LUKE 1:5-25

5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.

6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.

7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.

8 Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty,

9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.

10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.

11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.

13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.

14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,

15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.

16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,

17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

18 And Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”

19 And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”

21 And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they were wondering at his delay in the temple.

22 And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them and remained mute.

23 And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

24 After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept herself hidden, saying,

25 “Thus the Lord has done for me in the days when he looked on me, to take away my reproach among people.”

Okay.  I’ll admit it.  I still love watching all the Christmas specials that you see on television every year.  Rudolph and Charlie Brown, Frosty and of course who can forget “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”   Now no one wants to be accused of being a grinch when it comes to Christmas but there’s a quote from that Christmas classic that I’ve been thinking about as we begin our annual rush to December 25.   The grinch is standing there at the top of Mount Crumpet with a scowl on his face and then he grumbles…

“I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming!
For, tomorrow, I know all the Who girls and boys
Will wake bright and early. They'll rush for their toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
There's one thing I hate! All the NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

That’s what the secular Christmas is really all about you know.  Some people call it organized chaos and some people call it mass confusion but when you think about it, it’s really just a lot of noise, a lot of stressful noise, noise, noise, noise.  That may be the reason a mother with five children was especially thankful one Christmas for the gift of a brand new playpen.  In her thank you note the mother wrote, “I love the new playpen. It’s wonderful.  Every afternoon from 2 to 3 o’clock I climb into it and the kids can’t get to me.”

So, what do you think?  Do you like all that stressful noise?  If you’re not looking forward to all the stressful noise, noise, noise, noise you might want to take a look at what happened to Zechariah that day in the Temple. When the angel Gabriel told Zechariah that his wife was going to give birth to a bouncing baby boy he couldn’t believe it.  It was the answer to their prayers but Elizabeth was far beyond the usual child bearing age.  So, Zechariah asks “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”

In response to his doubt Gabriel tells Zechariah that he’s going to loose his ability to speak for the next nine months.  Gabriel says to Zechariah, “behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”

So, Zechariah is told that he’s going to have to live in silence for the next nine months, that lucky duck!  You see some people think that what happened to Zechariah was a punishment but it was actually a blessings.  It was a blessing because of what happened to Zechariah in that time of stillness and silence.  What happened is that in that time of stillness and silence Zechariah found God.  That may surprise you.  After all Zechariah was a priest in the Temple.  Well, he may have been a priest in the Temple but he wasn’t all that close to God.  After all, when he’s told that he and Elizabeth are going to be blessed with a miracle what does he do?  He basically does what Bill Cosby does in his version of Noah and the Ark. Do you remember that?  In Bill Cosby’s version of the famous story when God tells Noah to build an ark because it’s going to rain and pour for 40 days and nights what does Noah do?  Noah shakes his head and says, “Yeah right?”  Then Noah asks, “Who is this really? And why do you want me to do all this weird stuff?”

Zechariah’s doubt that day in the Temple reveals that he wasn’t all that close to God, but then Zechariah enters into that period of prolonged silence and lo and behold he finds God.  We know that because later on in the story after the baby is born they ask Zechariah what the baby’s name is going to be.  Zechariah answers their question by writing on a tablet that the baby’s name is going to be John.  That surprises everyone because the tradition back then was to name the baby after someone in the family and no one in Zechariah’s family was named John.  However, and this is a big however, John was the name that Gabriel gave the child that day in the Temple.

Before that period of prolonged silence Zechariah spirit was full of doubt.  During that period of prolonged silence Zechariah found God.  Then at the end of that period of prolonged silence Zechariah proves it by doing what God wanted him to do.  He willing names his new baby boy John.

When you look at what happened to Zechariah it makes you realize that silence really can golden.  The secular Christmas is all about the stressful noise, noise, noise, noise.  The sacred Christmas is all about finding and entering into that sacred silence. 

The sacred silence that Zechariah found.

The sacred silence that Mary and Joseph found as they traveled through that lonely quiet desert to that Bethlehem stable.

The sacred silence that the shepherds found as they sat under those stars and wondered on that silent, holy night.

The sacred silence that the wise men found as they followed that one special star that led them to the blessings that was waiting for them in Bethlehem.

In his book, Whistling in the Dark, Frederick Buechner tells a story about a religion class that he taught one day.   It was at a boy’s prep school in New Hampshire and he said it was the greatest class he ever taught.  It was a late-afternoon class around this time of year, and this is what he wrote, “As I drove toward town, to the west…I noticed that the sun was just beginning to show signs of setting, sort of lemony color in the sky. “Then I went up to the classroom. There were 15 or so boys gathered around the table, waiting for whatever was going to happen. We waited, and I could see yellow beginning to deepen a little bit—the sun sinking a little bit. Then the bell rang and, normally speaking, I would have gotten up and started off with the lesson for the day. With this marvelously happy impulse never thought out, instead of starting out the class, I flipped the light switch off, which meant that we were suddenly sitting in deep dusk with the sun setting through the window. The room faced west.  It was a magnificent sunset. I can still see it. It was very orange, sort of a pumpkin-colored sunset, with the branches of the trees and corners of the buildings black as soot against it. It turned from orange to crimson. We sat there in absolute silence. That is the curious thing. You would have thought that in a room full of 15 boys, somebody would have horse laughed or poked the other in the ribs or giggled or something like that, but not at all. We sat there for as long as it took the sun to set without a word, without any sound at all, until finally the sun did set, and we were sitting there in darkness…It got dark. The sunset was over, and I thought to myself, This is a religion class, and I’m a religious teacher. Perhaps I should make some edifying remark about the sunset and draw some religious conclusion from it.   By an impulse as happy as the one which led me to turn off the light, I said not a word, thank heavens, except ‘Go home.’ And home they went. For that reason, it was a very good class.”

You know, some people are afraid of the silence.  They’re afraid because in that silence you may come face to face with the things in your life that are painful, things in your life that make your heart heavy.  That silence may bring you uncomfortably close to your broken dreams and the fears that haunt you, the guilt and the anger that keeps you from embracing the abundant life that is out there waiting for you.  However, in that sacred silence or that holy hush you will find the living God who can and will heal your broken heart and your troubled mind.  Like Zechariah you will find the love God who, in Bethlehem, came to dwell among us in Bethlehem full of grace and truth.  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes                                                                     December 1, 2013