Amy C Walters

John’s Birth – Luke 1:57-66

God has made a lot of major promises already in the Book of Luke–promises that would require extraordinary miracles. And yet already, in chapter one with the birth of John, those promises are being fulfilled.

When I begin working on a new story, one of the first questions I ask myself is, what is the problem in this story? What are the characters trying to overcome?

Some stories it’s really obvious, others it’s not so clear. This story is one of great celebration and excitement because of the birth of a baby and the news spreads far and wide.

So what is the tension here?

I think it settles on the question, are all of the things that the angel said really going to happen? Because if they do, that means multiple miracles need to take place for all of these things to come together.

Let’s look back at the angel’s visit to Zechariah and the things that he tells him. The angel visits Zechariah and says, your wife is going to have a baby boy.

Now, we already know the obstacle there–Elizabeth is old, Zechariah is old. And yet we come to our story, and Elizabeth has been pregnant, she has carried the child to term, she has had a healthy delivery, even as an elderly woman, and it’s a boy. So far, all of these things are happening.

Now, remember too, the angel is not speaking on his own. He is a messenger from God. So ultimately, these are God’s promises to Zechariah that he is fulfilling.

Speaking of Zechariah, Zechariah expressed some doubt in that meeting with the angel that these things could possibly happen. And the angel tells Zechariah, “Now you will be unable to speak until these things happen.” So, Zechariah immediately was unable to speak. He comes out of the temple and has to make signs to indicate to the people waiting out there that he’s seen an angel and something has happened.

So for nine months, Zechariah has been silent. And then we come to this story. At first it appears that this promise is not going to come true, that he won’t be able to regain his speech. The baby has been born, the neighbors and the relatives have come by on the eighth day to circumcise the child, and Zechariah is still silent.

Then Elizabeth tells them what to name the child, and they are in disbelief, so they check with Zechariah. And he writes out, “his name is John.” And that’s the moment when Zechariah’s mouth is open, his tongue is loose, and he speaks, blessing God. So again, another promise was fulfilled.

Now, another really important part of the angel’s message to Zechariah was about the important role that John would play, that he is preparing the way for the Messiah, that he is making “ready a people prepared for the Lord.” But he’s just a baby. He’s eight days old. We don’t really expect to see this promise already happening, do we?

And yet, as all of these pieces come together, we see the word spreading through all the hill country of Judea, and people pondering all these things. And what are they wondering? They’re wondering “what kind of child will this be for the hand of the Lord was with John.”

So all these things are happening, and it’s causing the neighbors, the relatives, everyone in that whole area to think about what God is doing here. Because “the hand of the Lord was with John.” 

People are already looking in anticipation for what God is going to do through John. And that’s exactly the role that the angel said John would have, to draw people’s attention to what’s going on, and John would then point them to Jesus. So already, as an eight-day-old baby who has no control over this situation, we already see God fulfilling that promise for what John’s role will be.

Every single thing that was promised to Zechariah is coming true. There’s not one that was exaggerated. There’s not one that was left out or missed. It’s all there, and that all points us to the key truth that God is faithful.

This is really important right now in this story to notice God’s faithfulness, because God has made another really important promise already in the Book of Luke, right? The promise to send the Messiah. Mary is already pregnant with this Messiah.

So seeing that God fulfills all of these promises to Zechariah and Elizabeth and John points us to have even greater faith that he will come through in his promise to provide the Messiah, it points us to Jesus and builds our confidence that, yes, God will do it. Look at all the things that he’s already done! He will do this too. 

Now, reader, I know that this lesson is nothing new to you, that this key truth that God is faithful is one that you have already heard before. In fact, we’ve already had similar key truths in just the few short stories that we have done.

And reader, I am tempted to try to find something else more original to tell you, something new, something you’ve never heard before.

And yet, I have a responsibility to be faithful and true to God’s Word. It would be irresponsible for me to ignore what God is revealing to us about himself here. It’s not a new lesson, but that’s the lesson that God is showing us, and so we need to take it in.

It’s also a lesson that God chooses to repeat over and over and over again in scripture. God brings this up all the time. And so he must consider it very important for us to know and see. He demonstrates that faithfulness, because he is the one bringing this lesson to us over and over again.

If we look in the Old Testament at Israel and how they respond to God and the troubles they face, their problem is not a lack of knowledge or learning new things. Their problem is that they were forgetting what they already knew, what they already saw God do, what they already experienced.

They forgot.

I fear sometimes that we are looking for something new–a new idea, a new perspective, something that we haven’t heard before–and in that process, we start to ignore the things that we’ve already learned and forget. And we become like Israel and we forget what God has already done, what God has already taught us.

And in that forgetting, we fall away from him.

In forgetting his faithfulness, we stop trusting him. In looking for the new thing, we forgot the important things that he’s taught us in the past. 

So even though I am tempted to bring you something new today, I am not. I’m going to deliver an old truth that God is faithful, and it is a vital truth, and it is worth revisiting because we so often forget that faithfulness.