We seek shalom — peace with our Creator. The Messiah came to offer His Nation one last chance to retain all the promises and blessings of the Covenant of Moses. This ancient covenant — a suzerain-vassal treaty — had to be updated a bit in particulars, but would be unchanged in substance. The Messiah came as the personification of that Covenant.
We need not belabor the point: Jesus (Heb. Jeshua) was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of a coming Messiah. Luke begins by first settling the issue of the prophesied forerunner.
Zacharias was a priest; his wife Elizabeth was from the same clan. He would have considered himself privileged to have a priestly wife. However, things didn’t turn out that well. Everyone would have assumed that her barren womb was a matter of God’s disfavor. This, despite how both were faithful to the Covenant as best they knew. By the time they were both old enough for everyone to have given up hope, and likely ceased praying on their behalf, something happened.
Zacharias drew the lot for burning incense during one of the two prayer services in the Temple; nothing indicates either the morning of evening service. By this time in Israeli history, the rotation for his division would have come up twice each year. However, to be chosen for this particular privileged duty was easily once in a lifetime. A majority of priests never saw more than the most menial duties, much of it little more than make-work. So this was a big moment, and there was a lot of pressure on the aging priest to get everything perfect. By this time, the ritual was quite complicated, so it required a good bit of time.
Consider this: He is entering the actual Temple. Two chosen helpers would briefly step inside before him. One would remove the ashes of the previous incense offering. The other would enter and place live coals in the center. Both would worship a moment, then back out of the Temple. Nobody else goes in with Zacharias. He brings the incense that represents the prayers of the nation for forgiveness. After this signal opportunity, the other priests would refer to him as “rich.”
At the point where Zacharias entered the doorway, the priests and people around the altar for burnt offerings would have backed away from the burning sacrifice, and the people would be face down on the pavement, asking God to receive their prayers. Zacharias then steps reverently to the incense altar and pours the incense, very specifically with the palm of his hand, not his fingers, onto the glowing coals.
It was a fine art to blend this holy incense. What should happen is that the smoke would rise up like a thin stalk of a plant, bump the ceiling and follow the slight incline up into the top of the Holy of Holies, over the top rail of the curtain. Naturally, some of the smoke would also billow back down and fill the area around the incense altar.
It was a sight to behold, and there’s no doubt Zacharias thrilled to the moment, watching with fascination something rarely seen by any man. He would have bowed in worship and then backed out usually, but this time he was arrested by the presence of an angel by the incense altar. His natural expectation was that somebody was in serious trouble, and it might be him. Angels didn’t show themselves for frivolous reasons.
The angel told him to relax; everything was okay. Indeed, the Lord had heard his years of prayer for children. His wife was going to bear him a son. This will provoke a lot of celebration, but for more than just the one obvious reason. This son would be a special servant of God, and would be raised under the Nazarite vow. Indeed, he would manifest the divine Presence of the Lord from birth, and grow up with a unique sense of divine awareness.
His mission would be to call his nation to repentance. Not just any ordinary revival, his ministry would presage the coming Messiah. This call to repentance would be specifically in preparation for a divine visitation. Zacharias would have associated the angel’s choice of words with the promised return of Elijah (Malachi 4:5-6).
Zacharias was gob-smacked; it was just too much to process. He just could not believe it. Indeed, his wife was too old to get pregnant. How would he know this was not some private fantasy, a delusion he experienced under all the stress of this particular duty?
The angel replied that he was not just any angel, but the divine Messenger Angel of Jehovah, Gabriel. Since Zacharias was so dubious about the whole thing, he would be forced to bear his experience in silence. The Lord would seal up his voice until this promise was fulfilled in reality.
Some of the people outside on their faces began surreptitiously looking around at each other, wondering why the priest was taking so long. Was he in there risking God’s wrath by enjoying the show a little too much? He did come back out eventually, but then when his fellow priests tried to ask what was going on, he was mute. It was clearly something miraculous.
Eventually Zacharias was able to make signs, and perhaps play a little charades until he managed to get across that he had seen a vision. So the let him serve out his rotation voiceless and he traveled back home, somewhere in the Hill Country of Judah (generally between Bethlehem and Hebron).
Sure enough, Elizabeth did conceive a child. She kept it secret for five months, presumably to make sure it was a viable fetus, after which time still birth was far less likely. She didn’t want to celebrate too soon, but she certainly did glorify the Lord for taking away her shame.
I, too, would have thought I did something wrong if an angel appeared. When I got past that, I’d be wondering if the others before me in the rotation experienced the same thing and never talked about it. And then I’d be able to relax 🙂