Tender Mercies

       (Modern John the Baptist video from Sermon Spice)

       I’ll be honest.  If that guy showed up while I was at the mall Christmas shopping with my family – I’d be annoyed.  Even if I kind of agreed with his message, I would think his methods were intrusive.  That kind of in-your-face evangelism creeps me out.  But at least this guy was decently dressed.  His first century prototype, John the Baptist even dressed funny and ate funny. 

       John brought a loud, in-your-face message of repentance and judgment.  He blasted a revealing light into the darkness of people’s lives.

        This is why a lot of people today would prefer that John the Baptist stay away at Christmas.

We sometimes prefer a sentimental approach to Christmas that is quaint and nostalgic – chestnuts on the open fire, sleigh bells ringing and family gathered around. 

        But the deepest meaning of the holy event at Bethlehem is more than sentiment. It is more than lullabies and star shine.  It is more than hushed silences and humble shepherds kneeling at the manager.

       Christmas is about an invasion. Christmas is about a Savior who comes because people need saving from their sin. It is about God’s light that invades the darkness of this world’s evil and confronts principalities and spiritual hosts of wickedness. It is about God’s truth that exposes and convicts our deception and deceit. Christmas is about a world where people make their living by competitive triumph over others – where a worker at a Wal Mart can be trampled to death by people desperate for bargains -- where we maintain a sense of security by suspicion, ruthlessness and calculating outguessing and overpowering of others, -- a world where communities are held together by fear of external foes and where there are external foes like those who murdered innocent people in Mumbai.

        That’s what Christmas is about.  And the whole story starts with John the Baptist. Luke says, “If you want to understand the Christmas story, you have to start with John.”  So Luke tells us how God sends the angel Gabriel to encounter an old priest named Zechariah as he offers incense in the holy of holies. Gabriel tells Zechariah that he is going to be the father of a son who will be the forerunner to the Messiah. When Zechariah doesn’t believe it because he and his wife are so old, Gabriel makes him unable to speak. He shows him that the God who can shut his mouth also has the power to open his wife Elizabeth’s barren womb.

       When Zechariah comes out of the Temple, it is plain to everyone that something awesome has happened. This is not the routine priest coming out to give the routine blessing. Something strange has happened to Zechariah. The people say, “He has seen a vision.” I don’t know how they recognize the symptoms of vision seeing but they do. Luke tells us that Zechariah finishes his tour at the temple and heads home. And as Gabriel promised, Elizabeth becomes pregnant.

       Luke 1:57-65 tells us about the birth and naming of John the Baptist. The people who are aware of miraculous elements of the birth ask the important question: “What then will this child turn out to be?”

       Up to this time old Zechariah, has been quiet. He has been unable to speak for at least nine months. But when he is finally able to talk, he gives an earful – a flood of run-on sentences.

       The now vocal Zechariah, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, answers the people’s question with a song. This song has come to be known as the Benedictus from the first words of the Latin translation. Listen to what the Holy Spirit tells us through Zechariah. This is what is happening. This is what this birth means.

Read 66-79

       I want to point out several things about this prophecy.

       First, the birth of John initiates a train of events – events that make up God’s visitation of the world.  Zechariah’ song really isn’t about John the Baptist at all – except for Verse 76 which speaks of him as the prophet of the most high. This prophecy is about the Jesus of Nazareth – John’s cousin – called here the horn of salvation and the sunrise from on high.

       For years the people of Israel have been looking and longing for the redeemer – the one who will deliver them from their enemies – whoever those enemies are. They are looking for the one who will bring them national and personal fulfillment.

       It is the message of the Holy Spirit through Zechariah that a baby, who will be born in a stable in Bethlehem, is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises and all our deepest, deepest hopes.

        That is a pretty big thing to say about a very small baby. But Zechariah testifies, just as all the New Testament writers testify, that the Old Testament themes and the human needs and dreams they represent all find their complete fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

        So here is what Zechariah, speaking as the voice of God, says the birth of Jesus means. Listen to what he says. This is good news for you and for me.

        First he says: “God has visited us.” God didn’t become flesh in Jesus Christ for the sake of paying a social call. He came with a plan to do something about the human situation. Jesus said, “I have come that people may have life and have it abundantly.”

       Two words are used by Zechariah to describe God’s motives for this awesome visit – faithfulness and mercy. God had made specific promises to specific people of the past. Zechariah refers to the prophets, to David, to the fathers and to Abraham. Zechariah is telling us that God is faithful – that God keeps His promises even when disobedient human beings get in the way. And that behind this faithfulness is the deeper motive for God’s visitation – His great mercy.

       One of my favorite actors is Robert Duval. I loved him as Tom Hagen, counsel to the Corrleone family in The Godfather. I enjoyed him as the demented air-cavalry officer in Apocalypse Now who rhapsodized about “The smell of napalm in the morning.”

       But the finest movie I have seen him in is the one in which he plays Mac Sledge, an alcoholic country singer whose creative fires has disappeared in failed relationships and too many bottles. If you’ve seen the movie, you remember how he comes to rest at a wind-blown Texas motel owned by a young widow and her son.

       This woman is a Christian. In fact, she is one of the finest images of true Christianity I’ve seen in the movies. She is tough and she is gentle. She accepts him, believes in him, and expects something good to grow out of the wreck of his life.  Through her self-giving love, Duval’s character is able to overcome his dismal history.

       The climax of the movie for me comes in two parts. The first is when Duval begins to sing his songs again. The second is in worship at the small white frame Baptist church.

       The curtains to the baptismal open and you see the woman’s son, baptized upon his profession of faith in Jesus Christ. The curtains close and reopen, and there is that broken down country singer – thoroughly wet, somewhat embarrassed, and thoroughly touched by the love of God – the love shown through the woman who becomes his wife.

        I heartily recommend this film. It’s available on DVD. Its name is Tender Mercies.

       The reason I am mentioning this film in this sermon is because the name of the film and the theme of the film both come from this passage. In verse 78 Zechariah speaks of “the tender mercies of God.”

       The phrase “Tender Mercy” in Greek is literally “the guts of mercy.” That would not be a very good name for a movie but it completely reveals the depth of God’s great love. The splanchna in Greek are “the upper, inner parts of the body” – the heart, the lungs and the liver. These are the organs which were then thought to control the emotions.

        The point of the word is that God feels mercy for his people very deeply. God’s love is not just intellectual concern. God sees his people wandering, just like Robert Duval’s character in the movie, “in the darkness and the shadow of death.”  God sees His people caught in a prison of fear and guilt and his heart aches for them.  God is the God who can sympathize with, feel with, the hurts of his people. And he cares. He responds with “tender mercy.” 

       This means that when the Metrolink Train crashed last September, that God was there.

        I love what my good friend Tony Amatangelo said at the service for his friend and fellow pastor at Lifespring, Paul Long.  Tony said, “Let me encourage you with these words, “Death is not the End.”  There is a resurrection for those who believe.  Paul Long was, above all other things, a man of God.  He got up early every morning to drink his tea and read his Bible and talk to God.  That was the first thing on his to-do list every day.

       “And first, not just in time sequence, but in importance.

       “Meeting with Jesus was the most important thing in Paul’s life.  That’s a pretty amazing thing in this world today.  But even more amazing than that is that meeting with Pastor Paul was just as important to Jesus.  On Friday, September 12th, as Mr. Long flew forward to the front of the train, Jesus was there to catch him.”

       Tony concluded that thought with these powerful words:  “That was not the end of Paul’s life.  That was just the beginning.  And the Lord Jesus Himself, held Pastor Paul’s hand and said, “It’s going to be okay.  I’ve been here myself.  Death is not the end.”

       Jesus is there weeping with His people and bearing their grief.   That’s tender mercy.

       Zechariah concludes with two images to describe the way God comes to His people. Both were first used by Old Testament prophets. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited us – and has raised up a horn of salvation for us – the sunrise from on high shall visit us.” First, God will visit His people through “the horn of salvation.” The horn is a symbol of power. God’s visit will not be weak. God will accomplish in Christ all that is needed to bring us salvation.

       Second, God will come in the person of “a sunrise from on high.” This beautiful image comes from a number of Old Testament passages. In Isaiah 9:2, we read of “the people walking in darkness who see a great light.” In Malachi 4:2 God promises that he will visit his people. “For those of you who fear my name the sunrise from on high will arise with healing in its wings – an image reflected in the 3rd stanza of Charles Wesley’s great carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”

       Who is this “horn of salvation?” Who is this “sunrise from on high”? It’s not Zechariah’s son, John, but Mary’s son, Jesus. These images describe Jesus, “The light of the world.

       Several years ago I was talking with a person who was then a new believer about how we can know the will of God. I described my experience in knowing God’s will as being a lot like taking a walk in a dark woodland while carrying only a small flashlight. There is never enough light to illuminate the whole picture. There is just enough light for the next step.

       She thought about this and about her own pre-Christian life. And she responded, “But I didn’t get in the woods when I became a Christian. I’ve always been in the woods. The difference now is that at least now I do have a light.” That’s true.

       We have a light. We have the gift of God’s light in our darkness. Darkness in scripture is the symbol for separation from God. God comes into our darkness in the baby of Bethlehem, the “sunrise from on high” and leads us out of that darkness along the path of mercy into His peace.

       So do you see why Zechariah has to sing?

       My prayer for you this busy Christmas season is that you will experience the things Zechariah is singing about.  I pray that this season will be for you a season for the knowledge of salvation…a season for knowing the forgiveness of your own personal sins...a season of revelation…a season of peace in your most disordered heart…a season of tender mercies.