1st Wednesday in Advent Service, 2024

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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1st Wednesday in Advent Service, 2024

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That's right. I can see more.

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What will you do? Give me a moment.

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We'll get started here shortly. I'm just going to change a couple of security settings.

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Give me a moment here. I'll be right back. Alright, we're going to go ahead and get started.

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Today we'll be following the order of Vespers. If you have your hymnal, you can open up to the order of Vespers.

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Everything will be on the screen. You'll note that the Vesper service is a little bit shorter than the

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Divine service. That's kind of the point. We begin with the opening versicle.

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Note that we'll sing the part that has to do with Advent. Give me a second here.

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That did not sound correct. I need to double check something to make sure that's working.

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Let's try that again. Oh Lord, open my lips.

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Make haste, O God, to deliver me. Our psalm for tonight is

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Psalm 25. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to read all portions of it.

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What I would like you all to do is join me on the second half of each verse. Like verse 1,

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I will say, To you, O Lord. I will also say, I lift up my soul. But you join me on the part that says,

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I lift up my soul. To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. Oh my

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God, in you I trust. Let me not be put to shame. Let not my enemies exult over me.

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Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame. They shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

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Make me to know your ways, O Lord. Teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me.

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For you are the God of my salvation. For you I wait all the day long.

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Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love. For they have been from of old.

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Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions. According to your steadfast love, remember me.

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For the sake of your goodness, O Lord. Good and upright is the Lord. Therefore he instructs sinners in the way.

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He leads the humble in what is right. And teaches the humble his way. All the paths of the

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Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness. For those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.

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For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt. For it is great. Who is the man who fears the

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Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. His soul shall abide in well -being.

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And his offspring shall inherit the land. The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him.

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And he makes known to them his covenant. My eyes are ever toward the

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Lord. For he will pluck my feet out of the net. Turn to me and be gracious to me.

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For I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged.

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Bring me out of my distresses. Consider my affliction and my trouble.

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And forgive all my sins. Consider how many are my foes. And with what violent hatred they hate me.

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O guard my soul and deliver me. Let me not be put to shame. For I take refuge in you.

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May integrity and uprightness preserve me. For I wait for you.

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Redeem Israel, O God, out of all of his troubles. Glory be to the Father and to the

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Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever.

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Amen. The opening hymn tonight is 331. In the advent of our

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King Our prayers must now in Lost hymns of welcome sing

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In strains of holy Joel Lasting Son Incarnate deigns to be

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Himself a servant's form Puts on to set his servants free

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O Zion's daughter, arise O let your faithless heart despise

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The peace he comes to bring As judge on clouds of light

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He soon went in to pray

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For the dawning day Let sin's dark deeds become

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A sinful self be Put on to set us free

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A reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1. Selected passages. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named

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Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was

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Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the

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Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

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Now, while he was serving as priest before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the

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Lord and to burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense, and there appeared to him an angel of the

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Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled. When he saw him, fear fell upon him.

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But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife

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Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John, and you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the

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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, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the

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Lord their God, 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

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Lord a people prepared. And Zechariah said to the angel, How shall

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I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years. And the angel answered him,

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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.

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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.

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And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple.

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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.

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And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home. After these days, his wife

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Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying, Thus the

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Lord has done for me in the days when he looked upon me to take away my approach among my people.

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Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.

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And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

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And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him Zechariah after his father.

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But his mother answered, No, he shall be called John. And they said to her,

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None of your relatives is called by this name. And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called.

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And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, His name is John. And they all wondered.

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And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors.

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And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying,

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What then will this child be? For the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father

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Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the

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Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant

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David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our fathers

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Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all of our days.

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And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the

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Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our

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God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

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And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

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O Lord, have mercy on us. Thanks be to God. We'll sing the responsory.

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Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch.

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This is the name by which he will be called. The Lord is our righteousness.

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In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.

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This is the name by which he will be called.

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The Lord is our righteousness. Glory be to the

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Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

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This is the name by which he will be called. The Lord is our righteousness.

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In the name of Jesus. Amen. So, for our studies during the midweek services this

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Advent, we're going to take a look at the songs that are recorded for us in the opening chapter of the

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Gospel of Luke. Now, if you're thinking, songs? Well, they weren't exactly put to music.

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I would note that when we use the term song, some songs you can sing to. Some songs are very popular and do very well on the radio.

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And then the songs that I'm talking about are, well, they're called songs, but they're not really oftentimes put to verse or to music.

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Think of it this way. When you were growing up, there was a phrase that people would say, and the phrase went something like this.

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It's always the same old song, right? And when they would use that phrase like that, generally they were referring to something in life that was constantly the way it was, right?

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Let me give you an example. And I don't recommend this for any child out there. If I give examples from my life, from my childhood, they're generally cautionary tales, is the best way to think about it.

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But when I was a kid, my mom, on every Saturday, she would wake up and she would say, all right,

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Chris, I want you to do your chores. That means clean your room.

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I want you to dust and to vacuum and put your clothes away and things like this.

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And there were other chores I had to do, sometimes wash the car or vacuum other parts of the house or things like this.

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And now if I had said to my mother when she told me these things, yeah, I know, it's Saturday. It's always the same old song with you.

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I think I may have, if I had ever said that, there may have been violence that followed, but you get the idea.

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Always the same old song. But here's the thing. In our gospel text today, Zachariah's song, the first song that we're going to look at, we're going to note that it isn't the same old song.

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Zachariah's song isn't the same. In fact, it's very different. I want you to think with me for a second here.

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Parents, okay? Parents generally do everything they can to make sure that their children succeed.

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Now, I admit there's always gonna be exceptions to the rule and the exceptions have to do with like abusive parents or parents who are neglectful and things like this.

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But you'll note that there are parents that maybe you know or I've run into, that they will do anything to help their child to succeed, even to the point of like, you know, if they're doing well in sports, they would never ever think of jeopardizing their future

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MLB career or their future career with the NFL or whatever by taking their child to church on Sunday if there happens to be a game on Sunday.

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You see what I'm saying? And parents would never, never be excited about the fact that their child is playing second fiddle to another child.

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No, no, no. Parents want their children to exceed and to excel and to do better than other children, right?

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This is generally the case. And this is gonna be true in a lot of different endeavors.

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Could you imagine? Could you imagine? You know, there's a child who's trying to get a full ride scholarship on a music scholarship, you know, to maybe

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Juilliard or something like that. And the parents being okay with the fact that this child who should be sitting first chair in violin has decided to give up first chair to a friend of hers or his.

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So that friend of his can get first chair when it comes to violin. Parents would lose their minds.

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No, they don't want their kids to sacrifice anything. They are expected to excel and to do it.

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You get the idea, right? So that's gonna play into our gospel text today in our study of the

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Song of Zechariah. But again, context, context, context. One of the things I love about this story is just the details of it.

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So there's Zechariah, okay? He's gone into the temple. He's serving as a priest.

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And we know which particular sub -clan that he's working with,

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Abijah, and who his wife's name is. And so while he was serving as priest before God, his division, the

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Abijah division of the Levites, was on duty according to the custom of the priesthood. We get all these wonderful little details.

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He was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and to burn incense. Well, I would note,

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God causes the lots to fall as he wants them. And little did

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Zechariah know that he had that day an appointment with Gabriel, the same angel that had appeared to Daniel so many centuries earlier.

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And so he went in, and while the people were praying outside, he's burning incense at the time of the evening sacrifice.

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And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. We even get the details of which side of the altar is.

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And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him. Which, by the way, is standard operating procedure when you're in the presence of a holy angel.

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And the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife

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Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. Now, we know at this point that Zechariah and his wife

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Elizabeth are not thinking about putting a nursery in their home. They're thinking about going to a nursing home.

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That's how old they are. They are way up there in age, and poor

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Elizabeth, she's already long gone through menopause. The idea of having a child has long fled from their minds.

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Long, long, long fled from their minds. That being the case, you have to wonder if Zechariah thought,

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I prayed for that decades ago. Decades ago.

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And now? Now God chooses to answer that prayer? You'll note that sometimes

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God's answers to our prayers are not yet. And his timing is always interesting, the best way

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I can put it. And so the angel Gabriel goes on,

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And you will have joy, and you will have gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the

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Lord. Joy, gladness, he's going to be great. Yes, all right, my son is going to be great before the

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Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink. He will be filled with the

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Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb, sounding good so far, right? And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the

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Lord their God. And he will go before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah.

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And these details, you'll note that Zechariah is going to have nine months to think on what the angel

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Gabriel said. These details make it clear that John the Baptist, his birth, his life, he's not here to play first chair, first fiddle.

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He's going to be second fiddle to God himself. That's what the angel Gabriel is saying.

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And so he will go before the Lord 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, and to make ready for the

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Lord a people prepared. He's going to prepare everybody for the

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Messiah. So John the Baptist isn't going to be the focus. He's going to prepare everybody for the one whom we are all to focus on.

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Hmm. Well, Zechariah, at this point, gets a little snitty. And he says to the angel, well, how shall

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I know this? For I'm an old man. My wife is advanced in years. Pay attention.

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Talking back to a holy angel of God is not a wise idea.

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So the angel answered him, and you can hear the indignation in his voice. I am Gabriel.

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I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

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You should be overjoyed, Zechariah. 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.

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And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they wondered at his delay in the temple. And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple.

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And he kept making signs to them and remained mute. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

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And after these days, his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying,

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Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among the people.

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Now we fast forward to the birth of John the Baptist, and we get to Zechariah's song.

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And so the text goes on. Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth. So she's carried John the

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Baptist for nine months, and she bore a son, and her neighbors and her relatives heard that the

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Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. Oh, look at that.

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The angel Gabriel said that the neighbors would rejoice, and thus they are. He said,

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This word will come true, and indeed it is. And so on the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him

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Zechariah after his father. Right? I mean, it makes kind of sense.

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But remember, Zechariah's song is not the same old song. And naming him after Zechariah, nope, the angel didn't say to do that.

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The angel said, Name him John. So you can kind of tell here, even with the naming of John the

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Baptist, there's a little bit of a dig, a little bit of a humbling, and that's kind of the point, isn't it?

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Zechariah doesn't even get to name his own child, and his own child isn't going to be the star.

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His child is going to play a supporting role. And as for Zechariah, no, he doesn't even get to be invoked in the name of John the

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Baptist, because God chose a different name for him than Zechariah. Keep all of this in mind.

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This isn't the same old song at all. So his mother answered, No, he shall be called

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John. And here the neighbors try to talk sense into Elizabeth, and they said,

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Well, none of your relatives is called by this name. And so one of the funniest verses in all the scriptures, verse 62,

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Luke chapter one, they made signs to his father inquiring what he wanted him to be called.

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And you just have to like, just slap your forehead and go, Zechariah can hear just fine.

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He just can't talk. So you can see, it says they made signs to his father. You can just see them going,

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Zechariah, how would you like your son to be named? Right? This is silly.

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Of course. So Zechariah wants a writing tablet.

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They give him the writing tablet, and he scratches out in Hebrew, His name is

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John. And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed.

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And he spoke. And the words that came out of his mouth, blessed

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God. The God who refused that his son even would be named after him.

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The God who made it clear that the mission of his son was not to be the

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Messiah, to not be the focus, but to play second fiddle, to play a supporting role.

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And here we can think about the words of John the Baptist. Christ must increase. John the

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Baptist must decrease. And that increasing of Christ and that decreasing of John the

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Baptist begins even at the very beginning of his life.

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And so God is making sure that John decreases, even as he prepares the way from his birth, and that Christ is exalted and that he increases.

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And so now Zechariah, his mouth opened for the first time in nine months. First thing out of his mouth, he is blessing

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God. So fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea.

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And all who heard them laid up these words in their hearts saying, what then will this child be?

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For the hand of the Lord was upon him. Here is the song of Zechariah.

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Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.

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And I want you to consider the magnitude of what the focus is here right out of his mouth. Zechariah isn't focusing on his own son.

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It's the day of his son's circumcision. His son's being brought into the

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Abrahamic covenant and made a part of Israel. It's a big deal for Jews.

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But he's not even focused on his son. He says, blessed be the Lord, God of Israel.

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He has visited and redeemed his people and he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant,

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David. The first words out of Zechariah's mouth are about Jesus, not

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John. What parent does that? This is not the same old song that all of us sinful humans sing regarding our own children.

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Zechariah here is obsessed with glorifying the son of David.

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And John the Baptist isn't him, even though John is his own son, his one and only, first born and only born son.

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I mean, talk about within the way of thinking back then, this child had to be the absolute joy of his father and his mother.

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And yet, Zechariah, the first thing out of his mouth is about Jesus. Blessed be the

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Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant,

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David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father

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Abraham to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.

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Let me tell you, isn't it interesting? And so, Zechariah is already teaching his son to prepare the way for Jesus because Zechariah, in this moment where he should be talking about his own son, is talking about the

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Son of God, the Messiah coming into the world to deliver us from the hand of our enemies.

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And our enemies are powerful. Satan is not to be thought lightly of.

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He has domineered us and brought us into the darkness of his own kingdom by leading us astray into participating with his rebellion against God.

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And none of us are capable of freeing ourselves from the dominion of Satan at all. God has to deliver us, and he has sent a deliverer, and that deliverer is

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Christ himself. And so Zechariah, in his song, first sings the praises of Jesus, the deliverer, the one who was promised to Abraham, the one who he swore would come, the one he promised would deliver them from our enemies so that we can serve

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Jesus, God, without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all of our days.

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And so the first half of Zechariah's song is about Christ. And then his son, the one circumcised that day, his only son, gets an honorable mention in Zechariah's song.

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And you, child, let's talk about you for a moment. You will be called the prophet of the most high.

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You will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give knowledge of salvation to his people, not yours.

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In the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our

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God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

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Zechariah's song is not the same old song. In fact, it's quite shocking, and gloriously so, because even in Zechariah's song,

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John the Baptist takes second place to Jesus, as he should.

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And by the way, so should you, right? We, because we have been tempted by the devil, we think so highly of ourselves.

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But I warn you, Scripture says, Christ has said, the one who exalts himself will be humbled because it's

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Satan who exalted himself. So don't exalt yourself. Don't make yourself the center of everything.

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It's all about Christ. As Paul, the apostle, says, I chose to know nothing among you except for Christ and him crucified.

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And so the apostles that Jesus trained, they focused on Christ. Here, Zechariah focuses on Christ.

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His son gets an honorable mention by way of the fact that he's going to point people to Christ. But already

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Zechariah is doing that and setting the example for his son. We ought to pay attention to that.

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And so if you could repent of anything today, during this first week of Advent, which is a penitential season, repent of your self -centeredness, repent of your self -importance, repent of singing the same old song about yourself, your glory, your power, your strength, your might, your you, you, you, you.

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Knock it off. That song is tired. It's old. And we learned it from the devil.

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Learn the song of Zechariah. It's not the same old song. It's a song about Jesus, the one who came to deliver us and rescue us from the dominion of darkness, to teach us a new song, a song about him, the one who saves and does so because of his great love, his mercy, and his goodness and kindness, because Jesus is that good.

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So brothers and sisters, let us repent of singing the same old song and thank

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Jesus for sending Zechariah to teach us a new one. In the name of Jesus, amen.

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We continue with the canticle. Let my prayer rise before you as incense

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And the lifting up of my hands Sacrifice My soul magnifies the

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Lord And my spirit rejoices in God my

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Savior For he has regardless of his handmaiden

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For behold from this day

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All generations will call me blessed

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For the mighty one has done great things to me

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And holy is his name Mercy is on those who fear

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From generation to generation He has shown strength with his arm

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He has scattered the proud In the imagination Cast down the servant

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Israel In remembrance Mercy As he spoke to our fathers

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To Abraham And to his seal The Son And to the

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Holy Spirit Our Father who art in heaven

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Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done On earth as it is in heaven

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Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us

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And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil For thine is the kingdom

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And the power and the glory Forever and ever Amen The Lord be with you

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Let us pray

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O God from whom come all holy desires All good counsels and all just works

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Give to us your servants that peace Which the world cannot give That our hearts may be set

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To obey your commandments And also that we being defended From the fear of our enemies May live in peace and quietness

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Through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord Who lives and reigns with you In the Holy Spirit One God now and forever

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Let us bless the Lord Thanks be to God The grace of our

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Lord Jesus Christ And the love of God And the communion of the

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Holy Spirit Be with you all 338 is our closing hymn

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Expected Jesus Born to set thy people free

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From sins and sins release us

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Let us find our rest in thee

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Israel strength and consolation

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Hope dear and joy of end

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Amen Peace to all of you