Luke 1:57-80

If you don’t have a Bible handy, the link below will take you to one of many places you can read it for free.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%201%3A57-80&version=NLT

Well, John was never going to be a normal kid. His conception was predicted bizarrely. His dad didn’t speak a word during his mom’s pregnancy. His naming was this crazy fiasco which ends with his dad finally speaking and bursting into a psalm of praise. By the time he had a name people were already thinking, “Who is this kid?” You just know the neighbours were watching his every move growing up. No wonder he moved to the desert!

It does make me happy to read that, when Elisabeth had her baby, her relatives and neighbours all shared her joy. People were happy for her. They could see God had been kind to her, and they were happy about it. The gang shows up on circumcision and naming day – it seems like naming the baby was a group effort because they were going to name him for his dad. Clearly though, Zechariah had found a way to tell Elizabeth that he was going to be called John. Zechariah the Baptist would have been a long title. I wonder if, instead of a world of John Smiths and John Does, we would have Zechariah Smiths and Zechariah Does…?  It’s probably just as well they went with John.

It occurred to me to wonder what the two names mean, so I checked.

Zechariah means God remembers, which is cool. God did remember Zechariah and Elizabeth who had never had a baby. He also remembered his promise to send the Messiah to rescue his people. But John means God is gracious, or God shows grace. And that’s interesting because John was going to be proclaiming the arrival of Jesus who was a living expression of God’s grace. John’s message was a message of repentance from sin, and he proclaimed Jesus as the lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

That removal of sin was a gift no one could earn no matter what they did.  It was simply given by grace. So ya, I feel like God didn’t just pick the name out of a hat. So John is born and named, and his dad’s first words in about a year are a song of praise. Zechariah’s song honours God for keeping his promise to Israel. He quotes prophecies recorded in the psalms and the books of the prophets. He even reminds us that this Messiah who is coming was promised all the way back in Abraham’s day. Zechariah was a priest. He knew his scrolls. The Holy Spirit filled him, and he unequivocally announced the imminent arrival of the Messiah. Luke has completed his backstory.

The stage is set, and there is no doubt that the subject of the coming story is the long-awaited Messiah.