Luke 1

Today’s Passage: Luke 1

This is the longest chapter in the Gospel, and it is worth taking slowly, because everything Luke will spend twenty-three more chapters unfolding is already seeded here. He begins in a way no other Gospel writer does, with a formal preface addressed to a named man, telling him exactly what this book is and how it was made: many have written accounts, the eyewitnesses handed things down, and Luke has investigated it all carefully so that his reader may know the certainty of what he has been taught. Then the history itself opens, and it opens in a village, with an old priest and his old wife who have prayed for a child until they stopped expecting one. An angel meets Zechariah at the altar of incense with news of a son who will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, and the old man asks how he can be sure, and is struck silent. Six months later the same angel is sent to a town in Galilee with no importance at all, to a young woman pledged to a carpenter, and tells her that she will conceive by the Holy Spirit and bear the Son of the Most High, whose kingdom will never end. She believes. Then the two women meet, and a baby leaps in the womb, and the chapter turns into music. Mary sings of a God who scatters the proud and fills the hungry. John is born, the naming dispute is settled by a writing tablet, the silenced priest speaks again, and his first word is praise. Two annunciations, two songs, one long-awaited dawn breaking over a people who had heard nothing from heaven for four centuries.

As you read, hold this: God breaks four hundred years of silence with an angel in the temple and an angel in Nazareth, and He begins to keep His promises so exactly that the barren sing, a virgin conceives the Son of the Most High, and a mute priest’s first word is praise.

Luke 1:1–4 (BSB)

¹ Many have undertaken to compose an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, ² just as they were handed down to us by the initial eyewitnesses and servants of the word. ³ Therefore, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴ so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Stop and look at what kind of book you are holding, because Luke tells you plainly before he tells you anything else. In the Greek this preface is a single, carefully balanced sentence, the most polished Greek in the New Testament, written in the manner of the serious historians of the age. Luke is announcing his credentials, and they are not what a modern reader might expect. He does not say he saw these things. He says that others did, “the initial eyewitnesses and servants of the word,” and that what they handed down came to him. Then he tells you his method: he has “carefully investigated everything from the beginning,” followed the trail back to its source, and set it down in an orderly account. Somewhere behind this chapter, then, are conversations. Someone told Luke what the angel said at the altar of incense. Someone remembered the words of the Magnificat and could still repeat them. Do not let that trouble your confidence for a moment. The Spirit of God who carried the writers of Scripture along did not bypass their hands and eyes and patient questioning; He used them. And notice, finally, why Luke went to the trouble. Not to add another book to a shelf, but “so that you may know the certainty (ἀσφάλεια) asphaleia, pronounced ah-SFAH-lay-ah. Strong's G803, certainty, firm footing, safety. The word that ends Luke’s preface is asphaleia, and it lands with weight because it is the last word of the sentence in Greek, held back until everything else has been said. Break it apart and it means literally “not slipping,” from a verb for stumbling or falling, with the negative prefix in front. It is the word for a footing that will hold, for a prisoner kept securely, for a city safe from attack. Paul uses it of the world’s false confidence when men say “peace and safety.” Luke uses it here of what the Gospel is meant to do for a reader. Christian faith is not a leap into fog, and it was never meant to rest on the sincerity of the person believing it. It rests on things that happened, at datable times, in named places, to people whose relatives could still be interviewed. That is why Luke did the work. He wanted Theophilus, and you, to be able to put weight on it without slipping. So when you come to this Gospel, come expecting firm ground. The God who could have dropped a book out of the sky instead moved a careful man to go and ask, so that ordinary people in every century after would have something solid under their feet. of the things you have been taught.” Theophilus had already been instructed. He had heard the story. What he needed, and what Luke sets out to give him, was solid ground under it.

Luke 1:5–10 (BSB)

⁵ In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah, and whose wife Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron. ⁶ Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and decrees of the Lord. ⁷ But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well along in years. ⁸ One day while Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, ⁹ he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. ¹⁰ And at the hour of the incense offering, the whole congregation was praying outside.

Now watch where God chooses to begin. Not in Rome, where the emperor sat, and not in Herod’s palace, but with a country priest and his wife, and Luke tells you three things about them before anything happens. They were old. They were childless. And they were righteous. Read verse six again, because it is remarkable: “Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and decrees of the Lord.” That does not mean sinless. It means what the Old Testament means by an upright man, one who feared God, kept His law, and dealt honestly with his neighbors. And then verse seven follows immediately with the sorrow: “But they had no children.” Sit with that conjunction for a moment. Scripture sets their godliness and their grief side by side in consecutive sentences and offers no explanation and no apology. In a world quick to assume that empty arms meant hidden sin, Luke will not have it. These two had done everything right and had wanted the one thing they could not have, for decades, and God had not said no because they had failed Him. Then comes the once-in-a-lifetime lot. Of all the priests in Israel and all the years of his service, on this day the lot fell to Zechariah to carry the censer into the Holy Place, and outside in the courts the whole congregation stood praying while the smoke went up. It looked like the most ordinary of holy days. Four hundred years of silence were about to end in the middle of it, and not one person in that courtyard knew.

Luke 1:11–17 (BSB)

¹¹ Just then an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and gripped with fear. ¹³ But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice at his birth, ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He shall never take wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb. ¹⁶ Many of the sons of Israel he will turn back to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

The angel is simply standing there, on the right side of the altar, as though he had been waiting, and the old priest is undone. Notice that the first word out of heaven after four centuries is a word of comfort: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard.” Which prayer? Perhaps the one he had prayed for a son until he stopped praying it, years ago, and had learned to live without. Perhaps the prayer he was offering at that very altar on behalf of the nation, that God would redeem His people. Faithful readers have taken it both ways, and it may well be that the answer to both was walking toward Elizabeth’s house that week, for the son he was given would be the herald of the redemption he had asked for. Either way, hear this: heaven had a record of a prayer that the man who prayed it had quietly filed away as unanswered. God is not slow the way we count slowness. Then look at the boy who is coming. He will be a joy and a delight, and many will rejoice, which is the first note of a chapter that will not stop singing. He will be great in the sight of the Lord, which is the only greatness worth measuring. He will take no wine or strong drink, set apart from the womb in the manner of a Nazirite. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit before he is ever born, which is a staggering thing to say about an unborn child and which Luke will show you working in nine verses’ time. And he will go before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, turning the hearts of fathers to their children, making ready a prepared people. Those words are not new. They are the last thing God said before the silence fell. The first thing He says when it breaks is the same thing, picked up mid-sentence, as though no time had passed at all.

Luke 1:18–25 (BSB)

¹⁸ “How can I be sure of this?” Zechariah asked the angel. “I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.” ¹⁹ “I am Gabriel,” replied the angel. “I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. ²⁰ And now you will be silent and unable to speak until the day this comes to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time.” ²¹ Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he took so long in the temple. ²² When he came out and was unable to speak to them, they realized he had seen a vision in the temple. He kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak. ²³ And when the days of his service were complete, he returned home. ²⁴ After these days, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. She declared, ²⁵ “The Lord has done this for me. In these days He has shown me favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

“How can I be sure of this?” It is an honest question from a man who has had a long life to grow realistic, and he backs it up with the evidence: I am old, my wife is old, this is not how the world works. Interpreters have weighed his response carefully, because Mary will ask something that sounds very like it and will not be disciplined for it, and the difference is worth naming rather than glossing over. Some point to the wording itself: Zechariah asks for a proof, a guarantee, something to make the promise credible, while Mary asks how the thing will be done. Some point to what each of them had already been given: a priest who knew the Scriptures had Abraham and Sarah, Hannah, and the mother of Samson behind him, and a barren wife receiving a son was the very sort of thing his God was famous for, whereas no woman in history had ever been asked to believe what Mary was asked to believe. Some simply note Gabriel’s own reason, that Zechariah “did not believe my words.” Be fair to the old man. He is not a villain, and Scripture has just called him righteous. He is a believer whose faith buckled under a very specific weight, which is a thing that happens to good people, and God’s response is remarkable for its gentleness. Zechariah is not removed from his office, not struck down, not cast off. He is made quiet for nine months, and the silence is at once a discipline and a sign, exactly the guarantee he had asked for. And remember how it ends, because the story is kinder than we usually tell it: when this man finally speaks again, what comes out of him is one of the most beautiful songs in the Bible. Meanwhile the crowd outside is puzzled, the blessing never comes, the priest gestures at them helplessly and goes home, and Elizabeth conceives. Her five months of seclusion end in a sentence you can almost hear her say slowly: “The Lord has done this for me. In these days He has shown me favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” Not fortune. Not chance. The Lord has done this for me.

Luke 1:26–33 (BSB)

²⁶ In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged in marriage to a man named Joseph, who was of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” ²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ So the angel told her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, ³³ and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end!”

Luke has built the two announcements to stand side by side so that you cannot miss the comparison, and every element of the second one is smaller than the first. The first came in Jerusalem, the second in Nazareth. The first came to a priest in the temple, the second to a girl in a house. The first came to a man in the middle of the holiest duty of his life, the second to a young woman with no office at all, going about her ordinary day. And the second announcement is incomparably greater. Gabriel’s greeting is one word in Greek, a perfect passive participle: she is the one who has been highly favored (χαριτόω) charitoō, pronounced khah-ree-TOH-oh. Strong's G5487, to bestow grace upon, to favor highly. The verb behind the greeting is charitoō, built straight off charis, grace. It means to bestow grace upon someone, to freely favor them, and in the whole New Testament it appears only twice: here, and in Ephesians, where Paul says God has graced us in the Beloved. That second use is the safest guide to this one. It describes something done to a person, not something stored up in them. Mary is the recipient of grace, not a reservoir of it, and the participle is passive precisely because the action is entirely God’s. She herself will say so in the next breath, calling God her Savior and speaking of her humble state. So honor her exactly as Scripture honors her, and that is honor enough. Elizabeth will call her blessed among women. Mary herself says all generations will call her blessed, and if you have never once thought of her that way, you are behind the text. She is the young woman who heard the most impossible word ever spoken to a human being and answered, “I am the Lord’s servant.” But the ground of her blessedness is what God freely gave and what she believingly received, which is the same ground any of us stand on, and no other. . And Mary is not flattered by it. She is “greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be,” which tells you a good deal about her. Then the promise, and you should let it build the way Luke builds it. You will conceive and bear a son. You will call Him Jesus, which is Yeshua, the Lord saves. He will be great, with no qualifier this time, where John was to be great “in the sight of the Lord.” He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will never end. Every clause of that is an ancient promise coming due. God had sworn to David through Nathan, and the throne had been empty of a true son of David for six centuries:

"Your house and kingdom will endure forever before Me, and your throne will be established forever.”" 2 Samuel 7:16 (BSB)

An angel has just told a teenager in a Galilean village that the oath is about to be kept in her.

Luke 1:34–38 (BSB)

³⁴ “How can this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. ³⁶ Look, even Elizabeth your relative has conceived a son in her old age, and she who was called barren is in her sixth month. ³⁷ For no word from God will ever fail.” ³⁸ “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it happen to me according to your word.” Then the angel left her.

Here is the heart of the chapter, and it must be said plainly, with wonder and without hedging, because the church has always confessed it and Scripture teaches it without embarrassment. Mary’s question is not doubt but simple biology: she is a virgin, and she is asking how. Gabriel’s answer does not explain the mechanism, because there is none to explain. It names the Agent. “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” That verb for overshadowing is the word used of the cloud of God’s presence that filled the tabernacle and covered the mountain of transfiguration, and it is chosen with great care, for there is nothing whatever in this sentence of the pagan stories in which a god takes a woman. This is the creating Spirit who hovered over the waters, doing what only God can do. And then the conclusion: “So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.” Not adopted as a son, not promoted to sonship, but the Holy One, conceived by the Spirit in a virgin’s womb, fully God and fully man from the first moment of that conception. The Lord of glory took to Himself everything it means to be human, beginning where every one of us began, as an unborn child in His mother. Marvel at it. Christian faith has no smaller Christ to offer and would not want one. Then Gabriel gives her a sign she did not ask for, her elderly relative already six months along, and seals it with a line that gathers up the whole chapter: “For no word from God will ever fail.” An angel had said something very like it once before, to another woman who laughed at the thought of a baby:

"Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you—in about a year—and Sarah will have a son.”" Genesis 18:14 (BSB)

And Mary answers. Not with a bargain, not with a delay, not with a request for time to think about what this will cost her reputation, her betrothal, and possibly her life. “I am the Lord’s servant. May it happen to me according to your word.” The word she uses of herself means a bondservant, a household slave, the lowest position in the house. She takes it willingly. That is faith, and Luke wants you to see it clearly.

Luke 1:39–45 (BSB)

³⁹ In those days Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judah, ⁴⁰ where she entered the home of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² In a loud voice she exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! ⁴³ And why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ For as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord’s word to her will be fulfilled.”

She goes at once, hurrying south into the hill country to the one person on earth who might understand, and what happens when she walks through the door is pure joy. Elizabeth hears the greeting; the baby leaps; Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and cries out. Consider the order of that. Before the old woman knows anything, the unborn child knows, and John begins in the womb the work he will do all his life, which is to point at Someone else and be glad. Then Elizabeth speaks, and this is the first human confession of Christ in the Gospel of Luke: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” And immediately after, “why am I so honored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Weigh that. An old Judean woman, filled with the Spirit, calls the unborn child of a teenage cousin her Lord. There is not a trace of envy in her, though she had waited a lifetime for her own son and this girl had waited days. She sees who has come into her house, and she is undone with gladness. And then her final word, which is the one that ought to stay with you: “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord’s word to her will be fulfilled.” That is the blessing Elizabeth pronounces last, and it is not about Mary’s body but about her faith. Zechariah had heard a word from the same angel and had asked for proof. Mary had heard a harder word and had said, let it be. Both of them were dearly loved by God. But the beatitude falls on the one who believed, and it is a beatitude with room in it for every reader, because taking God at His word is not a privilege reserved for the mother of the Lord. It is offered to you this morning.

Luke 1:46–50 (BSB)

⁴⁶ Then Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! ⁴⁸ For He has looked with favor on the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed. ⁴⁹ For the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is His name. ⁵⁰ His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.

And now the chapter sings. Mary’s song has been on the lips of the church for two thousand years, and it begins with a verb worth pausing over: “My soul magnifies (μεγαλύνω) megalynō, pronounced meh-gah-LOO-noh. Strong's G3170, to magnify, to make great, to declare great. Megalynō comes from megas, great, and it means to make large, to enlarge, to declare great. The Greek translation of the Old Testament that Mary would have heard read aloud uses it constantly for magnifying the Lord, and the psalmists are full of it: magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. Here is the thing to understand about the word. We cannot add one particle to God. He is not enlarged by our praise, and He was not smaller before we opened our mouths. What we can do is what a lens does, which is not to make a thing bigger but to make it look as big as it truly is to eyes that were missing it. That is worship. Mary’s song makes God look enormous, and it does so by telling the plain truth about Him: that He is mighty, that His name is holy, that His mercy runs down the generations, and that He is a Savior. Every one of us is magnifying something, enlarging some subject in the eyes of the people around us by what we talk about and what we celebrate. The great mercy is that the one Subject who deserves it will never be exhausted, and a soul that spends itself declaring how great the Lord is has spent itself on the only thing that is actually as large as it sounds. the Lord.” Notice where her eyes are. She has just been told she will bear the Messiah, and her first line is not about herself at all; it is about how great God is. The second line tells you what she thinks she needs from Him: “my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Mary calls God her Savior, which is a thing only a sinner says, and she says it without hesitation. Then she looks at what has happened to her, and she does not pretend it is small. “He has looked with favor on the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed.” That is not vanity; it is accurate, and we should be able to say it with her. But look at her reason, which is entirely about God: “For the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is His name.” She is a young woman from a village nobody had heard of, and the God whose name is holy noticed her. And then the song widens out past her own story to the whole character of God: “His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.” Her grandmother’s God, and her grandmother’s grandmother’s, still doing the same kind of thing. She is not the first woman in Israel to sing like this. Hannah, given a son when she had none, sang first, and Mary has clearly grown up with that song in her ears:

"At that time Hannah prayed: “My heart rejoices in the LORD; my horn is exalted in the LORD. My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies, for I rejoice in Your salvation." 1 Samuel 2:1 (BSB)

Luke 1:51–56 (BSB)

⁵¹ He has performed mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵² He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has exalted the humble. ⁵³ He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴ He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful, ⁵⁵ as He promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.” ⁵⁶ Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

Then the song turns, and it turns hard, and we should not soften it. God “has scattered those who are proud in the thoughts of their hearts.” He “has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has exalted the humble.” He “has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.” Luke is the Gospel that will say the most about money and status, and the theme is sounded here in its very first song, by a peasant girl with a Roman puppet on the throne a few days’ ride away. Notice first that every verb is in the past tense. Mary is not describing a program she has been handed or a movement she intends to lead. She is describing what God has done, as settled fact, so certain that it can be spoken of as finished. This is His reversal, not ours. Notice second where the proud are proud: “in the thoughts of their hearts.” The line God draws does not run neatly between the wealthy and the poor as the world counts them, because a poor man can be eaten alive with pride and a rich one can be genuinely humble, and Scripture knows both. What God resists is the settled inward conviction that we are self-sufficient and need no mercy, and what He loves to fill are the hands that are open because they are empty. So read these lines honestly and let them do their work, whatever your circumstances are. Do not hear them as an accusation if God has been generous with you, and do not hear them as a compliment if He has not. Hear them as a warning against the one posture God will not fill, and as a promise to everyone who comes hungry. And then Mary lands the song where it belongs, on the covenant: “He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful, as He promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.” Everything happening in her body is God keeping an old promise. Then, quietly, Luke tells us she stayed about three months and went home. She was almost certainly there for the birth.

Luke 1:57–66 (BSB)

⁵⁷ When the time came for Elizabeth to have her child, she gave birth to a son. ⁵⁸ Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they rejoiced with her. ⁵⁹ On the eighth day, when they came to circumcise the child, they were going to name him after his father Zechariah. ⁶⁰ But his mother replied, “No! He shall be called John.” ⁶¹ They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who bears this name.” ⁶² So they made signs to his father to find out what he wanted to name the child. ⁶³ Zechariah asked for a tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they were all amazed. ⁶⁴ Immediately Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his tongue was released, and he began to speak, praising God. ⁶⁵ All their neighbors were filled with awe, and people throughout the hill country of Judea were talking about these events. ⁶⁶ And all who heard this wondered in their hearts and asked, “What then will this child become?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.

The neighbors and relatives get the first word here, and what they say is exactly right: the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they rejoiced with her. That is the third outbreak of joy in this chapter, and we are not halfway through the songs yet. Then the eighth day comes, and with it the naming, and with it a small collision that Luke evidently enjoyed telling. The family assumes the boy will be a Zechariah, as families do. Elizabeth says no. They protest that there is no one in the family by the name of John, which is the sort of objection that has never once persuaded anyone of anything. So they turn to the father, making signs to him, which tells us in passing that he had been deaf as well as mute all this time. He asks for a tablet, and he writes five words, and they are the five words of a man who has had nine months to think about obedience: “His name is John.” Not “he shall be called,” but is. It was settled by the angel before the child was conceived, and Zechariah is simply reporting it. And in that instant, at the exact moment of his obedience, the seal breaks. His mouth is opened, his tongue is released, and Luke tells us the first thing he did with a voice he had not used since spring: he praised God. Do not hurry past that. Nine months of enforced quiet, all the words dammed up behind them, and when the dam finally goes it is not complaint that comes out, and not an explanation, and not even the story. It is praise. The whole hill country hears about it, and the neighbors are filled with awe and start asking a question that hangs over the rest of the chapter: “What then will this child become?”

Luke 1:67–75 (BSB)

⁶⁷ Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied: ⁶⁸ “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and redeemed His people. ⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, ⁷⁰ as He spoke through His holy prophets, those of ages past, ⁷¹ salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, ⁷² to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, ⁷³ the oath He swore to our father Abraham, to grant us ⁷⁴ deliverance from hostile hands, that we may serve Him without fear, ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.

Here is Zechariah’s song, and here is the answer to the neighbors’ question, and the first surprising thing about it is how little of it is about his own son. The old priest has waited a lifetime for this boy, has been struck silent over him, and has just been given his voice back at the naming of him. And he opens his mouth and sings about somebody else’s child. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and redeemed His people.” Visited. That is the tender word Scripture uses for God stooping down to look on His people in their trouble and to act, the word used when the LORD came down to Egypt for slaves who had cried out. “He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David.” A horn is the strength of the ox, the picture of power that saves, and notice the house it comes from. Not the house of Levi, which is Zechariah’s own. The house of David, which is Mary’s news. And notice the tense again, the same settled past that Mary used, because the deliverer is not yet born and the priest speaks of Him as already raised up. Then the song reaches back for its footing: this is what God said “through His holy prophets, those of ages past,” this is the mercy promised to the fathers, this is “the oath He swore to our father Abraham.” Two thousand years lay between Abraham and Zechariah, and here is an old man in a hill village saying that God has not forgotten a syllable of it. And what is the promise finally for? Read verses seventy-four and seventy-five slowly, because they name the goal of the whole rescue: that we, “delivered from hostile hands,” may “serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.” God does not save people merely to make them safe. He saves them so that they can worship Him freely, unafraid, for as long as they live.

Luke 1:76–80 (BSB)

⁷⁶ And you, 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 to His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the Dawn will visit us from on high, ⁷⁹ to shine on those who live 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; and he lived in the wilderness until the time of his public appearance to Israel.

Only now does the father turn to the cradle. “And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High.” Then he says what the child is for, and it is the same word Gabriel used: he will go on before the Lord to prepare the way. His whole life will be a pointing finger. And what will he give the people? Not a political program. “The knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” Understand what that does to verse seventy-one. Zechariah had sung of salvation from enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, and every listener in that room would have thought first of Rome. Now he tells them where the deepest enemy lives and how the rescue will actually come, and it is by forgiveness. Then the song lifts into its last image, and it is the loveliest thing in the chapter: all of this comes “because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the Dawn (ἀνατολή) anatolē, pronounced ah-nah-toh-LAY. Strong's G395, a rising, dawn, sunrise; also a branch springing up. Anatolē comes from a verb meaning to rise or spring up, and it carries two pictures at once. It is the ordinary word for the sunrise, and therefore for the east, the direction the sun comes from; it is the word Matthew uses of the Magi who came “from the east.” But the Greek Old Testament also uses it to translate a Hebrew word for a branch, a shoot springing up from a root, which was one of the great titles for the coming Messiah in the prophets. Translators have to pick one, and English versions render it “Dayspring,” “Dawn,” “rising sun,” or “Branch.” Zechariah, a man soaked in the Scriptures, almost certainly heard both. Here is a shoot springing up from the cut stump of David’s line, and here is the sun coming up on a night that had lasted four hundred years. Malachi, the last voice before the silence, had promised exactly this: “for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.” What the old priest is saying, then, is that the long night is over and it is not over because the people finally deserved a morning. It is over “because of the tender mercy of our God.” Dawn is not something anyone earns or arranges or hurries. It simply comes, and the people sitting in the dark did nothing to summon it but wait. Blessed be God for a mercy like that. will visit us from on high, to shine on those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” Picture it. People sitting in the dark, unable to see the road, unable to move, and then the first grey light on the hills and the world coming back into shape. Isaiah had seen it centuries before and used the same picture:

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned." Isaiah 9:2 (BSB)

And then Luke closes the chapter almost abruptly. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he lived in the wilderness. Thirty years pass in half a sentence. Everything in this chapter has been noise and light and singing, and now there is a long quiet while a boy grows up in the desert, and his old parents almost certainly die, and Israel waits. God is never in a hurry, and He is never idle in the waiting.