There are so many layers, insights to the Christmas story. We come to Luke 1, we find hidden insights that bring us great truths and insights into God’s ways, which give us a window to what is God’s character. This makes the Christmas story all the more beautiful, meaningful, deep, and no “legend” can have such layers as what we will present in this series till January.
Zechariah is the high priest of the order of Abijah, the 8th order, which suggests a prophetic symbol, of new beginnings. His name means “God who has remembered”. Interesting that in the discourse of the angel Gabriel is the reference; ” Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard “
The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Lk 1:13.
Here we see God deal with Zechariah with the essence of his name, God had remembered the prayers for a son, for Zechariah long forgotten, as well as Elisabeth, also of the priestly line, gone past the natural course for childbearing. Yet God “has remembered” because here we see his counterpart explain in Zechariah 1, the remembering God has for Jerusalem.
Therefore thus saith the Lord; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies:
The Holy Bible: King James Version, Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2009), Zec 1:16.
God has remembered Jerusalem and has “returned” to her. So even here with Zacarias/ Zechariah, God has returned to the prayer of his, of many years, yet forgotten. He is at the right side of the altar, even again the side of mercy, of the extending of God’s mercy to His people, so now He sends His angel, to announce the son so forgotten, so desired. The angel announces he shall be called Jehonanan, or “Yahweh has shown favour”. So we must deduce that when we have been remembered by the Lord we are given power to bring to birth His favour also.
How we apply this principle is very key, because it is not open ended for us to apply to many situations that it does not apply to.
When God remembers us, is to bring us into the fulfillment of our promises, made years back by the Lord. For us to bring to birth favour, that favour to change the fortunes of His people we must believe. The incense altar pictured above, is symbolic of prayer. What we know that this occasion for Zechariah was a one time of a lifetime honour of which the angel precisely visits with this message. What is brought to birth is the 2nd visitation of Elijah to His people, to “epistrafo” God’s people, that is turn them by arresting their hearts as much as the original Elijah did on Mount Carmel did. The manifestation of fire convinced them, here John would see the water used as a manifestation of God to His people. The water would TURN THEM AROUND, from their own ways.
The root of this work is the “God who remembers”. We can take comfort after a long arduous year that God suddenly “remembers” us. If He remembers us, is there any precedent for Him to have “forgotten us”? Some feel that way. We feel there is a “silence” that goes on. We sense nothing goes right. There is no clear directive in prayer. In fact precisely this episode of Luke 1 falls within 400 years of prophetic silence. However we must understand the Kronos and the Kairos times. Whilst the preparation is set in a kairos (season, conditional upon the goals of the preparation being reached) to Jesus’ coming, set in Kronos (physical time, predetermined day and year) so we must work with the “silence” of the prophetic voice to see if we are in a kairos process and what are the conditions for our readiness. Then we can understand apparent “God’s remembering” from apparent “forgetting” in that the forgetting is for a season to do a work in all who were part of the Christmas story.
God did speak. However, there was no official national voice to communicate His message to the nation. Therefore, the silence is one that there was no official prophet speaking, no prophetic directive to follow. It seems we may be in one of those moments at the time of writing. I sense that the Church is in a crisis of authority, and is very fragmented. Many so called “mega churches” are falling because of this crisis, the Church becoming a system. A system where power and money are guiding factors. It is in these periods of apparent “silent” that unknown voices are being placed in preparatory ministry. John the Baptist is a transition between the old Testament Elijah to the New Covenant Elijah, a cross over, in the middle of the Jordan.
So returning to the subject matter, before we can have the favour that brings change and a new covenant we need God to “remember”. The fact that it always puts the meaning of Zechariah and Jehohanan in past terms, “God HAS remembered” “God HAS brought favour” are all past tense, meaning they are eternally determined.
The Christmas story is a long one, with many threads, all of them beautiful , all of them fill us with inspiration, and the many series I have done, along with the many teachers who have studied this, all agree that the story is too beautiful and too substantial for it to be mythical. Let us remember:
GOD HAS REMEMBERED US SO THAT HE CAN FAVOUR US TO BIRTH THE NEW THINGS COMING TO US AND THROUGH US, SO THAT THEY MAY COME WITH US.
Maranatha!
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