Sunday, December 10, 2006

Topic: Born in Continuity and Change

Text: Luke 1: 67-79

Introduction:

A friend in Canada once told me this story. Her parents had been visiting from England and had stayed with the family for a couple of months. One afternoon when Heather, my friend, was driving in the car, her daughter, who was about six or seven years old said to her, “Mum. It’s not easy living with your ancestors”. She was right. It is not easy living with your ancestors.

This reminds me of a quote by G K Chesterton:

‘Tradition means giving votes to our ancestors…It is the democracy of the
dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around’.

There is, in our lives, a continuous wrestling between the past and the present. Between tradition and the new experience. Between the need for continuity and for things to remain the same and the inevitability of change – the shock of the new. It is not easy living with our ancestors, but neither can we live without them. The struggle between continuity and change is particularly difficult for religion.

Because religion and faith deal with absolutes.and ultimates, we tend to favour continuity over change. That’s probably a good thing in a world of novelty and the quick fix of new experiences. But we know that where there is life, there is change and growth. There are new moments that have never happened before.

And it is into this world that Jesus was born. His presence would bring remarkable change but always built upon the history of God’s love for humanity. He would say things in ways that had never been said before. He also drew from the rich tradition of his people.

The world of Zechariah:

The priest, Zechariah, is a symbol of this threshold between the old and the new. A figure who was steeped in the old way of faith, but who could catch a glimpse of the new. He was the father of John the Baptist and husband to Elizabeth. Luke tells us that Zechariah and Elizabeth were devout and pious – and like the experience of their forebears, Elizabeth was barren. So the announcement that she would give birth to a son was, for them, a sign that God had blessed them. Remarkably, Zechariah is struck mute until the day his son was born. In fact, it was not until after the child was named John that Zechariah spoke.
The Benedictus:

The world of the priest in ancient Israel was established by tradition and yet in the birth of Zechariah’s son, comes change. Luke tells us that it is customary for the child to be named after his father, Zechariah. “No” says Elizabeth, he is to be called John! But they said to her, ‘none of your relatives has this name..!” His father asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name shall be John! Why the name John? Zechariah means ‘remembered of God”. John means “God has graced”. In a culture where you are always your father’s son, it is not a small thing not to take his name. Continuity with the past – born into the family of a Priest of Israel, yet change with a new name – it is not just business as usual. Something new is dawning in this ancient world.

He opens his mouth:

The words that proceed from Zechariah’s mouth are some of the most beautiful of Christian worship. Like the Magnificat spoken by Mary. This hymn of praise is referred to in worship as The Benedictus and draws its inspiration from the Psalms and prophets of the Hebrew scriptures. It balances both a connection with the past and vision of the future.

Here is my paraphrase of this marvelous hymn:

‘Blessed is the Lord the God of Israel.
He has looked with favour on his people and set them free.
He has raised up a mighty Saviour from the house of David.
And as he spoke through the ancient prophets, he will save us from our enemies and rescue us from those who hate us.
He has shown us his mercy promised to our ancestors.
He has remembered his holy covenant with us which was sworn to our ancestor, Abraham.
He has rescued us from those who would defeat us so that we might
Serve without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our lives.
Now you, my child, shall be called the Prophet of the Most High God. For you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways.
You will give the knowledge of salvation to the people.
Their sins shall be forgiven.
The dawn of God’s love and mercy will break upon us
And there will be light for those who sit in darkness and new life
For those who live in the shadow of death
And through all this, He will guide our feet in the way of peace.’

Well – there’s the sermon. Does anything more need to be said? Zechariah, Priest of the old dispensation, and to use the words of T S Eliot:

‘But no longer at ease here in the old dispensation with an alien
people clutching their Gods’

No, something new was coming. The dawn of a new era was breaking forth. However, Zechariah would not be a part of that new day. He belonged to the past.

But he passes the mantle on to his son, John. He gives him a new name to symbolize the new era.

But even John will not fully enter that new world. He also stands with a foot in the old and one in the new. He is herald, the one who points to the one to come, but is not THE one. John is a prophet, dressed in camel hair and more comfortable in the Old Testament than the new. Nevertheless, he is vital to the mission of Jesus. He, like Zechariah, reminds us from where Jesus came. Jesus did not appear suddenly from heaven wrapped in the garment of the new era. He was born of a woman. A Jewish woman. Born in a village in the land of Palestine. He was born a Jew. He lived as a Jew and he died on a cross outside Jerusalem as a Jew. His life was shaped by the prophets of Israel. by the story of Exodus, wilderness and redemption. He was connected to the wisdom of his ancestors.

Yes, but He was not shackled to this history. Shaped, but also re-shaped by the story. What Jesus heard was the voice of the Spirit of God in the story writing a new ending. Tradition, yes! – but not a slavist obedience to the past. Jesus may have been immersed in his religious tradition, but He was not a traditionalist. For Jesus, and I think, for us today, tradition must be alive and always open to enquiry. But that is another sermon…

A good life includes the wealth and the wisdom of the past and an openness to the fresh voice of the present. Zechariah knew it and his great hymn of praise links the old and the new. Continuity with the past and the courage to change in the present.

Amen.

Christopher Page ~ 20_12_06