We are entering the time of reflection on the birth of Jesus. We will sing of peace on earth, joy to the world, and good will toward men.  But those positive feelings of peace, joy, and goodwill were not part of the earliest story of Jesus’ birth.  The story of Jesus’ birth, told in the Gospels, is one often presented as one of conflict, suspicion, and heartache.  The less positive feelings with the story of Jesus’ birth came about because Jesus’ birth involves the overturning of human thought about religion, the Law, world order, and human understanding of the heavenly realm.  I want us to begin looking at the challenging story of Jesus’ birth with the overturning of human thought about religion.  And to begin that conversation we start with the story of a priest found in the earliest gospel story about the birth of Jesus.

The story of the priest, a man called to represent the people to God, is found in the Gospel of Luke.  The story of this priest began with some intimate information about the priest’s wife, and the priest’s duties in the Jerusalem Temple.  Luke’s opening words have much to do with the entirety of his gospel including how the gospel story ends. 

How did Luke begin?  Luke began this way with the briefest description of the priest.  “5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. 6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old” (Luke 1:5-7).  Like any good storyteller, Luke invited his readers to step out of their personal life and to enter the lives of other people. Here Luke has invited us into the life of the priest, Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth.  And Luke began by telling us that Zechariah and Elizabeth are very old, and they have experienced a lifelong conflict.  Elizabeth has not been able to conceive a child, something both Zechariah and Elizabeth have desired since the beginning of their marriage. Quickly we know something intimate about this couple and, while we know it is present, Luke concealed from us the couple’s private pain of being childless.  We know too that despite their private pain, the couple remained publicly blameless and devoted in observing all the religious commands.

Our storyteller Luke then shifted perspective a bit and instead of telling us further information, Luke invited us to look through a window and to see a scene from the couple’s life as it played out.  “8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.  11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him [Zechariah], standing at the right side of the altar of incense.  12 When Zechariah saw him [the angel], he [Zechariah] was startled and was gripped with fear.” (Luke 1:8-12).  We now see Zechariah not just as a husband to his wife, Elizabeth, but as an active priest, dressed in appropriate robes and head covering.  We observe Zechariah going through the precise steps of the priesthood, being chosen by lot, entering the Temple at just the right time of the day, doing a precise religious tradition of burn an incense composed of a precise formula of ingredients. Zechariah was at the altar of the Lord in a holy space immediately adjacent to the Holy of Holies, a place only the high priest was permitted to enter once a year.  The two holy spaces were separated by a heavy curtain of precise fabrication.  At this very same moment Zechariah was igniting the incense, worshippers were gathered to offer specific memorized prayers to God.  As Zechariah burned the incense and the smoke arose from the altar, we have a visual representation to the prayers of the people rising toward heaven.  This scene was repeated twice a day, every day. Luke has brought us into a religious experience.

As the smoke of the incense ascended toward heaven, Luke showed us something unexpected, an angel of the Lord descended from heaven into the Temple of the Lord and appeared precisely at the righthand side of the altar in full view of Zechariah.  The appearance of anyone else in this holy place, let alone an angel, brought out a natural human response from Zechariah, one of overwhelming fear.  In great fear, we will either flee from the scene, fight that which causes us to be fearful, or we will freeze in place.  Zechariah was frozen in place unable to move.

Luke has taken us from coming to know this very old couple, resigned to their lifelong private pain of childlessness, and brought us to the grandeur of the Temple, the very heart of religious life, and now has brought into our view a majestic heavenly being, an angel of the Lord.  We are drawn into the story seeking to understand why these elements have been brought together.  Why Zechariah and Elizabeth?  Why the Temple at time of burning of incense?  Why an angel?

The angel wasted none of our time.  “13 But the angel said to him [Zechariah]: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John” (Luke 1:13).  The angel’s words are a shocking reversal of Zechariah’s and Elizabeth’s lifelong private pain.  The tension we felt in the opening of the story has been released, Elizabeth will be barren no longer.  But we wonder, why was it necessary for God to resolve such a private pain, to give an answer such a private prayer, in the Temple itself, while Zechariah engaged in priestly duties?  There must be some greater significance to time, place, and circumstances of the announcement than an answer to a private personal prayer.  And there was.

The angel said to Zechariah, “14 He [John, your son] will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he [John] will be great in the sight of the Lord. He [John] is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he [John] will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. 16 He [John] will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he [John] will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:14-17).  The announcement by the angel to Zechariah now was much more than the joy of happy parenthood.  The child of Zechariah and Elizabeth would become a joy for many. The message was the fulfilment of promise of God to do two things.  We talked about these things last week with the promised made by God 400 years earlier as revealed by the prophet Malachi.  First, there was the promise to bring forward a messenger who would announce that the Lord Himself was coming to his own Temple.  And second promise was that the Lord would come. Zechariah’s son, John, was the messenger who would turn the minds, changed the mental state of the people from what they believed, to now knowing the truth.  And while John would usher in a change of heart of the people, John was to be a preparer and not the object of hope.  That role, the bringer of hope, would be filled by another, the Lord himself.

The promise of God through Malachi to send a messenger and to come Himself to the Temple was made on a backdrop of a priesthood that had become corrupt.  It was a priesthood of beliefs in their own traditions, not the commands and revelations of God.  It was a priesthood of immoral behaviors, not one built upon righteousness.  And Zechariah, while one of the best priests because he was blameless and devout, lacked an understanding of God.  “18 Zechariah asked the angel, ‘How can I be sure of this [the birth of my son]? I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years’” (Luke 1:18).  Zechariah, the priest, was asking “How can I be sure that what you are saying is true?” The doubting about God, about the messenger, about the Messiah had begun by the priesthood with the first words uttered following the announcement God was now fulfilling his promise.  Even Zechariah, as publicly blameless and devout a priest as there could be, was nevertheless an unbeliever.  Zechariah was looking for some sort of “sign” that would authenticate what the angel has told him is truth and not a lie.

The first announcement of the coming Messiah being made to a priest, while performing priestly duties at the altar in the Jerusalem Temple now makes sense.  It makes sense because the time, place, and circumstance of the announcement set the stage for a much broader story than a childless couple becoming pregnant.  The story Luke foreshadowed through Zechariah was one of unbelief and conflict by the priests.  It was a story of demands for signs not just from the angel but later from the Messiah to authenticate the truth.  It was a coming story about the human desire to place emphasis on the traditions of religious practices over the commands and love of God.  It was a coming story of the love of the Temple over the God whose Temple it was.  It was a coming story of the frustration of heaven that those of earth would be so unbelieving.  We see this last point made in response to Zechariah’s demand for a sign from the angel. The angel said to Zechariah, “19 I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent…because you did not believe my words...” (Luke 1:19-20).

The conflict begun at the altar in the Temple with a priests would continue throughout the Gospel of Luke.  The Messiah, Jesus, God Himself, would tell his followers, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (Luke 9:22).  We would read about the near relentless assault by an unbelieving priesthood against Jesus:

• “19 The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him [Jesus] immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them” (Luke 20:19).
• “2 And the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus” (Luke 22:2)
• “54 Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest” (Luke 22:54)
• “10 The chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there [before Pilate], vehemently accusing him [Jesus]” (Luke 23:10).
• “20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him [Jesus] over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him [Jesus]” (Luke 24:20).

Luke’s announcement to a priest, Zechariah, was foretelling that the unbelief of the priesthood which began with the first announcement of coming Messiah and would continue until priests had managed to killed the Messiah.

And then there was the Temple, the pride and joy of the priesthood. This was the place of the announcement and the place of unbelief.  Luke would later tell us about the battles waged within the temple:

• “9 The devil led him [Jesus] to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down from here’” (Luke 4:9).
• “45 When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling” (Luke 19:45).
• “47 Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him” (Luke 19:47). 
• “5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 ‘As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down’” (Luke 21:5-6)

Luke’s announcement in the Temple was foretelling that the unbelief would turn the Temple into a place of spiritual battle.  And that that battle would rage from the first announcement of coming Messiah and until the death of the Messiah.

But then at what seemed to be a defeat of the Messiah by the priests with Jesus’ crucifixion, Luke foretold the true, good news ending of the story.  Luke wrote that on that dreadful day of Jesus’ crucifixion, “44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last” (Luke 23:44-46). “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.”  The curtain that separated Zechariah in the holy place of the altar of the Lord from the Holy of Holies, the place of the announcement of the coming Messiah, that same curtain, was torn in two.  With the death of the Messiah, the curtain was torn open.  The priests had their sign.  The story was not over.  It was not even close to being over.  The tearing of the temple curtain was a sign that the death of the Messiah opened the pathway of the people to the eternal living giving God bypassing the human priesthood and bypassing the practices of men in the Temple.  The people would have but one priest, Jesus Christ.  The people would no longer have need of a temple for God could be freely worshipped through his son, Jesus Christ, anywhere, anytime.

How do we know the significance of the curtain being torn?  Because Jesus, the Messiah, arose from the dead and spoke to his disciples and “45 Opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He (Jesus) told them (his disciples), “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:45-47).  The living Messiah had done it all.  He was superior to the priesthood and the Temple itself.  His death and resurrection is for all nations a signal that ultimate conflict with sin had been won and the forgiveness of sins was now offered to all who would believe.

This is the good news of the first announcement of the coming Messiah.  We have a new high priest, Jesus Christ, who will intercede for us at that throne of God. Amen and Amen.