“Zechariah’s
Vision”
A Sermon Preached by the
Rev. Jean Niven Lenk
Sunday, November 25, 2012
First Congregational Church of Stoughton,
United Church of Christ
Text: Luke 1:5-25
We have spent the first eleven weeks of our “Bible Top 40 Program” in
the Old Testament – in fact, in just the first two books of the Old Testament –
Genesis and Exodus. We will be returning
to the ancient stories of the Hebrew Bible in the spring. But today, we move into the New Testament
with the wonderful story of Zechariah and Elizabeth.
Unless you are something of a bible geek, this story may be unfamiliar
to you. In fact, it doesn’t even make
the three-year schedule of scripture readings known as the lectionary. But it is nevertheless an important part of
the Christian story, and it paves the way for the season of Advent, which
begins next Sunday.
According to the Gospel of Luke, two births
are needed to transform the world – the birth of Jesus, of course, but also the
birth of John the Baptist, who serves as the forerunner to Jesus. And so, before
the story of Mary and Joseph, Luke tells us of Elizabeth and Zechariah.
Zechariah is
a priest from the line of Abijah, and Elizabeth is a descendant of Aaron, the
brother of Moses. Despite this
impressive lineage, there is a hole in their lives; they are childless and, as
Luke politely puts it, both are "getting on in years." Zechariah
dreams no more dreams; he expects little from God; he’s merely going through
the motions of faith; he lives in quiet defeat.
It is into the barren heart and life of Zechariah that God dispatches
the angel Gabriel and changes everything, on the
most important day of Zechariah’s life.
Zechariah has received
the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to burn incense in the Holy of Holies, the sacred place in the Temple built for the Ark of the
Covenant. The burning of incense
symbolizes the sweet fragrance of the people’s prayers going up to God.
As Zechariah is about to
carry out his priestly duties, Gabriel appears, and the text tells us that when
Zechariah sees him, he is terrified, and fear overwhelms him. The angel tells him, “Do not be afraid… Your wife will bear you a son and you will name him
John…”
Well this is stunning, perplexing, bewildering news. We can imagine that when they were younger,
Zechariah and Elizabeth prayed for a child.
But as time passed, and they got older, and no child appeared, they
probably lost hope and eventually stopped saying that particular prayer. But – a baby now, in their old age?
Sometimes God’s timing
does confound us, especially when it comes to answering our prayers. That is the difference between kronos and kairos, which are two words for time in Greek, the original
language of the New Testament. Kronos refers to chronological or
sequential time. With kronos, you have yesterday, and today,
and tomorrow, and next week, and so on. We
humans think in kronos time, and we
want our prayers answered in kronos
time.
But kairos refers to an undetermined period of time in which something
special happens. Kairos is the appointed time for God’s purpose to be fulfilled; kairos is God’s timing.
We see this in the history of the ancient Hebrews, who had been praying
for the coming of the Messiah for hundreds of years, especially during their
captivity in Babylon. Many of them died
thinking that their prayers were unanswered.
But as we once again hear the ancient story unfold over the coming
weeks, we will see how their prayers are answered – in the fullness of time, in
God’s kairos time.
Zechariah, human being
that he is, operates on kronos. But when God shows up, time ceases to be
ordinary; when God acts in kairos,
time becomes extraordinary.
Zechariah thinks
that the time for his prayer to be answered is long past, and he has difficulty
believing that not only will he have a son, but that his son will be the one to
announce the coming of the Messiah. And
so he challenges the angel. “How will I
know that this is so?” Why should I
believe you? I want some kind of proof!
And because Zechariah has
lost faith in kronos and lacks faith
in kairos, Gabriel renders him mute
for the duration of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.
It is easy criticize Zechariah for doubting Gabriel, but maybe we need
to cut him a little slack. Think about it. Zechariah doesn’t
get much warning and doesn’t have any say in this sudden turn of events. Because when angels visit bearing a message
from God, they don’t ask whether we humans are synchronized to God’s timing and
available for God’s purposes. Angels
come to announce what God is going to do through us and when it’s going to
happen, and we are simply to align ourselves with God’s purposes and God’s
timetable.
During the nine months that Zechariah is unable to speak,
he has an opportunity to ponder his disbelief in the God who makes all things
possible. And when he finally opens his
heart to God’s timing and divine surprises and holy possibility, he regains his
ability to talk, with his first words being full of praise for God.
I think it is a common
human trait that we want God to act according to our timetables and that we
need proof of God’s presence and working in our lives for us to believe;
we all have doubts at one time or another about whether God hears us and wants
to help us.
Maybe you are trudging
along in kronos, and things aren’t going
the way you’d like. Maybe your prayer
has been, “Where are you, God, and why are you taking so long?” Like so many figures in the Christmas story, many of us have
been waiting and longing for something to take place. Maybe, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, we’re
waiting and longing for a child. Or
maybe we’re waiting for a job, or for healing, or for the pain to go away.
As we gather at
the edge of the Christmas season, anticipating the celebrations that await us
over these next several weeks, we are also longing and hoping for God’s
presence. And that tension between
celebrating what is and yearning for what might be reminds us that, while we
live in kronos, we long for kairos
and the divine message carried in the ancient story that will be
unfolding over the next four weeks of Advent.
Across the generations, the Hebrew people prayed for a Messiah, and in
the fullness of time, Jesus came. Their
prayers were answered; their longings fulfilled, and their hope in God
well-placed.
And for us in
this time and place, while we’re waiting for kairos, may we use ordinary kronos
to allow God to shape and form and unlock our hearts, so that in the fullness
of time, we’ll be ready and open to God doing something extraordinary through
us.
Amen.
