“A Life We Didn’t Expect”

Luke 1:5-23
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.
Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”
Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah, and wondered at his delay in the sanctuary. When he did come out, he could not speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them and remained unable to speak. When his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” is one of my favorite lines in all of Christmas music. My favorite memory of that song is from when I used to live in Ohio. There was a local dinner theater that always ended their Christmas show with a soloist singing O Holy Night. The production had been of “Elf: the Musical”, but that didn’t matter. Sitting in that auditorium, listening to the soloist sing that beautiful song under spotlights was so beautiful and powerful that I think I’ll always remember the experience. 

Our theme for Advent comes from this hymn, which carries an interesting history. The song was originally written by a French poet who was atheist, and the music was supplied by a Jewish composer. The hymn was later translated into English by an American Unitarian minister. In the 1800s, it became a popular hymn for Christian abolitionists due to its justice-focused language in verse 3. Like Mary’s song, which we’ll get to in a few weeks, the hymn reminds us that justice and joy belong together. Sometimes our joy is an act of resistance. And so, this Advent, we will hold space for our weariness and our joy. We will seek a “thrill of hope” in our hurting world. We will welcome joy—even and especially if, like the prophet Isaiah, we cry out for comfort.

I think a lot of us identify as part of the weary world. We are weary from the demands of life that just don’t stop coming. We are weary from grief that we cannot shake. We are weary from caring for a world that seems plagued by one disaster after another. We are weary from the feeling that if we don’t stop taking care of everyone and everything that it all might collapse around us. And we are weary from a life that did not turn out how expected it would. 

And it’s in that weary world where Luke begins his story. Luke is my favorite of the gospels, by a wide margin, because I love the rich, detailed stories he tells. Luke’s Advent narrative is much longer than Matthew’s and the other two skip over it entirely. Luke alone begins his story with an old priest named Zechariah. We’re told that Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were righteous before God, living “blamelessly” according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. It’s quite the compliment and certainly not one that could be said about me. I think we are meant to get the implication that these are good people. These are the kind of people that you want, and even expect, good things to happen to. But that’s not where we find them in Luke’s gospel. Instead, Luke uses a polite euphemism to tell us that Zechariah and his wife were “getting on in years” which is especially relevant because they had no children. 

Infertility is no stranger to the Bible and it is no stranger to many of our lives. Whether it be from miscarriages, infertility, infant loss, finances, or the lack of a partner to start a family with, many, many people have known the heartache and longing that comes with infertility. There are people in this room, in our families, and in our communities, who know this pain far too personally.  I imagine that this is not what Zechariah and Elizabeth thought their lives would be like. No one plans for infertility. No one plans for their dreams to be interrupted or delayed for so long that they become impossibilities. When months turned to years of waiting and hoping, how weary Zechariah and Elizabeth must have become. And yet, still they were faithful and steadfast to God, when inside they must have been so tired and weary. Later chapter 1, Elizabeth will describe her experience as “enduring disgrace from my people.” 

That line makes me so sad and angry for her because I know that Elizabeth was blamed for being barren, as if it were a failing of hers and not the most painful experience of her life that then got used as a weapon against her. One of the saddest things to me is not just the tragedies that come with life, but failures of friends and community to come alongside those in their grief. Whether it is as blatant as blaming someone for their illness or as casually cruel as slowly drifting away from a friend whose life seems just a bit too hard to deal with, the hurt caused by our loved ones can be just as painful as the initial cause of the grief. 

It is to this weary couple, that God begins God’s new thing. An angel appears to Zechariah and tells him, “your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John.” It is perhaps all Zechariah has prayed for and here is an angel of God appearing to him and he… can’t believe it. He questions the angel and explains why this cannot be possible, “I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” Gabriel is frustrated with Zechariah’s response and so as a punishment for his lack of faith, Zechariah becomes mute and unable to speak until his son is born.

What I find interesting is the difference in Gabriel’s response to Zechariah and to Mary, who will soon ask a similar question. When the angel delivers news to Mary in Luke 1:24-45, she responds, “How will this be?” To her, the angel describes how everything will come to pass without any condemnation of her question. So what is the difference between these two questions? One could argue that Mary responds to the angel’s impossible news with trust and curiosity. Her response presupposes that the news will come true; she simply wants to know how it will come to pass. In contrast, Zechariah wants certainty. His question implies that he can’t be sure of what the angel is telling him. The angel gave him explicit details about what will come to pass, including strange details for a birth announcement, like how he must not drink wine or liquor. In other words, the angel presents Zechariah with a detailed vision of what will come to pass and Zechariah essentially says, “I can’t accept this to be true.” 

Perhaps the difference is a young woman who has not yet been worn down by dreams denied or prayers unanswered. She is not yet weary as Zechariah is. Weariness can harden us so much that it prevents us from living fully. Many of you have had hard journeys. Grief has left its scars on us and we bear those scars as we show up for Advent. Some of them feel so obvious it feels like everyone must be staring at them but others are so hidden you’d have to know just what to look for to see it. 

Perhaps we have to acknowledge the ways we, too, are hardened by disbelief. We may look at Mary’s earnest question and think, “just you wait, girl. Life will harden you up soon enough.” When we are weary, we tend to seek clarity instead of insisting on God’s grace to provide for us during the weariness. Like Zechariah, we want answers and explanations. But as a result of his need for clarity, Zechariah is kept silent and muted.

And yet, we know that in the Gospel story, hope is coming. This season we are asking, “how does a weary world rejoice?” and the first answer is to acknowledge our weariness. It is to stop pretending like we are fine or that we are indefatigable. We cannot pretend our way into rejoicing when we are weary. We have to start with the truth. Zechariah was given a strange gift as he awaited the birth of his dearly longed-for son– forced silence. I wonder what that season must have been like for him and for Elizabeth. As a fellow pregnant woman, I know I would not be thrilled at my husband not being able to ask how I am doing. And yet, this disruption to their ways of doing things was what Zechariah needed to move from weariness into joy. Perhaps it forced Zechariah to come face to face with the weariness that had cost him his faith. 

I think what we will find in the Advent story is that joy and weariness can exist together if we allow ourselves to stay open and vulnerable to it. Joy is a vulnerable emotion to experience because it can so easily be stolen from us. Tragedy, accidents, or simply a life that did not turn out how you thought it would can harden our hearts. It feels easier to stay pessimistic than it is to hope and see those hopes not realized. And yet, vulnerability is all throughout the Advent story. God comes into this world in the most vulnerable way possible– in the body of an infant child, born to an unwed mother, living in an occupied territory. None of us would make such a gamble and yet, it’s how God starts this new chapter of God’s unfailing mission of love to us. And so, we begin with hope today. A hope that does not ignore our weariness but a hope that says, “someday, things will not be this way.” A hope that holds on. And my friends, our hope will not be crushed. It may take longer than we could ever imagine or show up in ways we never dreamed of, but God does not disappoint. So may we weary people be brave enough to hope today.