We saw last week that God writes history in advance. This happens on the macro-scale, covering centuries and the lives of nations, and it happens on the micro-scale, shaping the lives of individuals over months and weeks and even days. Zechariah is a priest who has been chosen by lot (Lk.1:9, see Prov.16:33). He had been chosen to offer incense on the altar that stood against the Curtain separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. It was a moment that visualised the people of God at prayer (Ps.141:2, Rev.8:4, hence Lk.1:10).
The whole passage focusses on this great question of prayer. Not in the way we might expect. For us the question of God’s ordaining history raises the question of why bother praying then? In the Scripture that’s not a question at all! Prayer isn’t seen as us trying to get God to do stuff... it’s about how He catches us up into what He is doing. In prayer, as in so many other aspects of discipleship, our thinking tends to run backwards!
Zechariah has been praying (Lk.1:13). In this moment he is both a public and a private person. As a public person, he is offering incense, and is acting in a way that shadows the Mediator, the one through whom (in whose Name) prayer can be offered to God. But he is also a private person, a man with hope and dreams, some of which it turns out have remained bitterly unfulfilled. In the wisdom of God, both the public prayers of the people for the coming of the Messiah, and the private prayers for Elizabeth to bear a child, are answered in the same act. This intervention by God will be both a joy and delight to Zechariah and Elizabeth AND many will rejoice because of his birth (Lk.1:14). Both histories are written in advance, and collide on this moment of incredible grace, on this unknown couple who live in an unnamed town in the hill country of Judea (Lk.1:39). John will be born. And history will be fulfilled.
Questions:
What do you make of Lk.1:6? Do you think Luke is exaggerating, or is it in fact possible to live like this? How do you think Zechariah and Elizabeth’s experience of observing the Law of the Lord would have been different from Saul’s (see Phil.3:4-6)?
How can we help each other in our learning to obey the commands of the Lord (see e.g. Ps.119:34, 44 & Matt.28:20)?
What do you believe about Angels (v.11)? How does the reality of such beings affect your life and faith?
What does Gabriel mean when he talks about John as going ‘on before the Lord, in the spirit and the power of Elijah’ (Lk.1:17)? How will John fulfil the prophecy of Malachi 4:4-6, given four centuries previously?
What does it mean to say that the hearts of parents and children are not ‘to’ each other? How would you recognise that in a family today? What are the consequences of that?
How does Zechariah’s response in v.18 demonstrate his lack of faith? Can you relate to the idea of praying without faith that God will answer? How do you think God sees such an attitude?
Gabriel’s response gives us a sense of the import of words that come from heaven. How does that shape your engagement with the Bible? If disbelieving the words of an angel is a serious error, how much more serious would it be to disbelieve the words of God (I Cor.2:12-13). Yet how do Christians commit this sin frequently?
How would you help someone who said they were a Christian, but who struggled to believe what the Bible taught? When is it OK to have questions and doubts? ...and when does it become sinful?
Does Zechariah’s experience of answered prayer reflect your own experience of prayer? Can you give examples of answered prayer that might encourage the rest of the group? Or is your experience of prayer more ambiguous? Should we expect God to answer prayer (see e.g. Jn.14:13-14, 15:7, 15:16, 16:23)? If our experience is of unanswered prayer, what might be wrong?
Are there times when nothing is ‘wrong’? What is going on in those times?
Why do you think the monthly Prayer Meeting at MIE is so poorly attended?
