Advent & Men, Part 3: “Silence & Speech”

December 17, 2023 – Third Sunday of Advent 

Luke 1:8-25, 57-79 

Pastor Mike

Part 1 – Luke 1:8-25

This Advent, as we prepare to receive and celebrate the incarnation of God’s Son, we have been asking together what good news these days might hold for men. In their journey from boyhood to manhood, men are pressured to forsake their sensitivity, their range of feeling, and their delight in being alive. The woundedness of men wreaks havoc in the home, in the community, and even in men’s own bodies. Jesus took on our nature and was born in Bethlehem to bring peace and healing to all of creation, including men. By admitting our need for Christ and opening our hearts to receive his grace, we are given “authority to become children of God” (John 1:12), children who are made whole again through his love, and who use their power to bless. Thankfully, men abound in the nativity stories from the Gospels, and with their help, we, too, can be moved to embrace the gift of God’s Son.

Last week, we read the story from Matthew about King Herod and the Magi. We saw Herod operate out of a mode of domination when he encountered a circumstance that was outside his understanding and control. He was stirred up by the Magi’s visit, and he moved from that inner stirring toward fear, then to control, to anger at the loss of control, and finally to violence. That movement won’t feel foreign to any man in the room or to anyone in the room who loves a man. In contrast, we saw the Magi operate out of a mode of receptivity. Responding to their stirring with wonder, they journeyed in community, asking questions, giving, and blessing. The stark contrast on the page was between control and joy.

And that was kind of nice, having such a simple story with a clear sense of who was the good guy and who was the bad guy. It gave us a sense of safety, being able to sit back and evaluate them in a moralistic kind of way. Certainly we’re not so bad as Herod, right?

With Zechariah, that all changes. Our theme is spiraling around again, and now we’re going a little deeper. There’s no good-guy-bad-guy in this story to keep things simple and out there. There’s just this one man, and the beautiful messiness of his heart.

What do we know about Zechariah?

We know that he was a priest, which means he presided over the religious life of the Israelites. As a priest, he was faithful to tradition, dutiful, and well-versed in the laws and scriptures of his people. We know that he was married to Elizabeth but that they had never been able to conceive, which means Zechariah was without a male heir in a culture where having a male heir meant everything. We know that he and Elizabeth were advanced in years, which means their hopes of having a family had withered and they lived every day with that familiar, unresolvable ache. Finally, we know that both Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous, people of pure heart and just action – highest praise for an Israelite. (And how about we hold that sermon for another time, that it is possible to be both righteous before God and out of hope that our life will turn out in a particular way.)

But God wants more from Zechariah, more for Zechariah, than even righteousness.

So, God sends Zechariah an angel.

At the time that this story takes place, Zechariah’s priestly order – there were 24 orders – was on shift at the Jerusalem Temple. When lots were cast to determine which person would do each job, Zechariah received a highly coveted, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go into the Holy Place, just a curtain removed from the Holy of Holies, and burn the evening incense offering. For a man whose life revolved around rituals, this was the ritual; for a job that drew its meaning from one place, this was the place. He went in there to perform this great service, and was met by the living reality to which that great service pointed: the reality of God.

The angel Gabriel appears to the priest and passes on wonderful, good, kind news. With one word he speaks both to the ache in Zechariah’s heart for a child and to the ache for his people’s salvation, to Zechariah the father and Zechariah the priest. Elizabeth will bear a son named John, and John will bring “joy and gladness” (1:14) to Zechariah and “turn many of the people in Israel to the Lord their God” (1:16). The way Gabriel says it, too, makes it sound like it’s a done deal: “Your prayer has been heard” (1:13).

Open your hands, open your heart, Zechariah! Receive fullness and abundance from the God you have served your whole life! But fear overwhelms Zechariah (1:12), and what come out of his mouth is this: “How can I know that this will happen? For I am an old man…” (1:19).

How can I know?

I am old.

Zechariah is unable to receive the joy of this announcement because he has come up against the limits of his mind and the limits of his body. And men do not like to come up against the limits of their minds or the limits of their bodies. None of us like coming up against the limits of our minds or bodies. But part of that discomfort for men is that we have been taught that we’re only as worthy as the strength of our minds and of our bodies.

These are the ironies of Zechariah: he is righteous but struggles to believe; a master of his religion but distrustful of a personal encounter with God; his prayer has been heard but he won’t hear its answer; he has been singled out for joy but can’t feel past the old ache; he has spent a career pronouncing blessings but balks when presented with his own blessedness.

God has set things in motion, though, and Zechariah has a critical part to play. God cannot have the soon-to-be father of John hung up on his own insufficiencies. Zechariah needs time for his heart to stretch to hold this news; he needs time to rehearse a different story for himself. So, Gabriel strikes him mute. A man, a priest, robbed of his words, “until the day these things occur” (1:20).

Everything will depend on when and how this father will speak to his son, but his words have already started wandering down the avenue of fear. It is a gift, not a punishment, that he is silenced.

Part 2 – Luke 1:57-66

Some of us are on our surest footing when we’re speaking. We give orders, tell stories, can turn anything and everything into a joke or a soapbox. We analyze, evaluate, prescribe. We assert, interrupt, talk just to talk. Silence would mean facing ourselves just as we are, so we will fill that silence. Silence might leave room for someone else to speak, requiring that we listen and adapt, so we fill the silence. Silence might hold space for feelings to arise, acknowledging that something beyond words is at work in the room, so we fill the silence. Some of us fear silence, and if Zechariah was this kind of person, then to be silenced certainly challenged him.

We skip ahead from verse 25 to verse 57 because, in Zechariah’s silence, other voices, other characters start to emerge. These characters are vulnerable, underprivileged. Elizabeth, Mary, even the unborn John growing in Elizabeths’ womb. A barren old woman, an unwed teenager, now both scandalously pregnant, take center stage. In the space created by the professional man’s silence, the work of salvation unfolds through the lives of two expectant mothers. Silence clears the ground for miracles.

Some of us, though, are on our surest footing when we’re silent. I bet there’s at least one person here besides me who heard that Zechariah wasn’t going to get to speak for the better part of a year and though, ‘You know, that sounds kind of nice!’ Silence can be an escape, a way of dominating through stinginess and our refusal to participate. That’s certainly a form of masculinity we often see in the world: the silent, withdrawn, emotionally unavailable man. The man who converses with one word, maybe two; the man whose anger will flare up simply by being called upon to explain what he means or talk something out from start to finish.

But Zechariah’s silence is not the silence of escape, but the silence of presence. Zechariah is re-ordering his inner being to the hope that’s been announced to him. Instead of praying publicly through rehearsed words, he’s praying spontaneously in his own spirit. He’s taking in what he sees happening in the lives of Elizabeth and Mary. He is drawn into greater intimacy with the members of his household. Before, he wanted to know how he would know, but now he has consented to other ways of knowing. He has been intimate with his wife, and he has watched with her for the daily, physical signs of the promise developing in her womb. Zechariah’s silence becomes a kind of womb. Gladness grows there alongside the words of blessing being prepared for him to speak over his baby boy. For those of us who move toward silence as a kind of numbing catharsis, Zechariah helps us see the true purpose of personal silence: it is always to help us move back toward the community with greater love.

Fear and emptiness and the need for control are at the root of both the need to speak and the refusal to speak. By the time Zechariah takes the tablet and writes, “His name is John,” he has undergone a profound transformation. Neither controlling nor withholding, he now says simply what God has given him to say. Oh, to live in a world, to live in a home, where the silence of men was a prelude to blessing. ***

Part 3 – Luke 1:67-79

The priest has become a prophet.

The man who was silenced breaks forth into song.

A man once discouraged by his twilight years testifies to the fresh dawning of God’s salvation.

By offering his song with his household, Zechariah enters into shared, intimate life with others. The “I” of his objection – How will I know this? I am old! – has given way to the “we” of community and the “you” of direct, personal speech. And where everyone up to this point has been filled with the Holy Spirit and tasted joy, Zechariah finally enters into this joyful life in the Spirit. Elizabeth was filled with the Spirit when she hosted and blessed Mary. Mary was overshadowed by the Spirit when she conceived Christ. Even John was filled with the Spirit before his birth, and leapt for joy in the womb of his mother when Mary came to visit. When John was finally born, even the “neighbors and relatives” (1:58) got to rejoice alongside Elizabeth. The Spirit was with everyone; joy was everywhere. At last, Zechariah “was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied.”

With his song, Zechariah talks directly to his son. Zechariah already knows what Gabriel has told him about John: that John will be a prophet in the spirit and power of Elijah. The most important thing about prophets, biblically speaking, is not that they talk but that they listen. They only pass on what they have received from God. In a beautiful mutuality, Zechariah the prophet models for his son this listening, blessing vocation, and the work that the son has been born to do has already transformed the life of the father. They have called forth the truth in one another.

May we – young and old, parents and children, brothers and sisters, partners and friends – call forth the truth in one another. Amen.