His Name is John (Lk 1:57–80) from South Woods Baptist Church on Vimeo.

Details matter. Several years ago when I had been out of town for a few days, I tapped out a nice “goodnight” note on my phone to Karen before I retired for the evening. I’m sure it included appropriate emojis. I hit the send button. All was well. But a few minutes later I got a note from one of our pastoral interns. “Pastor Phil, I think you meant to send this to Ms. Karen. But my wife and I really enjoyed it!” I’m sure they did!

I had good intentions with my note but missed one important detail: paying attention to clicking on my wife’s name before I sent the note.

Most of us have had the experience, especially before the prevalence of GPS devices, of asking for directions, nodding that we understood the turns and forks in the road, and then following carefully, only to end up in the wrong place. One detail left out of the directions or one detail missed in following steered us onto the wrong path.

Details matter.

We miss details but God doesn’t. His Word takes details seriously. The Old Testament gave a detail for discerning false prophets. If one utterance failed in their prophesies then they were false, and not to be heeded. Just imagine the weightiness felt by Isaiah and Malachi in the many prophetic oracles that they delivered. Every detail counted. For if they were only right 50% or 75% of the time, why should anyone believe them? If they were correct 80% or 99% of the time, then what of the missing details? Would that not bring into question their truthfulness in everything?

Luke knew this, so he recounts the prophetic and angelic details to make an eternal point. We can depend upon the details in God’s promise of salvation through Jesus Christ. How do we know that God is dependable? Our text helps us to see His dependability in the details by the celebration and declaration in this passage.

I. Celebration

Luke 1–2 contains a lot of celebration and rejoicing. The reason, of course, is not to just have a pleasant emotional outburst—though nothing is wrong with that—but as an affirmation of believing what God has declared, we celebrate.

Zechariah failed to celebrate because of his unbelief. But not Mary. She believed God’s word spoken through the angel and rejoiced. So did Elizabeth, John the Baptist in the womb, and Mary at their visit in Elizabeth’s home. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth “exclaimed shouting loudly,” while in-utero John “leaped with extreme joy.”[1] Then Mary sounded off with her song of praise, magnifying and rejoicing in the Lord.

So the birth of John that would go before the Messiah “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” brought cause of celebration. Notice the diverse ways to celebrate.

They celebrated God’s mercy. Elizabeth and Zechariah’s neighbors and relatives came with excitement at news of the old couple welcoming their baby. They “heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.” As observers looking into their lives, they recognized God’s merciful hand at work in giving them a son. But they didn’t know the greater mercy at that point, given to them as well, that this son would own the distinction of being called “the prophet of the Most High,” who would “go before the Lord to prepare His ways.” John’s later message of repentance declared the mercy of God to forgive sinful people. In mercy he taught that his baptism of repentance would be superseded by a baptism with the Spirit and with fire through the Messiah who followed him (Luke 3:7–17).

So they treated this birth as they might have done with others in their small village of priests and their relatives. They came to celebrate his circumcision as part of the covenant people of Israel. Obviously, they had already talked among themselves and decided that surely the baby would be named Zechariah after his father—a not unusual practice. I can imagine that a few of the older ladies had already sewn a large “Z” into blankets and baby [...]