advent

Day 20: Luke 1:67-80

By Pastor Jeff  

I don’t think anyone needs me to explain to you that we live in a dark and evil world. Our world is a dark place and it seems to be getting darker by the day, with all the events that have taken place over the past month we can quickly see that our world is full of evil. The threats of terror from the ISIS militants, to the legislature trying to instill their new definition of marriage, to the riots in Ferguson and this is just a few of the things that scream we are living in a world that needs to be flooded with the Hope of Jesus.

This is something that causes many of us to ask the question: Will it ever change? At the same time it has all of us that are followers of Christ shouting to the mountain tops, “Lord, come quickly!”

Zechariah sang a song 2000 years ago. A song that painted the world of then, much like the world of today. You see the world was a dark place then too. It was like the light of the world had been turned out. The voice of God, once heard through the prophets, had fallen silent and no one had from heard a word from the Lord for 400 years.

You know how they must have felt. I think they probably were feeling a lot like some of us have felt at times when we would pray and pray but it just seemed as if our prayers were bouncing off the celling, but we find Zechariah singing!

Praise the Lord,
the God of Israel!
 He has come
 to save his people. Our God has given us
 a mighty Savior from the family
of David his servant. Luke 1:68-69

Many have asked the question how can they sing at a time like this? They are singing because God had entered their world! The dark, broken, messy world, which we were talking about earlier, will be no more, because God spoke, “let there be Light.”

Have you ever thought what it must have been like before God spoke to the people have you ever wondered what they must have been thinking? I would have to think some of them were thinking they were following God who didn’t care, maybe following Him was a waste of time, maybe God couldn’t hear their cries. I don’t know what they were thinking, but their world was a dark and hopeless place, and it seemed as if their dreams of God coming to their rescue were only that – dreams! The truth is God hadn’t forgotten about them. He had a plan, and He was following it they just couldn’t see it.

Isn’t that true for many of us today? We often find ourselves in situations like this. There are times where we can’t see God in our problems. In this thing called life we feel as if God has abandoned us, that He isn’t hearing our prayers, but so often what we can’t see is that God has a plan and He is putting it into play.

God’s plan for the world over 2,000 years ago didn’t and still doesn’t require people to get their act together before He puts his plan into action. He wasn’t nor is He waiting for the world to improve before He puts his plan into action. He wasn’t nor is He waiting on his people or us to change before He put His plan into action. If that had been the case we wouldn’t have needed a Savior or God’s plan!

I am so glad that God didn’t wait then and even more grateful that He doesn’t wait now. God spoke to a messy, broken, darkened world through His son Jesus and still speaks into messy, broken people with words of Hope, Joy and Peace, through his Son today. The really good thing is He isn’t waiting on me or any of us to become better people before He puts His plan into action. He’s not waiting on us to get our lives together before He puts His plan into action. No, He’s already put the plan into action by sending His son Jesus to be born in the manger and years later lay down His life on a cross for all of us. God is simply waiting on us to call on him.

This Advent Season had been a powerful reminder that no matter how bad things might seem, or how far we may have strayed God’s plan still covers us – it’s called Grace! We can still trust him, and, yes, we can still place our hope in Him. Because the core of His nature is grace, mercy, compassion, love, faithfulness, justice and righteousness. This is why Zechariah could sing, and it is why we can sing as well.