Sermon Title: Shining in the Later Years
Sermon Text: Luke 1
Sermon Date:
Luke
1
5In
the time of Herod king of
8Once when Zechariah's
division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9he was chosen by
lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the
Lord and burn incense. 10And when the time for the burning of incense came, all
the assembled worshipers were praying outside.
11Then an angel of the
Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.
12When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13But the
angel said to him: "Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been
heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the
name John. 14He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because
of his birth, 15for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to
take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit
even from birth.[b] 16Many of the people of Israel will he
bring back to the Lord their God. 17And he will go on before the Lord, in the
spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children
and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord."
18Zechariah asked the
angel, "How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well
along in years."
19The angel answered,
"I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to
speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20And now you will be silent and
not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my
words, which will come true at their proper time."
21Meanwhile, the people
were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple.
22When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a
vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to
speak.
23When his time of service
was completed, he returned home. 24After this his wife Elizabeth became
pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25"The Lord has done
this for me," she said. "In these days he has shown his favor and
taken away my disgrace among the people."
57When
it was time for
59On the eighth day they
came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father
Zechariah, 60but his mother spoke up and said, "No! He is to be called
John."
61They said to her,
"There is no one among your relatives who has that name."
62Then they made signs to
his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. 63He asked for a
writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is
John." 64Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and
he began to speak, praising God. 65The neighbors were all filled with awe, and
throughout the hill country of
80And the child grew and
became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly
to
Message
It was
Zechariah’s turn to serve at the temple.
His priestly division, Abijah, took its turn in a rotation system.
Some of
the priests lived in
Abijah was
the eighth priestly division and they served twice a year for one week
each. The priestly rotation began in the
Hebrew month of Nissan (mid-March to mid-April), and therefore the division of
Abijah would have served at the end of mid-April to mid-May and again at the
end of mid-October to mid-November.
Still
there is no way of knowing exactly when this was. The divisions rotated on the
Sabbath, but the Sabbath rarely fell exactly at the end of the month. Then
there is the fact that there is an additional month of Adar placed into the
Hebrew calendar twice every seven years. We can never be sure of the exact date
when a priestly division began or ended its duty period. So it is impossible to
calculate exactly when Zechariah served or when the baby John was born. (www.JerusalemPerspective.com) It is enough that we have this story to
process all that we have read and learned.
We don’t know
how many years Zechariah had lived before this day, only that he considered
himself old.
Abraham
was told by God to leave his country and his father’s people. God promised to bless him and make a great
nation out of him. He didn’t leave
everything behind though. He took his
wife Sarai, his nephew
Abraham
was 75 years old when they set out.
To say
that
But then
who knows what can happen when God speaks?
And when that the first signs of pregnancy came she was afraid to
believe them. But the months passed,
five to be exact and she finally ventured out of their home, ready to let the
world see that an old man and old woman were indeed expecting a child.
Sarai had
wanted a child desperately. So
desperately that she gave Abraham her servant Hagar so that even though she
would not give birth to the child, the child would be hers. But that didn’t happen. Certainly Hagar gave birth to Ishmael but the
baby was never hers. Abram was 86 when
the son was born.
Then God
changed their names to Abraham and Sarah and conveyed to them that they would
become parents, even in their advancing years.
It was understandable that they both laughed. But God kept his promise and when Abraham was
100 years old Sarah delivered a baby boy named Isaac. We don’t know for certain how old Sarah was,
but 25 years had passed since they left
And God
had plans for Zechariah and Elizabeth.
God used them in the later years in ways that if we are honest we hope
and pray God never uses us. Chasing a
toddler around at the age of 100 offers no appeal to me whatsoever.
The point
of all of these stories is not that God will insist that we have babies in our
80s but that God has a purpose for all of us…regardless of age. And that we should be of service to the
On
Thursday I went to
These
passages today tell us that if we feel that way, we are wrong. These stories of Abraham and Sarah and
Zechariah and Elizabeth are here for a reason.
These stories encourage us when we feel we have nothing left to give,
nothing to offer.
Last week
we spoke of Ruth and how she had been widowed and cared for her mother-in-law
Naomi. We read about how she listened to
Naomi and how she married Boaz and became the mother to Obed, who was the
father of Jesse, who fathered David, a shepherd boy in
Would the
stories of Abraham and Sarah and Zechariah and Elizabeth have been handed down
if those nativity stories hadn’t known the hand of God in an unusual way? Who knows?
But we
know that they were given the opportunity to shine in their later years. And we will be given the same opportunity
too. God needs us too.
In
seminary I researched church programs benefiting children in inner city
neighborhoods. That is where I learned
about Margaret. In her retirement she looked
around her church for something to do. Her
church was
You need
to know that Margaret didn’t live in the neighborhood. She lived in the Butler Tarkington area near
the seminary. And let me also tell you
that the neighborhood where Broadway still stands was then (I don’t know about
now) the most dangerous neighborhood in the city of
But
apparently Margaret wasn’t. Margaret
decided to make a difference in the lives of the kids in the neighborhood so
she started a tutoring program. She
encouraged folks at Broadway to sign up to meet weekly with kids who needed a
safe place to be after school, who needed nurturing and who needed to improve
their reading and comprehension skills.
And the program is still in existence today.
Who knows
how many kids did not become statistics and instead have been graduated from
high school because of the encouragement given to them by the tutors that
Margaret pulled together?
Who knows
how many girls didn’t get pregnant as 14 year olds because they had positive
role models in their lives?
Who know
how many boys didn’t get caught up in gang wars because they had a place to go
where someone cared?
I don’t
know the numbers but I am confident that these things happened. For over 16 years this program has made a
difference in a neighborhood in need of hope.
And it was started by a woman in her later years.
Next week
I will talk about shining in the early years but today let me just talk to
those of you who consider that you are in your later years.
If you
feel you have already done your bit for God, check out
If you
feel you have nothing left to give, talk to Zechariah.
If you
feel that no one needs anything from you ever again, reread the story of
Abraham and Sarah.
If you
don’t believe them, talk to God. God
isn’t done with you yet. Actually the
word retirement isn’t even mentioned in the Bible so you can’t use that excuse.
At
the age of 80 singer Tony Bennett will embark on a 20 city concert tour in
2007, sponsored by AARP, of course.
Grandma
Moses didn’t begin painting until she was in her seventies and that was after
giving up a career in embroidery because of arthritis.
And then there is Estelle Strongin who was featured on a PBS special
“Frontline” in 2005. At the age of 94
Estelle was still going to work every day as a stockbroker, a career she began
in her middle years. “I think every
decade brings changes, but I was never one of the people to be horrified as the
decades passed. At 30, I was delighted. I felt that I had grown so much from
20. At 40, my children were at a different stage. I was at a different stage. I
thought 40 was perfect. I'm afraid I thought 50 was perfect. I'm afraid I
thought every decade had wonderful rewards, except I have to admit that 90 was
a little intimidating. I thought 90 meant the end, and I'm a little
surprised that it hasn't.”
Unfortunately three months
after the interview Mrs. Strongin died of heart failure, but what a legacy she
left behind. Shouldn’t we all seek to
find the rewards of whatever decade we are living in? Shouldn’t we be available and ready to see
what things God will do with us today and tomorrow?
The stories of Abraham and Sarah and Zechariah and Elizabeth lift high
the bar for the rest of us. God isn’t
done with us….regardless of our age, regardless of our health, regardless of
our circumstances. God does not want to
hear us tell him what we cannot do, but instead God delights when we ask how we
can serve him until the day we are called home.
And since God won’t ask us to do what we are not capable of doing, you
can rest assured that whatever God asks….you can do.
Prayer:
How is it, God, that you ask so much of us at a time when our bodies are
frailer and we are growing weary? How is
it that you gave Sarah and Elizabeth the ability to bear children when they had
been passed those days for many years?
And for Abraham and Zechariah to be fathers in their advancing years?
How is it that a virgin delivers a son and her fiancée understands that
You are the father? How does all of
these things happen?
God, all we can say is that even when we have trouble understanding of
all of this, we trust you. All we can
say is that when we doubt and question what we read and hear, we believe you
can do great things. And when we doubt
and question our own ability to be of use to you in our later years, we ask for
the wisdom to know what you need from us.
What new thing can we do for you?
What new thing can we do for the
As we walk slowly toward the manger this Advent season, help us to
know. Amen.