Luke 1:5-25: “The Birth Announcement of John the Baptist”
The Gospel of Luke: “The Son of Man Came To Seek And To Save The Lost” Luke 1:5-25: “The Birth Announcement of John the Baptist”
Sunday, June 25th, 2023
Luke 1:5-25:
[5] In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
[6] And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.
[7] But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
[8] Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty,
[9] according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
[10] And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.
[11] And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
[12] And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.
[13] But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
[14] And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,
[15] for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
[16] And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,
[17] and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
[18] And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”
[19] And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.
[20] And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”
[21] And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple.
[22] And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute.
[23] And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.
[24] After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying,
[25] “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”
Intro:Now one of the things that we learned over the past couple of weeks with Pastor Dale is that Luke promises in Verse 3 to give us an ordered account of the Person and work of Christ as it relates to His earthly ministry. And so whenever you begin an orderly account, you have to make a decision to start somewhere. Matthew for example started with a genealogy and then straight into the birth of our Lord. Mark begins with the prophecy from Isaiah speaking of one who would come to prepare the way for the Lord. And then he goes straight into the appearance of John the Baptist in the wilderness. John begins quite beautifully with the description of Christ as not only Deity but of His place in the Godhead and in Creation. But with Luke, he chose to go all the way back to the beginning and start with John the Baptist’s birth announcement. And it’s fascinating he chose to start there because as we learned over the past couple of weeks, Luke was a brilliant histori And he goes all the way back to the very moment that the “silence” of what is known as the “intertestamental period” is broken. The “intertestamental period” is that 400 year period between the end of Malachi’s ministry and the birth announcement of John the Baptist. And that announcement marks the end of this extended period of quote-unquote “silence” in terms of God working through and speaking through Prophets. Which from a documentarian point-of-view is a pretty great place to start.
And that day, the day that marked the end of that 400 year period, probably started off just like every other day had for the past 400 years. But the heavens began to stir and an Angel had been dispatched to deliver some really incredible news.
Now what we just read in these 20 verses is pretty detailed. And for Luke to have known the details of an event like that, he had to have interviewed a whole slew of people. In fact, as Pastor Dale had mentioned, it’s very likely (if not all but certain) that he had interviewed none other than Mary, the mother of Jesus in order to get these details. I mean except for John the Baptist’s mom Elizabeth, Mary certainly would have known very well what happened since she and Elizabeth were cousins and this was some pretty big news.
It’s been said that John the Baptist may be one the most underrated, important people in the New Testament and that more often than not, he gets totally overlooked by us. But Jesus didn’t take him for granted and He certainly didn’t downplay the importance of John the Baptist. In fact, Jesus will later say OF him that “…among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.” (Matthew 11:11-3).
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