Light and Dark - Zechariah

[00:00:02] All right, I'd like you to close your eyes. All right, Close your eyes. [00:00:10] What you want is darkness. You want to see it, you know, dark in your mind's eye. So when you close your eyes, it should look, you know, pretty dark. You can probably see some light getting through, but. All right, so now I want you to. [00:00:30] Well, I want you to know what's going on up here, but I don't want you to look. Okay? So just know without opening your eyes, know that I'm raising my right hand in the air. All right? I'm raising it in the air, and I'm even. I'm reaching up high. I'm going on my tippy toes because I'm. Because I'm trying to reach really high with my right hand. Now I'm taking it down. We're closing our eyes just so everybody know. Okay, so now I'm walking to your right. Okay, so I'm walking to your right. And I'm over here now. Well, it depends on who you are, I guess, for most of you. I'm walking to your right. All right, now I'm going to walk back to the middle. [00:01:11] Okay, open your eyes. [00:01:13] Open your eyes. Now, you didn't know what I was doing by looking at me, Right. Unless you were opening your eyes. Right. But if you had your eyes closed, could you see what I was doing? [00:01:24] But did you know what I was doing? [00:01:26] And do you trust that I was doing that? [00:01:29] Yeah, I was actually doing that. Right. Okay, but if I had just said, close your eyes, and then I went like this, and then I went like this, you would have had no idea. Right? [00:01:43] Right. [00:01:45] Now, normally. [00:01:47] Normally you have your eyes open and. Well, it could still be really dark in here without closing your eyes if it were completely dark. Let's say it's nighttime and the lights are all off and we're in here just like this, even though we would never do that. Okay. [00:02:01] And I did this and I walked over here, would you have any idea? [00:02:06] No, because it's dark. Okay? [00:02:10] So you need light to see what's going on, right? But even if you don't have light from the lights or the sun, you can see what's going on. If I tell you, do you see that? [00:02:29] So it's kind of like. [00:02:32] Well, it's kind of like this. Like the sun can show your eyes what's going on or a. A word or some words. Right. A voice can tell your mind what's going on. Or your heart. Right? Do you see that? [00:02:49] See that? So in that sense, speaking Telling you about something, teaching you about something is kind of like giving you light, not so that your eyes can see, but so that your mind can see. [00:03:04] Okay. Do you see what I mean? So I was telling you what I was doing, and your mind was seeing it. [00:03:12] Right. Okay. All right, so to the text. Okay, so, Barrett, here's what we just read. [00:03:22] The very end. The very end of what we just read. If I can find it here. [00:03:31] No. [00:03:34] No. [00:03:36] Okay, there it is. There it is. How did I get lost? I don't know. Okay, so at the very end of the song that Zechariah said or sang and says, he said it, I guess. Ready? He says this. [00:03:50] Whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. [00:03:55] Okay, the sunrise. So, like, the sun's coming out. What's going to happen? We're going to be able to see, whereby the sunrise will visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Okay, so picture a bunch of people sitting in the darkness and needing the light. [00:04:21] And then here comes the sunrise. [00:04:24] Right now he's using this image to describe something else. Just like we just talked about the connection between light and words. [00:04:34] If you are going into math class and you're going to learn something new in math, well, you don't understand it yet. If you were given a test, you couldn't do it. You could kind of say you're in the dark about it, Right? But then once your teacher tells you how to do it now you can see. Oh, I see how to do that, and then you can do it. Okay. Now, the kind of darkness, though, that Zechariah is talking about, he's talking about a spiritual darkness. He's talking about people who don't know God, who don't know God who made us. [00:05:14] It's pretty important to know who made us and then to know the one who made us. Like, we can actually talk to God, and he tells us all about us and all about life together. [00:05:28] And he does that especially through his son, Jesus. Okay, so he sent Jesus to us, and Jesus brings us understanding about God and about how God feels about us and how he loves us, all those kinds of things. Imagine if you didn't know that God loves you or that God made you. You'd be in the dark about a few things. [00:05:52] So that's the kind of dark Zechariah is talking about when he says to give light to those who sit in darkness. It's the kind of darkness of not knowing God or how he loves us or Made us or those kinds of things. [00:06:07] The sunrise. Can anybody tell me? [00:06:11] Okay, I was a little bit of a sunrise for you. You were in the dark about what I was doing up here, but I told you what I was doing. And so in that sense, you were sitting in the dark and the sunrise came and you were able to see. [00:06:25] See what? I mean, you were able to see that I was going like this and walking over there. Okay, so I was like a little, tiny, tiny, tiny, little kind of sunrise. But when you're sitting in the darkness, not knowing God or that he made us or that he loves us, and the sunrise comes. You know what that sunrise is? [00:06:47] Jesus. [00:06:48] All right, so then here came Jesus. Here came Jesus as a baby in a manger. And then he grew up and he was teaching and he was saying, I am the light of the world. [00:07:01] If you follow me, you're not going to sit in darkness. What does he mean? You're going to know God, who made you and loves you and saved you through me. [00:07:13] So Jesus comes like the sunrise. That's a pretty cool image. If you got up at three in the morning or so, it would be so dark or midnight, it would probably be even darker. But then once that sun comes up, everything starts to change all of a sudden we can drive around without lights and we can walk around and know where we're going. We can understand things. That's what it's like having Jesus. He comes like the sunrise. [00:07:40] Alright, so does anybody remember the story of Zechariah? How the angel Gabriel visited Zechariah? The temple. [00:07:52] Here's how it goes. [00:07:55] Zechariah was a priest and he was in the temple one day and the angel Gabriel came and said, zechariah, you're going to have a son. And Zechariah said, now wait a second. My wife Elizabeth and I, we weren't able to have children. All these years. We've never had children. And now we're old, we're too old to have children. [00:08:15] And you're telling me that I'm going to have. We're going to have a baby. [00:08:19] He didn't believe the angel Gabriel, that that could happen. Okay, now here's the deal. Here's the deal. Like if you want to. [00:08:29] The angel Gabriel is coming and he's giving light, right? Like he's saying, here's what's going to happen. Zechariah doesn't know what's going to happen yet. Kind of like you didn't know what I was doing. [00:08:40] He didn't know what was going to happen. But the angel Gabriel comes and tells him. And that could be like, light, you know, like, oh, now I know what's going to happen, even though my eyes were closed to it. Do you see what I mean? Okay, And. But he doesn't. Okay? He doesn't. He's not listening to the angel Gabriel's word. And the angel Gabriel says, look, Zechariah, I stand in the presence of God and he sent me here with his word for you, to give you light, to show you what's going on. [00:09:10] And so he makes him unable to speak, which is interesting. So Zechariah can't speak. That's why in our reading today, okay, Zechariah couldn't speak. [00:09:20] But then the baby was born and they were wondering, well, what should we name him? [00:09:28] And, well, Zechariah could have said, like, name him after me, okay? Name him after my family. [00:09:34] But he didn't. You know what? He received light from God's word. God's word that came to him through the angel Gabriel and said, you're going to name him John. [00:09:44] And John, the name John Johannes, okay? Or Johan in German. John. Johan kind of sounds similar. Okay. It means God is gracious, like God gives favor, gift. [00:10:03] The birth of John is all about God giving us light. [00:10:10] He sends John to tell people about Jesus, people sitting in darkness. [00:10:18] John's message is, look, I'm going to show you the messiah, Jesus, who has been sent by God to save you. You want to know about God and his love for you, how he feels about you? [00:10:34] Look to Jesus. He says, behold, look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John, this little baby being born, he's the one who's going to get to say, let me introduce you to the guy to the sunrise who brings light to the world, to those sitting in darkness. You guys sitting in darkness. John says, let me show you the light of the world. [00:10:58] And just like his father, Zechariah learned to listen to the voice of God to receive light. [00:11:05] John's job is to say, I know where you can get light. I know where you can get understanding. Even though we don't understand, you know, things going on around us or even ourselves, much less God on our own, there's somebody who's come to tell us all about that. And he's coming like the sunrise, like you feel in the dark about God and things like that. Well, good, because I know where you can find the light. Not just any light, but the sunrise from on high that comes to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide their feet into the way of peace. That's what Jesus has come to do. [00:11:52] Thanks be to God. [00:11:54] All right, we're going to continue with the service of matins. [00:12:02] So let's stand. Let's stand. We're going to sing the Te Deum Laudamus, which means we praise you, O God, in Latin. This is a very, very old hymn, like a couple thousand year old hymn. Okay. Actually, mostly it comes from the Bible itself, but this has been sung by Christians forever.