Zechariah's Song

Nine months of silence. Then a voice, a little rough from lack of use, begins to sing. And the very first word is blessed.

It is the eighth day after John's birth, in a house in the hill country of Judah. Relatives and neighbours are crowded in for the naming. Zechariah, the old priest who could not speak since an angel visited him in the temple, has just written on a tablet, his name is John. And in that moment his tongue was set free. Now, Luke tells us, Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit, and he prophesies. Everything he has been storing up in his silence pours out as a song.

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people.” Zechariah begins not with his own son, but with God. God has come close. He has raised up a horn of salvation, a mighty rescuer, from the family of King David. This is what the prophets spoke about long ago, Zechariah sings. Rescue from our enemies, and from all who hate us. God is remembering his holy covenant, the promise he swore to our father Abraham: that we would be set free to serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all our days.

Then the old man looks down at the baby in the room, and his song turns personal. And you, child. You will be called the prophet of the Highest. You will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. You will help his people know that they can be saved, through the forgiveness of their sins. Imagine hearing that about your newborn son. Zechariah knows John is special. But he also knows John is not the main event. John's whole life will be about getting people ready for someone else.

And then the most beautiful lines of all. All this is because of the tender mercy of our God, Zechariah sings, by which the dayspring from on high has visited us. The dayspring is the dawn, the first light breaking over the hills. That light will shine on people who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke closes the scene quietly. The child grew, and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.

Zechariah was a priest of the division of Abijah. King David had organised the priests into twenty-four divisions, and Abijah was the eighth. Each division took its turn serving in the temple for a week at a time. With so many priests, a man might be chosen by lot to burn the incense in the holy place only once in his whole life. That is the honour Zechariah had on the day the angel met him.

Zechariah's song is in Luke chapter one, verses sixty-seven to eighty. Christians often call it the Benedictus, from its first word in Latin, and many sing it at morning prayer, as the dawn comes up. So here is a question to carry with you. Where in your life, or in the world, do you long for God's light to break in like the dawn?