When God’s Answer Moves Us from Despair to Hope

1st Sunday of Advent   December 1, 2024

The texts for this sermon are Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 1:5-20

Zechariah has been chosen to be the priest who will go into the outer chamber of the Temple, while the people pray outside. He sets alight the incense, and prays as he watches the smoke rise upward. Then, suddenly, with no warning an angel stands to the right of the incense altar.  

Zechariah is troubled (troubled like the disciples when they saw Jesus walking on the water), he is afraid. Fear falls upon him we’re told. Would not fear be our first response as well, if an angel in full flesh-and-blood reality interrupted our prayer; shining with glory in our quiet place of prayer? I’m thinking I’d fall backward and shield my eyes.

The angel tells him not to be afraid and then tells him his and Elizabeth’s long-standing prayer for a child will be answered. They will have a son.  Now at their age, I’m thinking they may have abandoned this prayer. Yes, surely they prayed fervently in their youth and through their bearing years for a son, but then, when those days passed, being the righteous, blameless individuals they were, they may have accepted that God’s answer was “no.”  So this is a surprise, not just that the news is coming in person from an angel, but that it’s coming at all! so late--so impossibly late! 

Call to mind a prayer you thought was never going to be answered but was answered (even if it wasn’t answered in the way you expected). How did you feel when it dawned on you that that prayer had, at last, been answered. 

Do you have a long-standing prayer that hasn’t yet been answered?   How does it feel to wait for a prayer to be answered?
Consider what fortifies us in that gap of time between a prayer and its answer. 

It’s hard, isn’t it, to hold hope when something we know to be a good and worthy prayer is not granted. Yes?  When the answer to our deep longing doesn’t come and doesn’t come. We might give in and conclude it’s not to be and then we have to decide whether we’re going to choose bitterness and disdain for God or whether we’re going to hold steady in our devotion.

But then what happens when a prayer we’ve prayed or been praying with no result is at last answered? That it’s answered even if we’ve ceased praying. Is there, however fleeting, a sense of disbelief? Can this be real? Can I trust this?

So Zechariah can’t be blamed for responding with “How shall I know this?” He says to the angel 

“I am old” as is his wife Elizabeth; too old to have a child. But this angel takes exception to this reasonableness. He counters with “I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God” and God has sent me to bring you this good news. Because you have not believed me, you will be speechless and remain speechless until this good news is fulfilled. 

We might think this consequence not in balance with the lapse of faith. But consider what prior information Zechariah had for such a situation as his and Elizabeth’s. Abraham and Sarah were far beyond childbearing when they had Isaac, surely God could do such a thing for Elizabeth and him. 

So this story reminds us not only that God answers prayer but also that when a pray goes unanswered our sense of expectation can dampen, disappear even. Here is righteous, blameless, prayerful Zechariah who, even when officiating in worship, is not only surprised when God shows up but hesitant to believe the validity of God’s revelation. 

And I don’t think it’s too far afield to think that Zechariah, righteous and blameless though he be, did not wonder, as did the people in general, why God had not yet sent the promised Messiah. Their hope had to have been pretty thin after 400 long, long years of silence.

Hope takes some grit, does it not?  

Think what engagements or dispositions help us keep hope alive. 

What fortifies us in that gap of time between a prayer and its answer? 

Call to mind what has helped you?

When God does finally answer us what do we do? Do we not rejoice? Cry even? Say “thank you” over and over again?  Come to a deeper assurance of God’s love for us? God’s faithfulness to us? Feel a fortification of trust bulwarking us for the next time we’re tempted to lose hope? 

What does Zechariah do?

He sings a song

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people,
69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
72 to perform the mercy promised to our fathers,
and to remember his holy covenant,

and he sings of what this answer is meant to do for us:
74 that we…might serve God without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness before God all the days of our life.

This story is an Advent story, not just because it announces an answer to prayer but because it also speaks to the importance of remaining watchful, staying alert with anticipation, expectant for God’s appearing.

Let us hear this counsel from Alan Culpepper, author of the Commentary and Reflections on the Gospel of Luke when he says that this story:

…challenges us, this time to trust in God expectantly and to be prepared for God’s response to our needs. We go through the motions of prayer and worship, but we hardly expect to meet God in the midst of our daily activities--not even in the holy moments of worship.  (NIB, Vol 9, p49)

He goes on to say that our right response is “always to witness what God has done and what God continues to do in our midst.” 

This is why I’ve asked you to reflect on when God has heard and answered your prayers and why I’ve asked you to consider giving just a glimpse of what God has done for you for the benefit of others. 

Let us animate ourselves this Advent season and shake off whatever degree of sleepiness we may have fallen into and move into this Advent season with heightened expectation and the hope that fuels it.