When the angel Gabriel told Zechariah he would have a son, John the Baptist, Zechariah asked for a sign. Gabriel rebuked Zechariah but granted the request in a surprising way. “And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens,” the angel predicted, “because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time” (Luke 1:20).

Zechariah’s silence was a confirmation, not a punishment. He had become the sign that he had asked God to give. When the couple named the child as the angel commanded, Zechariah’s “mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God” (v. 64). This was a “song” like Mary’s, a hymn of praise like many we find in the book of Psalms (Ps. 72:18; 111:9). Also like Mary’s song, these words were not Zechariah’s alone. He spoke because he was “filled with the Holy Spirit” (v. 67). Zechariah predicted what God would do through John (vv. 76–79). He also spoke of what God would do through Christ.

Zechariah declared that God had “come to his people and redeemed them” and had “raised up a horn of salvation…in the house of his servant David” (vv. 68–69). This emphasis on Christ was fitting, since John’ was born to show others that Jesus was “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29, 36). Zechariah describes Jesus as both a visitation of God and an act of redemption. He is “the rising sun” who has come to “shine on those living in darkness.” John’s mission was to point others to Jesus Christ, who would guide their feet to “the path of peace (vv. 78–79).

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