June 24, 2014 – The Nativity of
John the Baptist
© 2014 Evan D. Garner
Whether we believe it or
not, God keeps his promises. He always does. That’s who God is. That’s who we
know him to be—the faithful one. God has shown himself to be the one who is
always faithful. There’s never a time when God does not keep his promises. If
he didn’t, he wouldn’t be God.
Anyone who has run a
business knows that it’s dangerous to make claims like that. If you tell the
whole world that you will always have a pizza delivered in 30 minutes and you
stake your identity on that claim, you’d better follow through…because, if the
world discovers that you can’t deliver a pizza in 30 minutes, you’re in
trouble. You’re a fraud. You’re a liar. And no one wants to buy pizza from a
30-minute pizza company that takes 45 minutes to make a pizza.
God is the one who always
keeps his promises. Always. Always is a long, long, long time. It’s a long time
for it not to happen. It’s a long time for God to fail to keep his word. But if
that happened, God wouldn’t be God, and we’d be lost. All it would take is one
time for God to fail to keep his word, and there would no longer be any reason
for anyone to believe in him. In other words, the only way the promise of
forever faithfulness is possible is if it’s true.
And you know what? Something
funny happens when we believe that. Yes, God always keeps his promises whether
we believe it or not, but, when we do believe it, when we stake our whole lives
upon it, something happens. We become “children of the promise,” and the power
of God’s faithfulness takes hold in our hearts in a way that transforms our
lives.
Today is June 24.
Tomorrow will be six months until Christmas. In the church calendar, today is
the day we remember the birth of John the Baptist. Why June 24? Because when the angel Gabriel told Mary that
she would give birth to Jesus, he also told her that her relative, Elizabeth,
was in the sixth month of her pregnancy with John the Baptist. If you do all of
the math and add nine months here and subtract three months there, you end up
with a birthday for John right around June 24—today. But what we celebrate
today is a lot more than a birthday. Today is a wonderful day to celebrate how
God always keeps his promises.
You remember the story.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were a devout couple who were unable to have children.
Having a baby has always been a sign of God’s blessing, and back then it was
even more culturally important to be able to have children. The fact that this
couple were unable to have a child was thought to be a sign that God was
withholding his blessing from them. Then, one day, while Zechariah was
fulfilling his duty as one of the priests in the Jerusalem temple, the angel
Gabriel appeared and told him that his wife would have a son whose name would
be John. He would be a special child, called by God to “turn many of the
children of Israel to the Lord their God.” He would be the one “to make ready
for the Lord a people prepared.”
But for Zechariah this
was too good to be true. How could this be? He and his wife were too old to
have children. Plus, they had been trying to have a child for a long, long time
and knew that it was impossible. Why now? So Zechariah said, “How shall I know
this? What sign will you give me so that I will know for sure that I will have
this child?” And the angel said, “You want a sign? I’ll give you a sign. I am
Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. Because you did not believe me, you
will be mute—unable to speak—until this promise is fulfilled!” And Zechariah
left the temple and went out to those waiting on them. And, when they saw him
and figured out that he was unable to speak, they were amazed and wondered what
sort of sign he might have seen.
Just like in our culture,
people get excited when a baby is coming. As the months passed, word spread
throughout the region that the old couple who were unable to have a child were
expecting. Those from whom God had withheld his blessing had indeed been
blessed. And the strangest thing happened, too. The rumor was that the father
was unable to speak, that he had seen an angel, that God himself had brought
them this baby. “I wonder what sort of child he might be?” the people whispered
to each other. “He must be someone special!”
When the time came for
Elizabeth to give birth, her family and closest friends gathered to celebrate the
arrival of the new baby. The visitors came and went, bringing food and gifts
for the family. And the whole time, Zechariah stood there, smiling but still
unable to say a word. He shook the hands of the visitors and patted them on the
back in a sign of appreciation, but he couldn’t say anything. He was still
mute. On the eighth day, the whole family came together for the tradition of
circumcising the baby boy. This was (and still is) the Jewish custom—that a
baby boy is given the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham and given
his name on the eighth day of his life.
Because Zechariah could
not speak, they asked Elizabeth what name was to be given the child, and she
told them “John,” just as the angel had declared. But that couldn’t be right.
No one in their family was named John. Why would they name the baby that? So
they turned to Zechariah and began motioning to him, asking him to let them
know what name the baby should have. And he asked for a writing tablet, and
wrote down, “His name is John.” And immediately his mouth was unstopped, and he
began to sing a song of praise to God: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who
has come to his people and set them free!”
For nine months,
Zechariah was forced to think about God’s promise to him. Unable to speak, he
spent that time listening—only listening. And, as he listened, he heard more
and more clearly the fullness of God’s promise—not only to him but to all God’s
people. On the day his son was circumcised, Zechariah confirmed his belief in
God’s promise by naming him John. And, as his mouth was opened, he sang a song
of promise to all of God’s people.
“God is giving us a
savior,” he declared, “a descendant of David to lead us just as he promised
long ago. He has remembered the mercy that he promised to our ancestors. He has
fulfilled his word to save us from our enemies and all who hate us.” After nine
months of listening and thinking about God’s promise, Zechariah had come to
believe what the angel had promised: that his son John would prepare the way for
all of God’s people to be saved. Although Jesus was still six months away from
being born, Zechariah could already see how God’s promise to send his people a
savior was being fulfilled.
Sometimes it starts as
simply as that. We hear a promise of God, and we take him at his word, and then
the faith that comes from believing in God spreads through our heart and leads
us to see how amazing God really is. God has promised to save us. In Jesus
Christ, God has shown the world that he will always love us. That’s the biggest
promise we can ever receive. The empty tomb is God’s way of saying to us that
even when we give him our worst—even when we crucify his only son—he will still
redeem us and save us from our sins. That’s a hard thing to believe—that sinners
as bad as you and me are still given God’s unconditional love. But it’s true.
It’s God’s promise to you. And he’s asking you to believe it.
What might happen if you take
God at his word? What might happen if you stop letting the world tell you what
a failure you are and start hearing God say that he loves you anyway? What
might happen to your life and in your heart if you believed that God has
promised to love you no matter how bad things get? What might happen? Could your
acceptance of his promise lead you to see even more of how God has promised to
take care of you? Could a first step of saying, “Yes, Lord, I believe,” be all
it takes for you to know the life God has in store for you?
God has promised to love
you no matter what. That’s what Jesus really means. Will you believe that? Can
you believe that it’s true? Say yes to God’s promise and watch what happens.
Amen.
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