Preached · December 18, 2009
Series · Advent 2009
Text · Luke 1
Introduction One
This sermon has about three introductions to it. So, introduction number one.
Hi, I'm Anthony, and I am the worship leader here most often — if you can't see my short little body behind the piano, that's who I am. I'm a student at Bethel College, a senior studying to be a pastor, and we're going through this series of Advent: Jesus, the Final Prophet of God. When we planned this a long time ago, they decided that not only would this be my last week of classes and my week of finals, but I'd also preach a sermon. So I use that as an excuse: if this seems really weak and you don't get anything out of it — well, finals. But if you do get a lot out of it, well, look how cool I am. This row here is a bunch of friends from Bethel. They came to visit me and my fiancée, and to say hi to you all. So say hi to them back, and pray for them as they do their finals. One of them in particular is graduating, so I have to say goodbye to him.
Introduction Two
Like I said, we're going through this series, the Final Prophet: Jesus is the final prophet of God. Two weeks ago we talked about that idea in general. Last week we talked about the final prophet of God's power. And this week we are talking about the final prophet of God's mercy. That brings us to Luke chapter 1, verses 57 through 80. We're going to take a little time to get there. Before we do, let's pray — since I don't know if we've even done that yet.
Father, we first of all dedicate this gathering as your gathering, a gathering for your sake and for your glory. We pray, Father, that as a community of believers, we would dedicate ourselves to learning about you, learning from you, learning of you. And may we worship you as we sit and listen, as I stand and talk, as we go home with our families and friends. Father, may we remember that your Son, Jesus, is a prophet of your mercy, and that your mercy is a driving force in what you do in this world. We pray for your mercy on this church, for the variety of needs represented here — ailments physical and ailments spiritual. May you be a Father to us and wastefully pour your mercy onto us. Now, I pray that you would use me as your instrument, as a teacher, and that you would teach the hearts of your people to be closer to you. We pray in your name. Amen.
Introduction Three: The Story So Far
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was void and without shape or form, and so the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of the deep. And we know the story. There were those six wonderful days of creation — and there was land, and sun, and moon, and stars, and fish, and birds, and animals and mammals, all these wonderful things. And finally, on the peak of the sixth day, God created humanity in his image, according to his likeness, male and female. In the image of God he created them.
Then we skip ahead a couple of chapters into Genesis chapter 3, and we find this tragic tale of a fruit and a woman and a snake and the fall of humanity — even though the Bible doesn't actually use that language. It's this fall from innocence into sin. And so we go through the rest of Genesis, and we see the variety of ways that God, in his mercy, is trying to get back to humanity — not that God is somehow limited and can't get to us, but that we keep running away from him.
So we see the story of the flood, which is really a story of destruction. Even though we have our cute little children's books about two-by-two and zebras and cows, it's really a story of blood and guts and gore and drowning. Yeah, put that in a children's nursery. But it's also a story of mercy, of a family going into an ark and being saved. They were the righteous, and Noah was blameless in the eyes of God. They get out of the boat, and humanity starts over again. And then there's this tower, and God disperses them and gives them a variety of languages.
And then, once upon a time, there was a man named Abram who lived in the city of Ur — which is a great name for any city, Ur. God says to Abram, "I call you out; go west. To this land I will give you — to your people I will give this land, from Sinai to the Tigris, to the north and to the west." And Abram says, "Okay." So he goes, and they end up in Egypt, then back to Israel, then back to Egypt. And Abram has a kid. God goes to Abram — who maybe at this point is named Abraham — and says, "You're going to have a kid." And Sarah, who's out back, starts laughing. And God says, "Oh, you're going to laugh? Well, the kid's name is going to be Laughter" — which is Isaac. And Isaac has two kids, named Jacob and Esau, and they struggle and fight, like typical siblings. And Jacob has kids — actually, twelve kids — and one of them is named Joseph, who goes down to Egypt and saves Egypt and saves the west of the ancient Near East. Everybody comes down to Egypt, and the family of Israel keeps growing and growing: 70 becomes 140, 140 becomes 280, and finally it becomes this massive number of people. Until Pharaoh in Egypt says, "Oppression for you."
Now, this might remind you of what I did back in May when I first became your worship leader — this narrative story, the story of the Bible. And this is what we're talking about right now. So we have this people oppressed in the land of Egypt, and we turn the page to the book of Exodus. God calls up a leader named Moses, who has a checkered history of murder and running away and shepherding — a strange character. He shows up on a mountain and sees this burning bush, and God speaks to him and says, "Go and tell Pharaoh, let my people go so that they may worship me." And so we read this other grandiose story of plagues and frogs and hail and bad things happening. And Pharaoh finally says, "You're right, okay, I can't fight this." So he lets the people go.
And finally, after a long amount of stories — and we probably skip through Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy — we end up in Joshua. They got to the promised land. And they start setting up their judges. And they get tired of the judges, and they start setting up their kings. So we know the kings. We meet Saul, who at first is a big, powerful, grandiose man, but he ends up getting a little haughty and prideful. So, "Oh, Saul, you're going to pass away, and we'll raise up David." And David is a man who seeks after the heart of God — but he has a problem with women and lying, and he does some wacky things too. After David, we come to King Solomon. Solomon says, "I will raise up a temple for God," and he raises up a temple for God, and they worship God and celebrate God. And the son of Solomon comes around to be king, and they say, "Well, Solomon pushed us pretty hard. What are you going to do?" And he says, "He whipped you with whips; I will whip you with scorpions." And so Israel and Judah are like, "Well, posh with that." And they divide.
Now we have two kingdoms, two separate stories — this united kingdom of God that he meant to put together, that he called out of Egypt, that he called out of the ark, that he called out of Eden, now separated. Two different stories, which get really confusing to figure out as you're reading 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles — but you can. And Israel, they are pretty bad, and most of their kings are bad, and finally God says, "Well, you know what? It's time for you to learn a lesson." And so Assyria, that old kingdom, comes and takes them over. Judah lasts a little bit longer, because they had a couple of good kings and were kind of better, and every once in a while they had a couple of revivals — and Billy Graham would come and talk to them — and they lasted for a little while. But then they ended up being pretty bad people too, and God says, "Well, it's time for Babylon to come in and take you over." So everybody is taken out of Israel, everybody is taken out of the kingdom of Judah, and they're put into captivity — which reminds them a lot of what they came out of in the first place, called Egypt.
And so we come into the prophets. The prophets come about and start saying real interesting things. Jeremiah says, "Well, you know what? This is where you are. Live there. Be there. Be good people. Worship Yahweh, and eventually God will get you back into your land." But they really don't like that. They're in captivity, and so they pray and they strive. And then we start to see these hints of prophecies about something called Messiah. Now, Messiah was a fairly typical term in the Old Testament. It simply meant one who was anointed. David the king, or Solomon, or Saul — all would have been anointed at some point, all would have had some messianic thing happen to them, when they put oil on the head and God, through a prophet, would say, "You are going to be the king of Israel." But these tales start coming about, and the prophets start telling stories about a Messiah — about somebody from the line of David who would be bigger than David, who would sit on his throne, but do things that really don't even make sense: that his kingdom would last forever, as far as you could think of; that because of Israel, because of that nation, all nations would be able to praise Yahweh; that they would come together, and their oppression would end.
So the prophets start telling these stories. And then the Israelites start going back to their homes and to the lands, and we get to Nehemiah, and there's a story about building a wall and building a city. And we get to these stories about them being there, getting happy, getting better. And we get to Malachi, the final book of the Old Testament, the final prophet of the Old Testament, and he again is telling these stories of a Messiah, of a coming Savior, someone who would come to redeem — and then silence. For 400 years we have this gap between OT, Old Testament, and New Testament.
Now, all of this may seem a little foreign to you, or maybe it feels like Sunday school, or maybe it was just a lot of information to take in. So let's bring it closer to home. We could talk about the history of the United States for the past 200-some years, but let's just talk about the past eight. There have been a lot of really nasty things happen to us. So I decided to print off a bunch of covers from Time magazine, a couple from the New York Times.
Anybody remember this? Time magazine, September 11, 2001. This image in itself speaks volumes: two planes crashing into two buildings that eventually crumble to the ground — not to mention the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, and the plane that crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania. This image alone puts fear, all sorts of bad emotions, into our hearts. This is Time magazine. This is the New York Times: "U.S. Attacked. Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon in Day of Terror." And so the story continues: a manhunt begins for a certain man named bin Laden — who we Christians have had a bad time with. We see this man's image and ideas of hate and anger come up, which I'm really not sure Jesus meant to happen, but it happens. So we get upset, and the manhunt begins.
Then September 16, 2002, Time prints a special report: "Are We Ready for War?" So this lovely man's face comes out onto the press, a certain dictator named Saddam Hussein, which also brings up emotions. But then more terrible things start to happen. New York Times, Wednesday, August 31st: "New Orleans Is Inundated as Two Levees Fail; Much of Gulf Coast Is Crippled; Toll Rises." A certain Hurricane Katrina — which Bethel is still putting out task teams to help with the devastation of. Here's one you might have forgotten about: January 10, 2005, the tsunami, the Indian Ocean earthquake, literally over 100,000 lives lost. Quite frankly, when I was searching through this, I thought, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that." That was a long time ago, and it really didn't affect America, but it affected our world.
I could have continued to print out Time and New York Times covers — the front page of a certain financial crisis. Maybe I could have picked the 2004 Person of the Year, George W. Bush, and some of you would think, "Well, he was the worst thing that happened." Or I could print out one of the eight covers Time printed of Obama's face, and, well, maybe that was one of the worst things that happened. I could continue on about all these things that have happened over the past eight years.
So imagine that little microcosm of us. And imagine Israel's feeling over hundreds of years of being taken over by Assyria, then Babylon, then Greece, then Rome. They just don't get a break. And I think we kind of feel the same way. First we're attacked by terrorists. Then we go to war in Afghanistan. Then we go to war in Iraq. And in the meanwhile, there's a hurricane that hits us. And in the meanwhile, there's a financial crisis that hits us.
If you really want to bring it close to home, we could go to the history of Cedar Road Church. Ooh, I feel nerves tingling. A couple of pastors voted out because of no confidence. A worship leader who's brought his share of controversy. Divorces, people losing jobs, from welders to college professors. We have our share of pain too.
Introduction Four: Luke 1
So we turn to the book of Luke, chapter 1, and we find this collection of stories that Luke has brought us. Let me remind you of the structure that Pastor David brought to us a couple of Sundays ago. First, we have the birth of John the Baptist foretold, and Zacharias's response — which was bad, not the response we should be copying. "What are you thinking? I'm not going to have a baby. She's old, I'm old." Silence. Dumb. Mute. Zacharias stops talking; he doesn't have much of a choice. Then we have the birth of Jesus foretold, and Mary is the response we want to copy, the response we want to emulate as Christians: "I am your servant; let it be done as you say." John foretold: bad response. Jesus foretold: good response. Then a story about Mary — this was last week — the Song of Mary, the Magnificat: "My soul magnifies the Lord." And this story about Zacharias, which is where we are today, and his song.
Now, we already see hints of this theme of mercy woven in and out of the book of Luke. In the Magnificat, chapter 1, verse 50: "His mercy is upon generation after generation." Verse 53: "He has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed. He has given help to Israel his servant, in remembrance of his mercy."
So we come to verse 57. I'm going to read this first chunk, 57 through 66, and then we'll talk about it:
Now the time had come for Elizabeth to give birth, and she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had displayed his great mercy toward her, and they were rejoicing with her. It happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to call him Zacharias after his father. But his mother answered and said, "No, indeed; he shall be called John." And they said to her, "There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name."
We're kind of going through this in my family right now. My sister-in-law is about to give birth to a child on Friday, and we had a little gathering yesterday, and he's joking about the name — we're making up names that would be terrible for any baby — and he's saying, "Well, there's no one by that name; why would we name him that?" And then he gives us this warning: "But if you don't like it, you can't say anything." "Oh, well, okay, we'll see."
And they made signs to his father, Zacharias, as to what this child should be called. And Zacharias asked for a tablet and wrote as follows: "His name is John."
Which is so typical of a man. The mother's like, "Well, he's going to be called John," and they give the tablet to Zacharias to write on, and he's like, "No, his name is John. It's over. It's done."
And at once Zacharias's mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak in praise of God.
Which will be the song we're about to study. Continuing, verse 65:
Fear came on all those living around them, their neighbors, and these matters were being talked about in all the hill country of Judea. All who heard them kept them in mind, saying, "What then will this child turn out to be?" For the hand of the Lord was certainly with him.
The Need for Mercy
If you take your bulletins, you'll find a little fill-in-the-blank outline — well, this one has the answers; don't look at it too closely. What we just talked about was the need for mercy. Israel needed mercy. We, as a country and as a world, need mercy. And this church needs mercy.
Symbols of Mercy
Now, in the story we just read — the birth, circumcision, and naming of John — we're seeing a couple of symbols of God's mercy, which this song is about to explain.
First, we see mercy to Elizabeth, which is implicit in the first couple of verses. They come to celebrate with her because of the child she'd been given. She's old; he's old. There was no reason for them to have a son — but they did. This reminds us of Abram and his wife Sarah — Sarai, before they got renamed — who had a son when they weren't expecting it. They were old, there was no reason to, but they had a son named Isaac, who would then lead to the rest of Israel. So now we see this act of mercy: John, this son of, basically, mercy being given.
The second symbol of mercy is what I talked about: 400 years of silence. Israel finally gets back to their homeland, and they hear all these rumblings and stories and tales of a Messiah, a king who is to come — and then there's nothing. Now, there is something: there are some wars, and some people who pretend they're the Messiah, and some who pretend they're prophets. But in the end, what we're left with is the book of Malachi, and that's it. And then, 400 years of no word from God, at least in a broad, general sense to all of Israel, to all the world.
And so we see Zacharias, and because of his lack of faith in what God was about to do, he is struck dumb and mute. And then he does the right thing: "His name is John," referring to what the angel said. This was him showing faith. "Okay, I have not been able to say or hear anything for the past nine months; I think it's time for me to believe." Probably a good idea. "His name is John." And then the mouth of Zacharias is opened. What I think Luke is trying to tell us is: this is the beginning of something good. The mouths of the prophets are about to be opened again. And who is that going to be? Maybe John the Baptist, who kind of straddles both Testaments — the final Old Testament prophet and the first New Testament prophet. So by Zacharias's mouth being opened once again, God is saying to all these neighbors, who all of a sudden start fearing, "This is the beginning of something new, something good, something merciful."
The Song: Benedictus
So then we turn to the song, verse 67: "And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying..." This song basically serves as the history of mercy — what we just talked about — and the coming of mercy, what's about to happen. The song is called the Benedictus, for the first Latin word of the song, which is "blessed." (You know, "benediction" — when I tell you all to go, I'm going to bless you and send you out.) It goes like this:
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited us and accomplished redemption for his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us —
Some of your translations might just say "savior." That word "horn" basically means a person of salvation, something strong, something mighty.
— in the house of David his servant, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old —
A.k.a. this happened way too long ago.
— salvation from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us, to show mercy toward our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to Abraham our father, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.
The tone of the poem switches; now he's talking straight to little baby John:
And you shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Your translations might render that "sunrise" as "the dawn" or "the coming of light." Then the poem closes:
And the child continued to grow and became strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
The History of Mercy
The first few verses of this song — verses 68 onward, really 68 and 69 — are the history of mercy. "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel." This is Zacharias's main point: may God be blessed, be praised. Why? One, he has visited us; he had come before to the people of God. But the interesting thing about this song is that even though it serves as a reminder of that which has been, of history, at the same time the Bible says he prophesied — he's talking about what is about to happen. Blessed be God, because, one, he visited us; two, he accomplished redemption for us; and three, he raised up a horn of salvation — a mighty Savior for us — in the house of David his servant. Which again refers to the prophecies: somebody will come from the line of David to bring mercy. That's the history of mercy.
The Reasons for Mercy
And then he gives the reasons for mercy. Verse 72: "to show mercy." Mercy is a reason in and of itself. It's unexplainable — that's the point of it. Mercy is not given for a reason. I don't start showing mercy to my friends, my parents, my kids (which I'll have someday) because they've proven themselves worthy of it, because they've done the right thing, because they've paid their bills, paid their dues. I give them mercy simply because they are my friends, my family, my children. Mercy is a reason in and of itself. "To show mercy toward our fathers" — that's the first reason.
Second reason: "to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore." God is a God who keeps his promises. He's not a God who all of a sudden is going to turn his back on you — which is what the Israelites are thinking. They've gone through hell and back in their minds: Assyria, Babylon; Assyria and Babylon and Greece and Persia and Rome, and all the little fights and wars in between. They're sick of it. By the time we come to 6 BC, the birth of Christ — though they don't know it yet — they are sick and tired of being oppressed. What would you feel like if all of a sudden Iraq decided, "Well, we're going to take over the U.S.," and they did it? And then Iran's like, "Well, we're going to take over Iraq, and therefore the U.S.," and they did it. And then North Korea says, "Well, we're going to take over Iran, Iraq, and the U.S." Wouldn't you get tired of that happening over and over again? And then some no-name nation — Canada — invades, or something like that. You'd get tired. You'd get sick and grumpy too. So this poem serves as a reminder: God is not a God who's turned his back on you. Not a God who's turned his back on this world, this nation, or this church.
Third reason: "to grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies, might serve him" — in three ways: without fear, in holiness, and in righteousness. You can put those last two together, holiness and righteousness. But "without fear" — this will become a theme of the New Testament. Not to say that we shouldn't fear God, that we shouldn't respect him. But the reason we come into church, the reason we pray to him, the reason we become friends, become children of God, is not because he's simply got bigger muscles than we do, not simply because we can't fight this — but because of mercy.
So we see the history of mercy — visitation, redemption, salvation — and the reasons for mercy: mercy itself, the covenant he promised, and service without fear, with righteousness and holiness.
The Purpose of John
Then we move to verse 76, and we see the purpose of John. "A child will be called the prophet of the Most High." These are blessed words to them — a prophet has finally come to Israel. And what are you going to do? "For you will go on before the Lord" — first of all, to prepare his ways. And how will he do this? Second, to give his people the knowledge of salvation. So we see in John this twofold purpose: he's going to prepare the way of the Lord. Basically, Zacharias is quoting a verse from the old prophets that says somebody will come and prepare the way for this Messiah, this Savior, this Anointed One. "You're going to prepare the way." How? By saying salvation is available.
Now, a side note. The Israelites thought very different things about what salvation meant. And quite literally, salvation in the Greek — what this book was written in, at least the second part of it — could mean a variety of things. It could mean saved from a physical illness. It could mean saved from an enemy. Zacharias means neither of those, but a salvation deeper and grander: salvation from our sins. To serve him how? Without fear, with holiness and righteousness. So our salvation is not brought about so we can gloat over those we just defeated in battle. Our salvation is not given so we can look at the pictures of Osama bin Laden and get angry and hope we catch him soon so he'll serve his punishment. That's not the salvation he's talking about. It's something that has to do with our souls, with the redemption of mankind, the redemption of the world — not just a battle to be won. Because that's what the Israelites wanted: "Let's get rid of Rome. Let's get rid of all these oppressors. Let's finally be on our own again." And that's why Jesus is kind of secretive about this whole being-the-Messiah thing. Because as soon as he says, "Well, I'm the Messiah," what are they going to try to do? Make him king, give him an army, let him go fight. Jesus wasn't out there to fight battles of that sort, but of a very different sort.
The Purpose of Messiah
So we see the purpose of John, verses 76 and 77. And in verse 78 we see the purpose of Messiah: "because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the sunrise from on high will visit us." That's why we light candles: Messiah was shown to be a light. To do two things: first, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; and second, to guide our feet into the way of peace. And again, this is not merely some militaristic kind of peace, but a peace in which we are finally serving God without fear and with righteousness.
What Do We Do About Mercy?
Now, how do we tie this all together? As any good sermon should end: what does this have to do with me? In other words, what do we do about mercy?
First, I think we need to remember our history. Our history as families, as friends, as a worship team. Our history as a church, as a community of believers — as somebody a long time ago decided, "Let's build a church," a church with a wooden roof and multicolored windows. That's our history; that's part of who we are. And so we begin to grumble and get grumpy — "the preacher wasn't very good," "the children sang off-key," "this isn't happening the way I want it to go" — which I'm guilty of, you're guilty of, we're all guilty of. We have a history. This church, this physical building, and you physical people have a purpose, have a history that we get to remember. Remember our history as a people of God, as Christians, as the church universal. God is constantly getting into the world to work out salvation. Why? Because of his mercy. That's the first thing to do about mercy.
Second, serve God without fear, with righteousness and holiness. I pray that when you come to church each Sunday, and when you go out each Sunday, you're not doing it just because it seems like the thing to do, not because you wonder what people would think if you didn't, not just because you think that's all God requires of you. Not that you would serve him with fear, but without. But what does "without fear" mean? That you would serve him with holiness and righteousness. Holiness is a word that means set apart, separate, sanctified. If you want to get really down to earth, it simply means weird. Okay? God is holy. God is weird. What does that mean? It means God is set apart; he's different from everything we know. When we go out into the world and see the death and destruction, the Twin Towers falling, the bin Ladens fighting — God calls us to be distinct from that. Now, he doesn't call us to go hide in the basement of our churches, hoping for the rapture to happen any minute now. That's not what holiness means. Because the point of holiness, as we see throughout Scripture, is not just to be different for the sake of being different. It's to be holy so that everybody else can join along. That's why Israel was set not in some little off-the-beaten-path place; the land of Israel was a major trade route for a bunch of different nations. If you've ever wondered why there were so many wars over Israel, that's why. They're next to the Mediterranean Sea, in between Egypt and the routes that go up to Europe. I don't think that's a coincidence. I think God placed them there for a purpose — to be holy, not so they could go hide out, but so everybody else could join in the party. Serve God without fear, with righteousness and holiness.
Third, prepare the way for the second coming. As we think about Advent, the first coming of Christ, we also have to remember the coming that's yet to come — the second coming. And honestly, what you believe about how that works — the rapture, the tribulation, the millennium — is really not what anybody in the Bible ever taught us to care about. What we were taught to care about was preparing the way for that second coming. We pray it in the Lord's Prayer: "Thy kingdom come" — how? — "thy will be done" — where? — "on earth as it is in heaven." This is not a passive prayer, a prayer we simply sit back and watch happen. This is a prayer we get to be a part of. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done" — by whom? By us. Prepare the way of the second coming by giving that knowledge of salvation. Now, this does not simply mean going out on street corners and yelling, "Jesus is coming, turn or burn." This knowledge of salvation, like I said, is much deeper. It's about the redemption of mankind. Obviously, there must be choices made. Obviously, people can't just keep worshiping whatever or whoever they decide to worship and hope salvation applies to them too. And that's where we come in. That's where the holiness factor comes in: be distinct so everybody else can join along.
Fourth, allow Messiah to shine in our darkness and guide us to light. Israel already was the called people of God; they were already distinct by their very nature, by the covenant God made with them. And yet Messiah is coming to shine in their darkness and guide them to light. The verse says, "to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death." Without Jesus, that's where we sit — in darkness and the shadow of death. And salvation is more than just sitting in salvation. Messiah came to guide our feet into the way, the traveling path, of peace. Salvation is not simply a one-time, long-ago decision that we now sit in, in our salvation pew, again waiting for the rapture to come. Messiah came to guide us — a continual path, something that goes further up and further in. So we need to allow Messiah, the final prophet of God's mercy — this is why he did all this in the first place — to guide us, to shine in our darkness, to shine into those dark crevices we'd rather let no one see. We need to let Messiah in there. We need to let him shine and guide our way into peace — a peace beyond just our pocketbooks and our armies, but a peace that says, "I'm going to serve God without fear. Would you please join along?"
Amen.
Closing Prayer
Let's pray together. Blessed Heavenly Father, you are a God of mercy, and you sent your Son as a prophet of that mercy. But Father, we don't just want to sit in pews or stand behind music stands and talk about it and listen about it. Father, you call us to be your servants of mercy. And so as we leave today, may we remember where we came from. May we serve you without fear. May we prepare the way for your coming. May we allow you to shine and to guide us. Thank you for the song of Zacharias that has lasted all these years. Throughout this week, may we meditate on it and what it means for us. And may you guide us into deeper truth, deeper love, and deeper knowledge of you. We pray this in your name. Amen.
This is a transcript of the sermon as preached, lightly edited for readability.
