Silence Broken, Promises Kept, Prayers Answered Luke 1:5 – 25

 

Communication is important always, but especially in times of crisis or difficulty. The astronauts and flight crew from NASA’s Apollo 13 mission can attest to that. After an onboard oxygen tank exploded on their way to the moon on April 13, 1970, the crew had to abandon their mission and limp their vessel back home to earth.

 

Perhaps the most nerve wracking part of that whole ordeal was the radio silence during reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Because the reentry path was longer and shallower than normal, the blackout period was expected to be a little longer than the normal four minutes or so. After it lasted 30 seconds longer than expected, folks became concerned. After another 30 seconds had passed after that, folks were alarmed.

 

Reentry took almost a minute and a half longer than expected, a full six minutes of radio silence. Apollo 13 flight director Gene Kranz called it the “toughest minute and a half we ever had.”^[1] Often times in life, our toughest moments come when we feel like we’re in the middle of our own radio silence.

 

Have you ever sent a text and it just floats out there for a while without a response? Anxiety inducing. Worse, however, is when we feel like we’re experiencing radio silence from God. It is so hard when we feel like God is silent, not answering prayers, and we’re struggling to see Him at work through our situation.

 

Today we begin the first leg of our journey through the Gospel of Luke. After Luke spent time on mission with the apostle Paul, he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to investigate and compile all the facts about Christ, His ministry, and His mission. In doing so, Luke wrote both his Gospel and the Book of Acts. Luke gives the fullest account of Christ’s birth, beginning with God breaking His silence through His angel Gabriel. Let’s read God’s Word together: Luke 1:1 – 17.

 

The OT ended with a prophecy in the last two verses of the Book of Malachi. That prophecy is cited, and its fulfilment promised here. Malachi ended his book with God’s words saying, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

 

That marks the beginning of what’s called, “the 400 years of silence,” the period between the OT and the NT, during which God did not speak, and no biblical prophet wrote or spoke. That’s 400 years of radio silence from God; a 6 minute blackout has nothing on a 400 year blackout period.

 

Now, despite being silent, these were actually a very active 400 years. During these years, Greece expanded its influence through the conquests of Alexander the Great, with Greek becoming the common language of the Ancient Near Eastern world. Following this, was the rise of the Roman Empire and its occupation of Judea.

 

While God’s voice may have seemed silent, His hand was still moving, and these significant changes were shaping the world that Christ would come into. God may have seemed far away, but He was always there, directing the course of human history and waiting on His own perfect timing.

 

Luke opens his Gospel with a brief intro as to what he’s doing. He says others have undertaken to put together a narrative of what Christ had done, and just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have verbally passed on what they saw to them, he felt it was good to write it down in an orderly manner. Such a doctor.

 

He addresses both his Gospel and Acts to Theophilus, whose name literally means “friend of God.” Luke himself was a gentile Christian, and he was writing to gentile Christians, to help build up their certainty about what they’ve been taught. Then he begins.

 

The problem the people of God had was that they were slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. So, those 400 years of silence ended with God speaking through His angel Gabriel, promising the birth of another prophet who will speak with the power of the Spirit.

Luke introduces Zechariah, who was a priest during the days of King Herod the Great. Zechariah was married to Elizabeth, also from a priestly line, a daughter of Aaron. Since in those days, barrenness was seen as being due to some sin in the married couple’s life, Luke goes out of his way to point out their upright character in v.6.

 

Zechariah and Elizabeth represent the best of OT piety, they were righteous in God’s sight, not man’s, and they kept God’s commandments and regulations. They walked blamelessly. But yet, they had no children because Elizabeth was indeed barren, and both were up there in age.

 

This is just as deliberate as the other times in the Bible when God has done this. Luke points out their barrenness and age because one, its factual, and two it points to the human impossibility of what’s about to happen in their lives and it heightens the miraculous nature of what God is about to do. Luke figured his readers would remember similar situations in the OT when God did this.

 

And so two problems are presented here. There’s the very human problem of Zechariah and Elizabeth being old and without a child, but there’s also the fact that God has been silent for 400 years. Both are about to be resolved in an epic way.

 

Luke writes in vv.8 – 9 that while Zechariah was on duty serving as priest before God, that he was chosen by lot to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense at the altar. Now, this isn’t the most holy place, or the Holy of Holies. This is the altar that is in front of the veil that separates the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple.

 

Now, nothing happens by chance, and the casting of lots was believed to be a way of discerning God’s will. Remember, despite God’s silence, His hand was still moving. There were about 18,000 priests who served the temple, so entering the holy place to clean the altar and to offer fresh incense usually only happened once in the lifetime of a priest. It was not by chance, but by God’s will that Zechariah’s turn came up to go burn incense when it did.

 

When it was time for Zechariah to go in and burn incense to the Lord, there was a crowd of people outside of the temple praying. While inside, God finally broke His silence. There to the right of the altar was an angel of the Lord. And Zechariah was terrified.

After 400 years of radio silence, God finally speaks through His angel, Gabriel. What must’ve been going through Zechariah’s mind at this point? After 400 years of silence, have you come to talk to me? What have I done? Am I in trouble? He was rightfully afraid, even for someone as upright as him.

 

The angel reassures him, tells him in v.13, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.” God breaks His silence with a word of comfort and a promise of answered prayer. But what prayer is God answering?

 

Was Zechariah still praying that God would bless them with a child, even in their old age? Probably not in that moment, but you can be sure that two righteous people like Zechariah and Elizabeth knew to pray fervently for a child, though by this time they probably had stopped. Was Zechariah praying for the redemption of Israel? Possibly. On both counts, however, God’s silence was deafening.

 

That’s often the case with prayer, even today. People pray and they pray and they pray, crying out to God to deliver them or to bless them or to heal them, but there are times that the answer is silence. But look, God has broken His silence.

 

He has spoken, through His Holy Word, and their prayer was about to be answered but in a much richer sense than they could have ever imagined. Both of these prayers were about to be answered in the same event because their son would prepare the way for the Messiah.

 

The name the angel tells them to give their son, John, means YHWH has been gracious. And gracious He has been indeed. When He breaks His silence, it was to pronounce the coming redemption found only through His grace, and John was to be the one called to do it for Him.

 

The angel of the Lord tells Zechariah such amazing things about this son he’s going to have. John’s birth would bring joy and gladness, not just for Zechariah and his wife, but because of the joy that the messianic age he was tasked with heralding in would bring. Many rejoiced at his birth because he brought the joyous announcement of the hope Israel.

 

 

John would be great before the Lord, yet the One who is greater than he was still to come. John was to live a life set apart, no wine or fermented drink. Later Jesus would say that JtB came eating no bread and drinking no wine, yet he was still hated. John was live the ascetic life in the wilderness.

 

And on top of that, he would be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from within his mother’s womb. He would bring back many of the Children of Israel to the Lord their God, to return them to where they once were. John will walk before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah, arguably Israel’ greatest prophet. And he would fulfill the prophecy that ended the OT, and make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

 

Wow. God chose to break His silence with this. God breaks His silence by reminding Zechariah that He does indeed keep His promises and he answers prayers. The OT pointed to this moment in time, when the Deliverer of Israel, Redeemer of mankind, the promised Messiah would come and God kicks it off in this epic manner. Zechariah must’ve been thrilled about this. Let’s go back to our passage and read what happens. Luke 1:18 – 25.

 

Oh, typical human right? This is the typical pattern of angelic birth announcements in the OT. The angel appears, the person he appears to is terrified, the angel gives them some reassurance and then the message from God. And then the person objects and requests a sign, to which the angel obliges, but sometimes not in the way the person would’ve hoped for.

 

God speaks through His angel for the first time in 400 years and this guy wants proof. Wow. He is old, and so is his wife, he felt the need to point that out to the angel as if to ask, “are you sure about this?” Zechariah’s faith flickered. But the angel answers him very clearly.

 

In v.19 the angel speaks again and asserts his authority. He is Gabriel, one of only three angels named in the OT, and he stands in the presence of God. This angel was a credible source, he has the authority to speak whatever God tells him to. And in Zechariah’s case, he was sent to bring him this good news. Gabriel was an angel with God given authority and a God given directive to come speak to man for the first time in 400 years, and Zechariah questioned it and asked for a sign. And boy did he get one.

Zechariah was so graciously given a sign to help his faith, even though the sign was also a rebuke for his lack of faith. The sign was punitive, but it contained a promise that it would remain until the day that these things take place. Zechariah’s sign was that he wouldn’t be able to speak.

 

Let no one ever say that God doesn’t have a keen sense of humor and irony. God breaks His silence after centuries, and the man He chose to speak to is rendered silent for the next nine months because of his lack of faith. Amazing.

 

Meanwhile, the people are still outside of the temple waiting for Zechariah to have done his duty with the incense. He was taking longer in there than he should have, and the people were wondering what was taking him so long.

 

He eventually came out, alive, but he couldn’t speak to them. It was expected for the priest coming out of the holy place to pronounce a customary blessing, like the blessing of Aaron from Num. 6:24 – 26. When he came out and couldn’t speak and was instead signing to them, they all realized that he must have seen something heavenly in the temple.

 

But he stayed there and kept serving as a priest in the temple. When his service was over, he went home to his wife. And wouldn’t you know it, the Lord’s promise spoken through the angel Gabriel was fulfilled. V.24 says that after these days, Elizabeth conceived, she was with child.

 

And she kept it hidden for five months. Luke doesn’t explain why, maybe she was afraid of gossip or reproach for getting pregnant at her age, it’s not known, but it explains why her young cousin Mary didn’t know Elizabeth was pregnant. But Elizabeth praises God for this blessing of a child, she puts all of the credit on the Lord, who has done for her in the days when He looked upon her, to take away the reproach of barrenness from among the people.

 

Because He is faithful, you can trust in God, even when while you wait to hear His voice through the silence.

 

The end to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s part of the good news comes a little later, but the beginning of the fulfillment of promises starts here.

They likely prayed for years for a child, only to have God remain silent until the time was right according to His will. They certainly prayed for the coming of the Messiah and the redemption of Israel, only for God to make happen according to His plans.

 

God is faithful, but He is not on our schedule. He does everything according to His divine timing. You can see the timing of the coming of all of this aligning with what God had done throughout history. The Greek language was ideal for recording the gospel and the rest of the NT.

 

The Roman Empire afforded the world back then a level of accessibility that it never experienced before. The world was primed for the coming of the Savior, and God broke His silence to announce it. So often in our own lives our faith flickers, like Zechariah’s did. Maybe you’ve been praying the same prayer for decades with no answer from God.

 

Maybe you’ve prayed for so long for a child of your own, for a spouse to share your life with, for reconciliation with a loved one, for health and healing. Maybe you’ve asked God to make it clear what He wants you to do in life, and yet everything still seems out of focus and blurry.

 

I find that three things help to keep faith burning steadily and shining brightly. Three things that help bring the picture of what God is doing into focus.

 

First, seek God in His holy Word. I saw a meme that said if you want to hear God speak, read His Word. If you want to audibly hear God speak, read His Word out loud. The psalmist said it best in Psalm 119:105, God’s Word illuminates our path and it brings us comfort, even when God seems silent His written Word speaks forever.

 

Next, seek God in prayer. Prayer is how you talk to God. Even when He seems silent, He’s still listening. Look at this promise from Jeremiah 29:12 – 13.

 

And finally, seek God’s work around you. Slow down a little and look up and look around and see God at work in the world. Just because He may be silent for a time does not mean He’s not actively working in the world. John 5:17.

Whatever it is, its ok if your faith flickers a little, God can still work with that. Learn from Zechariah here, trust God that everything will happen according to His will in His divine timing.

 

And when the silence is deafening, lean in closer to God. He may not send you the angel Gabriel, but you have His Holy Spirit within you, and His holy Word so that you can always hear His voice, if you listen close enough.

 

Often times when we feel like we can’t hear or see God we just have to remember His past faithfulness, and the Lord’s Supper is one way that Jesus Himself tasked us with remembering Him and His work on the cross.

 

We begin this remembrance by reading about and partaking in what the Lord Jesus instituted for us to do.

 

Part of understanding the significance of God speaking to His people again after 400 years, part of understanding the significance of the promise of the forerunner to the Messiah and the promise of Jesus’ first coming is understanding the significance of His death, what we just remembered through the Lord’s Supper.

 

God is faithful, even in the silent periods, you can help keep your faith steady by remembering His faithfulness, His kept promises, His answered prayers, not only in your own past but also on the cross.

 

Let’s pray.

 

[1]https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/did-ron-howard-exaggerate-the-reentry-scene-in-the-movie-apollo-13-17639496/