Benedictus

Midweek Worship, Christ the King

Semicontinuous Reading: Benedictus

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Zechariah is a priest. He didn’t choose to be, in the way that we might choose to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a cop. No, he was born into it, born into an ancient family line the likes of which it is difficult for us as Americans to imagine.

After the tsunami of 2004, I read about a Shinto priest in Japan who was the twenty-sixth male generation to serve not just as a cleric but as a cleric in one specific temple. Think about that: his father, his father’s father, his father’s father’s father, back twenty-six generations; same job, same temple, same family. When I was a kid, Generation X was sometimes referred to as Gen13, the thirteenth generation of Americans. By that reckoning, this guy’s family had been priests for twice as long as there have been Americans, and here most of us would be hard pressed to name our grandparent’s parents.

That’s the kind of priest that Zechariah is. His clan, his Tribe, have been clergy going back centuries, back to Solomon building the first Temple in Jerusalem, back to Moses and Aaron leading the Exodus out of Egypt. Imagine that legacy. And there’s only one Temple, mind you; one Temple for all these generations of Hebrew and Israelite and Jewish priests. So it’s not like he gets to serve there very often.

In fact, Zechariah is some 60 years old by the time he is called to offer incense in the sanctuary, before the veil to the Holy of Holies, lit only by the seven-branched menorah. The incense he offers represents the prayers of his people wafting up and over the veil, into heaven. And the menorah instantiates the Tree of Life, bearing the fruit of light, welcoming him back into Eden, back into Paradise. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Zechariah. After this he will be called rich.

But it doesn’t go quite the way that he expects. An angel shows up. Angels, remember, ought to be on the other side of the veil, properly hidden in heaven. Yet here he is, larger than life. Zechariah naturally is stunned. But Luke’s audience might not be. There is a priestly legend, recorded by the historian Josephus, regarding John Hyrcanus, a Maccabean ruler of Israel some century and a half before Zechariah’s time, who fancied himself both King and High Priest.

As Hyrcanus offered incense at the Temple, just as Zechariah would a few generations later, a heavenly voice told him of his sons’ victory in battle against the Greeks. Keep that in mind: a priest, told of his princely son’s triumph, while offering incense in the sanctuary. The parallels are not terribly subtle.

Fear not, the angel tells Zechariah, for God has heard your prayer. Your wife shall conceive and bear a son, who shall inherit the mantle and the power of Elijah, greatest of the prophets of old. You will name him John, and he shall prepare the way of the Lord, for he is the promised Forerunner of the Christ, the Messiah.

Zechariah responds with shock and disbelief. Who could blame him? “How can I know this is true?” he asks. “My wife and I are too old to have a son.” So the angel Gabriel, in gentle rebuke, gives him this sign: that Zechariah shall be mute until the boy is born. Methinks many a pregnant woman might pray this for her husband. Lo and behold, the vision is true: the priest cannot speak. He and his wife shortly thereafter do conceive a child. And nine months later, give or take, unto us a son is born.

As soon as that happens, as soon as Zechariah hastily writes that his child is to be named John as was foretold, his voice returns. And he does not merely speak—he sings! He bursts forth into song for his newborn son, as we have heard here tonight. Our Gospel reading this evening is the Benedictus, the Song of Zechariah, one of four canticles found in the early musical chapters of Luke. This is in fact the song we sing at Matins every morning, the song of an elderly father to his newborn son.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel. He has come to His people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of His servant David. Through His holy prophets, He promised of old that He would save us from our enemies from the hands of all who hate us. He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant. This was the oath He swore to our father Abraham to set us free from the hands of our enemies; free to worship Him without fear, holy and righteous in our sight all the days of our life.

You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His way, to give His people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us; to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

This is how the Gospel prepares us for the Lord: with singing, with gratitude, with amazement; with a faithful elderly couple and an unexpected angel; with promises fulfilled in ways so wondrous as to burst the bounds of prose into poetry, the only proper language for the truest of all things. John prepares us for Jesus; Zechariah prepares us for John; yet even in this preparation for preparations, even with the Messiah not yet cresting the horizon, Zechariah sings as though the battle is already won, the salvation already achieved.

And indeed it is. The birth of Christ, the life of Christ, the Incarnation and Crucifixion and Resurrection, it’s all right here, in this promise, in this moment, and Zechariah knows it. Zechariah sees it. He’s awaited this moment for all of his life. And having seen the echo of the echo, the promise of the promise, the birth of the Forerunner, he knows that the Lord is righteous and our salvation is assured.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.