"No Fear" (A Sermon on Luke 1:57-66)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMBYadb4qmQ

This sermon is based on Luke 1:57-66, the birth of John the Baptist. Here's the transcript:

Good morning, Lake Grove! Today we are in the third week of our series “Firm Foundation: The Origin Story of Jesus.” Today’s passage details the birth of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, who would play a pivotal role in preparing the way for Jesus and his mission to save the world from the evils of sin and death.

If you missed last week’s intro to the story of John the Baptist, let me fill you in. Elizabeth and Zechariah, John’s parents, were very old when Elizabeth miraculously got pregnant. However, when Zechariah hears this from none other than an angel of God, he couldn’t or wouldn’t believe that it could be, so he was silenced and unable to speak throughout Elizabeth’s pregnancy. We’ll pick this story back up in today’s passage, but, if you want to hear more, go to Youtube and check out Pastor Mark’s sermon called “Too Good to be True” from last week.

With that, let’s read Elizabeth and Zechariah’s story in Luke 1:57-66. Pray with me first…

Lord God, you are rich with mercy, and overflowing with grace for us. Help us to hear you today through your Word. Give us the word that only you can give. Open our hearts to the salve we need. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Friends, hear the word of the Lord:

Luke 1:57-66

57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. 60 But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” 61 They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” 62 Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. 63 He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65 Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. 66 All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

OK, can I just say how much I love this story? There’s so much going on - the neighbors are rejoicing, then they’re amazed, then they’re terrified. Elizabeth is asserting herself, naming the child in a culture that always gave that right to the men. One of my favorite NT scholars actually translated her saying “No, you don’t!” to the neighbors when they tried naming the child after Zechariah. Meanwhile, Zechariah’s been muted by God, his neighbors are trying to make signs to communicate with him, he’s scratching messages on a board, and then he’s suddenly bursting back into speech. All the while, the miracle of it all is hanging in front of us. Prophecies, new parents in their 80’s, the movement of God. And, at the end of it, we’re left like the neighbors wondering, anticipating, pondering - what will John become? What is God up to here?

For those of us familiar with the stories surrounding Jesus, we know who John becomes. He’s the waymaker, preparing the way for Jesus’ rescue mission for the oppressed Jews, for the whole world, for us. Yet, here, in this moment, the people gathered around Elizabeth and Zechariah don’t know what to think.

They’re struck with fear, they’re rejoicing, they’re amazed; and they’re questioning, what is going to happen next? We may not be able to relate to this exact story (raise your hand if you know anyone who had a baby in their 80’s). Yet, we know what these feelings are like. We know fear, we know joy, we know amazement. And, we know what it’s like to sit in uncertainty and anticipation.

Maybe you are there now. Maybe you are waiting to see what will happen next. But maybe the story you’re in doesn’t feel miraculous at all right now. Maybe it’s a story of fear. Maybe it’s a diagnosis you’re waiting to hear back about. Maybe it’s a child who has gone astray. Maybe you’re neck deep in a job you hate, or a project you can’t wait to be done with, or an ache in your heart that you can’t seem to shake. Or maybe you are thinking about the world at large - maybe you’re thinking about the protests in Iran, the floods in Pakistan, the ongoing war in Ukraine. Maybe you are waiting for something, anything to happen that will move the story forward into what you hope will be a good future.

Well, Elizabeth, Zechariah, and their Judean neighbors had similar concerns and hopes. They, too, faced a world of suffering and hurt. And, Zechariah’s silence mirrored the silence many of the Jews felt from God. It had been a long time since they had reason to hope. Others had come and gone claiming to be the long awaited messiah, but to no avail. But, with the birth of John, something new was stirring. And, as Zechariah’s tongue became free once more he erupts into poetic prophecy, articulating the hope stored up in the hearts of all those who dared to believe that God might put things right. You can find Zechariah’s prophecy beginning right in verse 67 - it’s a beautiful, rousing expression of what lies ahead. It’s universal in scope as it talks about the rescue mission of the coming savior, Jesus, and yet it’s intimately personal, spoken almost like a blessing over the newborn child John.

Can you imagine being one of the neighbors? Can you imagine going home later that day and recounting the events to the rest of your family? “Yeah, so Elizabeth and Zechariah’s son was born and, you know how Zechariah hasn’t been talking for like 9 months? Well, he started talking today, and woah, that dude has a gift with words. I don’t know how to explain it, but I just feel so much hope…”

There’s one section in Zechariah’s prophecy that really stuck out to me as I reflected on it this week. I’d like to share it with you:

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

In my senior year in college, I read a book called Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear. Let me share an excerpt: “Fear has taken on an outsized role in our lives. Manufactured threats are advanced with little to no evidence of danger, while real threats are exaggerated for self-interested gain. This steady diet of fear produces unhealthy moral lives, leading many Christians to focus more on the dangers we wish to avoid than the goods we wish to pursue. As a fearful people, we are tempted to make safety our highest good and to make virtues of suspicion, preemption, and accumulation. But this leaves the church ill-equipped to welcome the stranger, love the enemy, or give to those in need.” The author asks us to instead put our trust in Jesus, taking the risks of hospitality, peacemaking, and generosity.

This book, written in 2007, sought to grapple with the changes that living in a post-9/11 world brought. Fifteen years later, we are still grappling with a world of fear, even if those fears have changed. Underneath the growing polarization and partisanship in our country, there is a fear that our neighbors who are different than us do not and will not keep our best interests or the interests of our loved ones in mind. And, though 9/11 was 20 years ago, we still carry fears about a major terrorist attack happening again. We live with fear of shootings, of riots, of white supremacy, of world wars, and rising economic and ecological concerns. And, all these fears are real.

What could transform these fears? What can keep us grounded in trusting Jesus when it seems like we need to constantly be posturing to face or defeat these fears?

Well, as our story moves forward, we find a Jesus who isn’t just a hero who swoops in and saves the day. We have someone even better - we meet a Jesus who does save, and who also calls us to follow him, to be his disciple. That means we actually start to do the things he did and to follow his teachings even, and perhaps especially, when fears would tell us to do otherwise.

So the questions remain for us today: What would it look like for you and I to follow Jesus into a life of no fear? What would it look like for us to truly be hospitable in a world that says to take care of #1? How might we make peace (not just keep the peace) in a world that seems to constantly be tearing itself apart? What would it mean for us to be generous in a world that insists on being closed fisted and cold hearted?

I personally am happy to be a part of a church where we take seriously the call to be radically hospitable, to look outward to serve and be a blessing to others, and to be generous towards those in need. This is summed up in our mission: “to partner with Christ who transforms the world one life at a time.” May we continue to take steps to follow our Savior, the one who redeems us, and our Lord, the one we follow, Jesus Christ, the one who shows us how to live a life of no fear. Amen.

Benediction

God has blessed us with his rich mercy. He has answered our yearnings and hopes with the gift of his own son. May we learn to follow with no fear, trusting in Jesus. Amen.