, whatever you say” and the country maid should be the one to doubt. But maybe the priest had been around the temple for so many years and seen nothing that he had a hard time accepting the reality of it.
I’ve said it before: there are several cases in the Bible where God provides children to people who are either past the age of giving birth, or who are barren. I think it’s simply one more way that God demonstrates His power and authority over the creation and natural order. When something this unique and unusual happens we are forced to acknowledge the working of His mighty hand.
Elizabeth says Mary is “blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what He said.” You and I can receive that same blessing by simply accepting by faith that God will do what He says. There are so many promises in the Bible…at least one for every day. By claiming those promises and behaving in faith as though God will bring them to completion, we can be blessed.
John 1
John didn’t write to give a chronological account of what Jesus said and did. He wrote as the last of the Gospel writers to provide evidences that Jesus was the Messiah. John knew what the others had written, and he included what he felt helped prove his point, and excluded other things for the same reason. For that reason, John’s Gospel is very different from the others.
Just look at these first few verses: God in the form of Jesus Christ existed before Bethlehem. He is one who is eternal and uncreated, unborn and always existing. It is through Jesus that all creation was formed, it didn’t happen without Him. The “light” that John is speaking of is the light of knowledge, and the darkness is ignorance and sin. Jesus is both the Living Word and the Knowledge of the Almighty. Word and Light will be powerful metaphors in John’s Gospel.
This Gospel was written by John the Apostle, but the John he mentions here is John the Baptist…whose birth to Zechariah and Elizabeth we just read about in Luke 1. John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins….at least in a worldly sense.
One other thing: In Malachi the prophet says the Elijah will come before the “great and dreadful day of the Lord” Malachi 4
John the Baptist is the “Elijah” that was to come. Jesus says exactly this in Matthew 11:13-14.
Faithfully,
PR