Our Scripture reading this morning comes from Luke chapter 1. We begin our reading at verse 67, and we'll read down through verse 79. Luke chapter 1, beginning the reading at verse 67. This is God's own Word. And his father, that is John the Baptist's father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, and he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives. And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of His salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. So far the reading of God's Word. This text that we have just read has often been called the Song of Zechariah. and if Elaine is willing, we're going to sing that song at the end of the service. It wasn't written, probably, originally to be a song. As you see it in your Bibles, if you follow the reading, it's laid out very much as a poem, but it's declared in the Word to be a prophecy. This is the prophecy of Zechariah after the birth of his son, John the Baptist. and it's a prophecy in the tradition of all the Old Testament prophets. As you know, prophecy is not in the first place a matter of foretelling the future. Prophecy in the first place is a matter of explaining the meaning of events, whether present events or future events. And Zechariah is providing for us exactly that, a prophecy that tells us the meaning of what is going on in the days in which He is living, the meaning of the birth of John the Baptist as the one who would go before the Lord to prepare His ways, but also the meaning of the coming of the Lord Himself. What is the Lord coming to do? And so this prophecy is really a unique point in helping us explain what Christmas is all about. Probably in my retirement years, I watched too much television, which leads to this frustration as I see various people on television trying to explain what Christmas is really all about. And it's amazing the kinds of things you can see. And I don't want to be a grumpy old preacher today, so I won't review them, but what's really glorious here is the way in which Zachariah powerfully focuses our attention on what Christmas is really all about, what its meaning is, how important the coming of Christ into the world really was. Zechariah himself is a fascinating figure. He's introduced to us in Luke 1, verses 5 and 6, not only as a priest serving at the temple in Jerusalem, but a man who is holy and blameless, we're told. That is, he is a loyal son of God's covenant. He is a godly man in Israel. He understands the Word of God and the ways of God. And yet when the angel appeared to him, He was amazed, and he was unbelieving. When the angel made a promise, he wasn't sure about it. And in that sense, maybe Zechariah can be an encouragement to all of us who seek to follow the Word of God, but from time to time have our struggles, have our doubts, have our wonderings. And Zachariah, you remember, for his doubting, for his questioning of what God was planning to do, was struck dumb until his son was born. And in those months of silence, when he couldn't even watch television, in those months of silence, he must have reflected on all he knew about the Old Testament, all he could remember about the promises of God, and must have marveled in his heart and in his mind about how God was now fulfilling those promises as the angel had declared. And so, when at last his son John was born, and the Lord opened His mouth, He was ready to speak forth, filled with the Holy Spirit, a word of prophecy, explaining what had come into His own heart and what He wanted all of us through the generations to know about the meaning of the coming of Christ into this world. And so we have this wonderful song of Zechariah, this wonderful poem of Zechariah. Those of you interested in such things, which surely would be most of you, will notice immediately, of course, this is a chiasm, this prophecy. But we won't spend time on that, as fascinating as it would be to do that. What I want to note with you, what I want us to think about this morning, is a word that appears at the beginning and the end of this prophecy of Zechariah, and which I think points in a particularly powerful way to what Christmas is really all about. Notice in verse 68, the prophecy begins, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people. Do you notice that word visited there? The Lord has visited His people. And then, if we go down to verse 78, we read that God has done this because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. So, at the beginning and at the end of this prophecy, Zechariah is talking about God visiting His people. Visiting His people. That's a kind of interesting word. It's a slightly strange word. It's a word that we don't find very often in the New Testament, although we find it fairly often in the Old Testament. And what's kind of intriguing about it, at least to me, is that the real root of this word is that God sees. Visit sounds like somebody traveled, right? That's what we often associate with visits. If we go visit someone, we have to travel to get there. But this word, both in Greek and in Hebrew, has more the sense of God seeing, of God placing His attention on something, of God focusing on something. And of course, we know in reality God sees all things at all times. He doesn't see some things more clearly than other things. But this is poetic language to say at certain times in our history as human beings, at certain times in our experience, God does something special to see us and to focus on us and to draw near to us. And what Zechariah is stressing here is such a visitation occurred in the times of the birth of John the Baptist and then of Jesus. The word visit was first use I found was in Genesis 21, where we're told that God visited Sarah, and she conceived to bear Isaac. We see Joseph on his deathbed at the end of the book of Genesis, saying that one day God will visit His people in Egypt and lead them to the promised land. And this word reoccurs in Exodus when God comes and sees the affliction of His people in Egypt and leads them to the promised land. Visitation, obviously, is a special time in the history of God's people when God comes and does something remarkable. And that's what Zechariah is celebrating here. He's celebrating the remarkable thing that God has done and that God continues to do. I think we can say that God continues to visit His people. Maybe I have to argue that as a church historian, that my work is important too. But I believe there are times in the history of the church where we can see very clearly God visiting His people with particular power and unction to bring them to Himself and to His truth. I think that happened at the time of the Reformation, a remarkable visitation where God brought people back to His Word. I think it happened in the late 19th and early 20th century in the Netherlands when the Reformed churches were reinvigorated in a remarkable way. There are probably any number of other times in the history of the church we could point to when God seems to draw near, when God seems to focus His attention and His power to do something particularly significant for His people. And that's what Zechariah is testifying to here. God visits His people, and that visitation helps us to see what Christmas is all about, as Zechariah gives expression to us. Notice in the first place, as we think about the meaning of Christmas, verse 78, sunrise shall visit us from on high. It's interesting how often in the Bible God is described as being on high. Remember Isaiah in his vision in the temple saw God high and lifted up. Remember in the Old Testament, one of the titles for God is, He is the Most High, and that that title is often used when God is described as the sovereign of Jews and Gentiles, when God is described as the sovereign over all the earth. And that's one of the most important things that the Bible wants us always to remember about our God. He's on high. He's sovereign. He's great. He's powerful. He sees all things and accomplishes all things according to His will. How important it is that we have that sense of a sovereign God, of a powerful God. We do not serve a God who is God of just a little part of this world. We serve the God who is over all in this world. But it's almost as if Zacharias says to us that language of God being on high may leave us with the impression that He's far away. that he's distant. And this faraway, exalted sovereign may be too busy to know what's going on with us, may be too preoccupied to care about us or to see us. And what this poetic language wants to say is, don't think that way about God. God is on high. He is sovereign. He rules over all things, but He also draws near. He also comes to us. He draws near to us, not because He was actually ever far away, but because we need to be reminded that that exalted God sees us, knows us, draws near to us. When I was planning to preach this sermon tonight, I was going to have us sing Psalm 113. I know this time of year people are clamoring to sing more psalms, so we were going to do that, But Psalm 113 talks about that highness and nearness of God in a wonderful way. Verse 4 of Psalm 113 says, The Lord is high above all nations, and His glory above all the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth. Think of that majesty of God. Think of that exaltedness of God. He is so high that He has to look way down to see heaven. What a picture of the glory of God. But this high God, the psalm goes on to say, He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. That great and exalted God is aware of everyone no matter how insignificant according to the world. And that's what Zechariah is saying here. In this time of visitation, the God on high has drawn near to us. He's come to us. He is determined to be with us, and He wants us to know that. He wants us to know that nearness, that care that He has for us. And what does He draw near to do? The God on high draws near to provide redemption for us. That's what Zacharias, secondly, is celebrating here. God has drawn near to provide redemption for us. What is Christmas really all about? It is the God who comes to redeem his people. And what does redemption really mean? Well, verse 72 of this song says, to show the mercy promised to our fathers. What is the redemption really all about? Well, one way of expressing that is to say it's about mercy. It's about God showing mercy to sinners. It's about God coming to forgive the sins of sinners. In Luke 1, I counted the word mercy used some four times to talk about what God is doing when he comes to his people. Do you have a profound sense that you are in need of mercy? I think it's always so tempting for us, isn't it, to think, well, here we are in church. We're the good people. God must surely be happy with us. We're here. It's the people who aren't here God is unhappy with. But we really need to have a profound sense that we're here not because we're the good people, but we're here because we're the people who have recognized our need. And what is our need? Our need is for mercy, for forgiveness, for the righteous God to draw near to us and to say, your sins will no longer stand between you and me. Your sins will no longer be a wall between you and me. You will no longer live in a world where your only anticipation as sinners must be wrath. Think how fearful we ought to be if we really appreciated the way in which sin left to itself would separate us from God. But God is determined not to be a God of wrath to his people. God is determined to be a God of mercy to his people. He has come to redeem his people. He's come to save us from our sins, and this text two or three times says to save us from our enemies. Sometimes I think, living in Southern California, we can have a little trouble with this language of enemies. Do we really have enemies? Are people out to get us? And the truth is, as we look around the world, Jesus Christ has enemies. His people have enemies. Enemies of those who deny Him and reject Him. Enemies of those who mock Him and deride Him. Enemies of those who come with false teaching in His name. All of those enemies would lead us away from God, would lead us away from His truth, would lead us away from His Christ. And Zechariah is celebrating, we don't need to fear enemies. We don't need to fear the world, the flesh, and the devil. Because Christ has overcome. Because Christ has brought mercy. And so it is Christ that is celebrated in this text. Verse 69, what has God done to redeem His people? he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. Now, that may not be to all of you the very clearest reference to Christ that we could have in the Scriptures, but horn in the Scriptures is a sign of power, a sign of strength, a sign of accomplishment, and the horn in the house of David is strength in the house of David to do what the house of David was intended to do, to provide a holy king to protect and deliver his people. And all that expectation that for centuries the people of God had lived with, that someday God would send a Messiah, that someday Messiah would rise in the house of David to redeem his people. Zechariah's prophesying that day has come. The horn of salvation has been raised in the house of David to show us mercy and to redeem us from our sins. And that mercy is in Jesus. Jesus, who in the day of Zechariah's prophecy was a baby in a womb. Jesus who would be born and placed in a manger. Jesus who would have enemies in the house of Herod. A Jesus who would appear to be so weak and relatively unimportant. Jesus who would live his whole life without form or comeliness that we should desire him. Jesus who would never seem, from an earthly perspective, to have amounted to much. Jesus who would die as a criminal among criminals. But Zachariah interprets for us what all of that means when he says all of that lowliness, all of that weakness, All of that apparent insignificance is in fact the horn of power in the house of David for salvation. That's what the meaning of Christmas is. The meaning of Christmas is that God has come to fulfill all His promises in Jesus, His Son. In Zephaniah chapter 3, we have a foretaste of what this work of Jesus is all about. Zephaniah wrote, the Lord has taken away the judgments against you. He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst, and you shall never fear evil again. What a wonderful promise. What a wonderful promise to never feel evil again because Jesus has come. And how wonderfully in verse 79, Zachariah talks about exactly what it is we experience through Jesus. He comes to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Light shining in the world. because of Jesus. He comes to guide our feet into the way of peace. What a beautiful description of the Prince of Peace. He comes to guide our feet in the way of peace. That's why it's so important that we as a congregation continue to be what we have been, a loving people, a caring people, a people who show in relationships to one another that God has brought peace in our hearts and peace in our relationships, and the light of peace might shine forth from us. A wonderful thing that is that this Christmas season should talk about. And then thirdly, this visitation, verse 78, has occurred because of the tender mercy of our God. because of the tender mercy of our God. That's not really a very good translation. A very literal translation might be, because of the kidneys of our God. Well, you can see why they chose not to translate it that way. In the kind of poetic language of the Old Testament and the New, emotions were often thought to come out of your innards, sort of the way we talk about emotions coming out of the heart. And so, since the kidneys of our God doesn't say much to us, maybe a better translation here would be because of the tender heart of our God. Why is God doing what He's doing? Why has God come from on high to draw near to us? Why has God provided redemption for us in Jesus Christ? It's because in his being, in his character, there is tenderheartedness towards us, his people. God wants us to know that in this season. He wants us to know that that's his character. He loves his people. He acts to redeem because he loves his people. He doesn't act to redeem in order to love his people. So important for us to realize. God's love overwhelms, overcomes any obstacle that might be between him and his people. And so Zachariah is praising God in the most wonderful way as the God whose love for his people. initiates all the work of redemption that he has done in history, initiates the covenant of grace that he established with Adam and renewed with Abraham and brought to greater fruition with Moses and David. God has planned all through history out of his tenderheartedness to accomplish redemption for his people. And that plan comes to fruition and to focus and to fulfillment when God visits his people in Jesus Christ. And that's the meaning of Christmas. That's what Christmas is all about. And that meaning of Christmas means that we should join with Zachariah in blessing our God, in praising our God, in thanking our God. What should we do above all else in Christmas? We should thank God for what He's done. We should thank God for His redemption. We should thank God for His gift of Jesus as our Savior. This is our hope. This is our confidence. And as we praise God for that visitation, the Scripture encourages us that we should pray to God that He would visit us again, that He would visit us when Christ returns in glory to make all things new. Sometimes, more than others, waiting in this world for Christ to come again is difficult. And so, as we praise God, we pray that God would visit us again to make all things new, to make our hearts completely new, to wipe away every tear, to establish that glorious new heaven, a new earth in which righteousness dwell, and in which we shall find light and peace forever. So, I hope that the joy of Christmas will fill you in these days, that the light of Christmas will shine from you to bring light to others, and that all together we will bless and praise our God that he visited us and brought us redemption in Jesus. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, how good you are to us. How remarkable is your visitation to care for us. How great is your gift of your own son, Jesus, to be our Savior. and how we pray, O Lord, that our lives will be filled with joy and light and peace because of him. So hear us, O Lord, bless us, and come quickly, Lord Jesus, for we pray in your name. Amen.