The Gospel of Luke 1:5-17 The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold

Good morning. We're going to be moving into this passage that Randy just read for us here as we continue the gospel of Luke investigating Jesus. And we'll be in Luke 1, 5 through 17. And let me begin by reading Luke 1, 5 through 7 as we'll go through this a little bit at a time.

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zacharias of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years. Let's first talk about Herod the not-so-great. Herod was an awful, terrible man. A very, very bad guy. We'll be referring to him a little bit later and to his descendants as well. I won't elaborate on all the awful things that he did because that'll be a little distracting from our account here.

We do have on the back of your handout the full Herod family tree. It's in the New Testament, and this tracks not only in the Gospels, but all the way into the book of Acts. So for the Gospels and the book of Acts, all the Herod family tree down to great-grandchildren will be included there, and we have the references where they show up. For our purposes, we're going to focus, and this is what's on the top half of your first page of the handout, focus on these because these are the ones that show up in the Gospel of Luke. It so happens they're all together.

It only shows a couple of his wives. They debate whether he had nine or ten. Not sure. He had nine or ten wives, but it's these two here that we're going to be looking at as we go through the Gospel of Luke. Malthus is one wife, and then Cleopatra. Now you may be asking, is that the Cleopatra of Mark, Anthony, and all that? Maybe. It's another one of those things that's debated.

Nonetheless, the instance we see here, this Herod, Is Luke 1 5 that's what we just looked at and he ruled from 37 BC when the Romans were successful at pushing the the Persian Empire to the east Pushing them out of Jerusalem and so the Romans put him in because they knew he was nasty and And he wouldn't allow the Empire of the East to come back in. So here we have Herod the Not-So-Great, and we'll be looking further as we go through the Gospel of Luke at other parts of the Herod family tree here, this part of it.

So here's Zacharias and Elizabeth, what's presented there. Zacharias, the Hebrew would be Zechariah, that's the way you'll find it listed. Zacharias was the form that came because of the Greek language and some of the influence there. He was the priest of the order of Abijah. There were different orders within the priest system and so they would they would use that you know what order are you from in order to determine you know when when was your time on duty and they'd do that he married a wife of the line of Aaron named Elizabeth the Hebrew there is actually Elisheba but nonetheless it was brought forward you know from into the Greek and then into English as Elizabeth What's interesting here is it mentions this, actually the priests were free to marry any Jewish woman, so this wasn't some requirement. that Zacharias marry someone but it made her special in the sense that he had a wife not just of the priestly line but of the line of Aaron that's the line where you get your high priest so she was very special and even her name her name Elizabeth was derived from the Hebrew Elisheba that was the name of Aaron's wife.

So this was special, not because it was required, but because everything matched up and lined up. And that's why Luke brings this out. This marriage here, a priest to a wife of the line of Aaron, and even having the name of Aaron's wife, this made a very special marriage.

And in addition to that, they live righteously apparently for a number of years they live righteously but they had no children even though they really really wanted children but they were late in years and it's getting to a point where they just kind of giving up hope but still continuing to pray a bit like Abraham and Sarah where on in later years as we'll soon see here And Elkanah and Hannah, in that account, Elkanah and Hannah was Samuel, would be the line of the prophets, and he was also a judge, the last of the judges. So that was a special case as well. And Hannah also had prayed and prayed and prayed, and the Lord answered the prayer later in her life. With Abraham and Sarah, and Elkanah and Hannah, and now with Zacharias and Elizabeth, we see that when God allows the years to pass without a child, even when a child is very much wanted, as it was with these saints of old, God is preparing to do something very special.

Isn't that interesting? From the human standpoint, and you notice this is another evidence that Luke doesn't just kind of generalize. He notices when people, you know, this is my only boy, this is my only son, this is my only daughter, and here he notices the desires of the heart. He notices that and writes that down. These people are good people. They really want a child.

But when God doesn't answer until years later, it's because God's doing something very special. In each case, it also shows that God waits until the matter is beyond human solution. Isn't that interesting? Have you ever had that happen in your life? Lord, Lord, you haven't heard me. Yes, I have. I'm just not going to answer it in the time that you expect and maybe not in the way that you expect. That can happen to us too.

Here's Luke 1, 8-10. Now it happened that while he was performing, this is Zacharias, his priestly service before God in the appointed order of his division, according to the custom of the priestly office, He was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and to burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering. Now in the temple, this temple area, the courtyard at the time of Herod the Not-So-Great, and the time after that, this outer courtyard, which actually had a different name for temple than the inner part there, It was about six football fields, or soccer fields if you relate more to that, in size, all put together. So it's about that big, so you can get some sense of scale here.

And then, a little closer in here, this was the area only Jews were allowed in. If you were a Gentile, you couldn't go beyond this gate, and especially not past those inner gates. They had a sign And from the rubble, we actually have one and a half of those signs, but they had sign at each of the entry doors. No Gentiles going in here. Okay. Otherwise you're going to die. So, but right in here in the inner part of the temple, that's where Zacharias is going to go.

Now, just to give you a sense of scale from, from ground floor to the top is about 15 stories tall. So you can get an idea, that's a sense of scale. And then from front to back is about 150 feet. 150 feet, so kind of like from the goal line to the 50 yard line, if you relate to football dimensions there. So this is quite a structure and you could see it from being 15 stories tall, nothing else was even close. You could see it as soon as you got anywhere near and you could see it from a lot of different parts.

So Zacharias was going to go right in here to put incense on the incense altar right in front of the dividing curtain. Right in front of the dividing curtain. was going to go in there and put incense, and this is the way it would typically look inside if you were, and you couldn't do this, but if you were to be inside there and see the priest putting the incense on, and the altar, and he'd have a censer, that's that thing that he's holding, he'd go in there with the incense in there, and he'd put that on the altar.

So, he was having here, not something he'd done before, because this was a once-in-a-lifetime honor. There were enough priests that they would select one, and once you'd done your duty, you were taken out of the pool, and they would cast lots, that is, they would do it by chance, for who would do it next, and if you'd done it once, you're off the pool, you're out of the selection. You're not going to do it twice.

So this was a once-in-a-lifetime honor where Zacharias was going to go in there and say, this is my day. For him, he was just excited like crazy for this. And his wife Elizabeth was also very honored and glad for him and rejoiced in it, realizing how special a day this was until the Lord messed it up. to be the one priest who was selected by law to offer that incense offering in the inner temple was a once-in-a-lifetime honor. Wow, it just doesn't get any better than this. This is my day.

Many observant Jews would gather outside to pray at the offering of the incense. So the Jews would crowd around and it would be around sunup and then dusk. as the sun was setting. Those would be the two times. The fact that you had the crowd there likely points to this is the second one, the one at dusk, that he's going in where the crowd is. That was the one that was more largely attended of the two. But every day, twice a day, they would do this. Because you had to keep the incense burning all the time. We might miss this, the people. I want to point this out.

The word pattern in the Bible, and it shows up again and again and again and again in the Old Testament on into the New, is for the Jews to be referred to as the nation or the people. We give an example of Psalm 33, but I could give dozens of others. Blessed is the nation, and this is Israel's national hymn book by the way, Psalms. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.

That's the Jews, right? And so when he says the people, it's not a crowd of mixed Jews and Gentiles or anything like that. It is Jews. The non-Jews, the Gentiles, would be referred to as the nations or the peoples. So Psalm 2 Verse 1 is an example of that. Why are the nations in an uproar? And using the Hebrew poetry pattern, rhyming ideas, the peoples devising a vain thing. So that would be for Gentiles. They'd use the plural. The singular points to Jews. So in verse 10, the people were all Jews who had gathered to pray.

The burning of incense, which was symbolic of prayer, and we'll show why that's not just Vern making it up, was symbolic of prayer, was accompanied by prayer. So the incense was to point them to prayer. The incense was to be burned without ceasing to symbolize prayer without ceasing, which when you read that, that's where it comes from. They were to have the incense burning without ceasing, and the fire of the altar was also never to go out. Never to go out. And so those two things were continuous. The priest had to keep those things going.

The incense and the fire of the altar. Which is also why Paul also writes, don't quench the Spirit. Don't put the Spirit's fire out. From the Old Testament into the New, prayer was associated with the burning of incense. You're burning incense? That means prayer. The Jews knew that. And that's why they would gather to pray at the burning of the incense.

Here's Psalm 141, again, Israel's national hymn book. 141, 1 and 2a. O Lord, I call upon you, hasten to me. Give ear to my voice when I call you. May my prayer be counted as incense before you." See that? Now, since 70% of the book of Revelation is out of the Old Testament, we find that prayer is associated with incense in the book of Revelation as well. Twice.

Here's Revelation 5.8, when He, Christ, in heaven, had taken the book, the book with the seven seals, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." See that? There was an understanding that the incense and the prayer go together. Here's another one, Revelation 8, 3 and 4.

And another angel came and stood at the altar holding a golden censer. See, this is what's happening in heaven that Zacharias' service of burning the incense was pointing to. So everything that happens on earth in the temple and the tabernacle and the wilderness points to a heavenly reality. Here's the reality described. holding a golden censer, and much incense was given to him so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints went up before God out of the angel's hand."

So here is Zacharias, he's going in to do this service that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He's a priest, he's qualified, but he's chosen this day at this time to come and do this once-in-a-lifetime service. This is the high point of any priest. Once-in-a-lifetime. This.

So now we get to verses 11 through 14. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar. And notice the detail there. Standing to the right of the altar. Instead of just saying standing by it, It's the right. And by the way, the right hand, I better get this correct here, the right hand is the hand of what? It's the hand of power and authority. So he stands at the right of the altar of incense.

Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel and fear gripped him. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son. and you will give him the name John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth." Wow, you could have picked a different time to tell me, right? Now we're going to be talking about angels here, but also in subsequent times, because angels are going to continue to take a part in what happens from here on out.

Some very interesting observations is The Gospel of Luke focuses more on Mary, Jesus' earthly mother. The Gospel of Matthew focuses more on Joseph. The Gospel of Luke focuses more on angels' involvement in the birth of Jesus and that account. The Gospel of Matthew focuses more on Joseph having dreams. and the Lord revealing through dreams. So very interesting kind of comparison and contrast there.

So, an angel of the Lord appeared to him. The Greek word for angel also means messenger. And there are angels and messengers in the Bible who are not from the Lord. So one of the patterns that you will often see in scripture is when an angel shows up there is often, not always, there is often a designation of where this angel is from, an angel from heaven, or who the angel is from, of the Lord. So that distinction is often made. Now should an angel be represented like this?

Eh, maybe not. I wouldn't make Zacharias full of fear. He'd say, oh, cute. Something like that. So no, we won't go there. And then there's this other appearance. They'll have an angel be very feminine and all that. That's not going to make him afraid either. And then people do this thing, where the guy looks like he's been pushing iron for a thousand years. And then they have him come visit. I don't know why they do that. We'll go with this one, okay? We'll go with this one. This angel is an angel of the Lord. We'll see here what we often see, and we'll see again when the angels appear to the shepherds at Christ's birth.

The response at first is fear. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH The response at first is fear, again and again and again. So one of the first things the angels often say is what? Don't be afraid. Yeah, good luck with that.

Anyway, so Zacharias is troubled and gripped with fear. So it's like, okay, I'm really afraid, but I'm also really disturbed. Okay, so Zacharias response was typical of those who see an angel, great fear. On this once in a lifetime special day, Zacharias is also troubled.

Couldn't you tell me at a different time? Well, it's hard to get you alone, right? Okay. Zacharias had waited years to be the one who would bring the incense as a fully qualified priest selected by lot he'd waited for this special day and it finally came this is the day of days and the Lord decides to reveal something phenomenal and just scare the wadden out of him nobody else was supposed to be in the room at this time that's one thing even if anybody showed up it would be troubling but to have this angel just materialize in front of him to the right of the altar.

And that's again, Luke's attention to detail. This is real stuff. It's not just made up. People will refer to the gospel as just legends or something. Nonsense. Horse feathers. Here is attention to detail, historical detail, even the things that we might look at and say, wow, he's noticing detail. I never heard of such detail.

Burning incense was not a tag-team priestly activity. One guy goes in, just one, and that's it. Imagine what it would have been like, put yourself in his place, to have an angel materialize at a time and a place where nobody else was supposed to be present, and the angel says to him, don't be afraid, and then tells him his name. Don't be afraid, Zacharias. over the top the angel is there to tell him good news God has heard and notice God has heard you past tense you've been praying for decades God heard you at the beginning he's just delayed his answer to your prayer God has not been not listening God has not been ignoring God listened way back then, but decided the best time to answer his prayer was at this time.

When you've got your special day, and we're about to disrupt it horrifically. This special day when it's way too late to have kids. What news to get? His wife Elizabeth would have a son who would be named John, and we're going to get into this, but John was not according to traditions. You're going to name him John, and there's no traditional precedent to name him John, except for this.

Joy and gladness. Many rejoice. Yeah, you tell me that while I'm terrified! Right? So one can imagine the very intense and rapidly changing emotions Zacharias was going through. And by the way, if you were in Zacharias' place, do you think you'd just be stunned? I think so. I think all of us would.

Zacharias is told that he will have joy and gladness and that many will rejoice at the birth of John, your son to be born when it's too late and given the wrong name. and now the angels about to tell Zacharias about who John will be you're going to have a son, you're going to name him John and let me tell you about him years before it all shows up let me tell you what he's going to be like he hasn't even been born yet and the angels tell him here's what John the somewhat misnamed son that your wife is going to have too late when it's not possible. Let me tell you about John. So here's Luke 1, 15 through 17.

For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb. And he will turn away many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who will go as a forerunner before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." So one, we have great in the sight of the Lord. Now God has a plan and a direction for all of history.

Next month we're going to have an election. Are you wringing your hands over the outcome? Are you pacing the floor? writing out checks, calling people, sending out literature. Do you know that no matter how this next election turns out, or the next one, the direction of history is set, and nothing is going to change it. Ephesians 1, 9 and 10 says a bunch of things, but one of the things it says is that God is managing all of history to one end. Everything, everything will be summed up in Christ. That's going to happen. How's this next election going to turn out? I don't know. And however it turns out, I'm not going to fret about it. Why?

God is going to manage all of history and the future, the history that hasn't happened yet. To one end, everything will be summed up in Christ, period. Everything. John, the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, was a key part of that plan and direction, that everything would be summed up in Christ. In the end, it's how the Lord evaluates and measures and views things that really matters, isn't it?

One other point, John would have been fully qualified to be a priest, too. His father was of the right line, and his mother, I mean, she was of the right line, too, even though that wasn't a requirement. And she had the right name. I mean, everything was perfect. John would have been a great priest. I mean, there was no question about his qualifications.

But the Lord said, nope, you're going to do something real different. You know, do something different. God had other plans. Why? He'd be a great priest. He'd fully qualified. But you know what? I'm going to have him be a key part of everything being summed up in Christ.

John will become known as John the Baptist. Now, I capitalize it here. That might bother some people. They might prefer that we're lowercase, because they want John to be John the Baptist, not John the Baaaptist. Okay? All right. Okay. He will drink no wine or liquor, and that doesn't mean that wine or liquor is bad.

It's part of the Nazirite vow. One of the things that happens in Scripture in certain places is there might be a list of different things, and what Scripture will do is take the first part of that list, representing the whole. And so that's what this is talking about.

Numbers chapter 6 gives the things that had to be fulfilled for a Nazirite vow, and how to deal with cases of violation. In other words, if you violate it, here's how you fix it. So, in most cases, the Nazirite vow was a set of temporary conditions. In other words, you would vow for a time to follow the things required of the Nazirite vow. And so that was typical. There were cases, however, where it was longer term.

The words drink no wine or liquor are taken from that Nazirite value as the first of the list of the things that are vowed. Samson was one who was under a Nazirite vow. Samuel, the one who was the son of Hannah, that we talked about, Elkanah and Hannah, was also one of a lifelong Nazirite vow. And John, soon to be the son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, had a Nazirite vow for life. not just for a set period of time, as was typical.

And by the way, the Nazarite vow could be taken by either men or women, Jewish men or Jewish women. Here is number 6, 1 through 8, and I won't read it all, but it is verse 3 that shows the requirement, he shall abstain from wine and strong drink, and then it goes on to have other little details of that. And in verse 5, all the days of his vow of separation, And you might wonder where this term Nazarite comes from. Nazar is separate, right? In the Hebrew, okay?

No razor shall pass over his head. You gotta be a hippie. No. All the days of his separation to the Lord, he shall not go near a dead person. So these are the three primary things with more detail given in each case. Abstain from wine and strong drink, no razor pass over his head, he shall not go near a dead person.

So those are the three main requirements. The rest of the chapter is how do you fix it if it gets messed up. That's what the rest of this chapter in number six is all about. So those three requirements and so what was done here is the first one, of the requirements is meant to represent the whole.

Now, filled with the Holy Spirit. Now this is spectacular. A few things about this part of what Zacharias is told that are most extraordinary. Let's point those out. First, Dr. Luke has all the uses of that phrase in the Bible. Filled with the Holy Spirit. That's only Luke in Luke and Acts. So you see that repeatedly. Only Luke writes filled with the Holy Spirit. And he does it in both Luke and Acts repeatedly. Next, John would be filled with the Holy Spirit before he was even born.

Whoa! This is very different. This is very different. God was doing something unusual there. Thirdly, the Old Testament saints did not have the universal indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So to have John have the Holy Spirit, even from before he was born, it was really extraordinary. It's like, wow! This is amazing! And the last part, in Luke chapter 1, John, Elizabeth, and Zacharias are all three said to be filled with the Holy Spirit, at one point in time or another. For John, it would be for his lifetime. For Elizabeth and Zacharias, it would be at particular moments.

He will turn many back. Now, many in Israel had lost their way among the political and religious movements of different kinds. Oh, they were messed up. Others had compromised, some for the sake of survival, and some for opportunity. Let's say those in the Sanhedrin, frequently the compromise was for power. to hold on to at least some kind of power under the Romans.

John the Baptist would call for repentance, and those who are in the Tuesday Women's Study know this. Repentance is a change of mind. It's not feeling really bad, right? It's not about that. It's not about crying and sobbing and coming up to the front where we have an altar but we don't, right? Repentance is a change of mind that ends up in faith. A change of mind that ends in faith. So you don't repent and believe, you repent, and believing is the end position.

So that the Jews would turn, and those in the lady's study also know this is the word that's converted, same word, to be converted back to their Lord, their God, and many did repent and turn back. See, the Jews have lots of ways in which you could get really off course. And they even invented them. New ways to get off course spiritually. Get focused on the law and now here are all the ways to get exceptions.

Right? John says none of that. That's hypocritical. John will go ahead of the Lord and will announce His coming. He is a forerunner. So it means to be a forerunner, you go ahead, you run ahead of the one you're pointing to. You run ahead and announce his coming.

This would often be done for a king or royalty of some kind. Even when Joseph was made second in command in Egypt, one of the things that they did immediately is they had somebody going ahead, a forerunner, and calling out, bow the knee, bow the knee. Why? Because you got royalty coming right behind me. And when that forerunner started calling that out, you bowed the knee. You paid attention to that forerunner, because if you don't, you're about to get put in prison or worse. So you pay attention to a forerunner. You don't ignore the forerunner. That's very bad for you. He will do these things in the spirit of and with a power like that of Elijah. He will speak and people will listen.

One of the great tragedies, speaking of returning the fathers to the children, one of the great tragedies of the biblical account is the failure of fathers to pass along a heart for the Lord and the principles from God's word to their children. Let me say that again. One of the great tragedies of the biblical account is the failure of fathers to pass along the heart for the Lord and the principles from God's Word to their children. I'll give you an example.

Hezekiah was a king who was in very many ways faithful to the Lord. A godly king. And there was less than half of the kings of the southern kingdom that were godly. He was one of them. He was a godly king. He had Isaiah, the prophet, as his court prophet, telling him things from the Lord, right there in his throne room. Isaiah was a court prophet. But he failed to pass that along to his son Manasseh. And Manasseh let the country fall apart, and was even responsible for having Isaiah sawn in half. his father's court prophet. One of the great tragedies in the biblical account is the failure of fathers to pass along a heart for the Lord and principles from God's Word to their children.

John would appeal to change that pattern. That's what he's talking about, the fathers turning their hearts to the children. The fathers then see that they have a principle and primary responsibility. in the parenting, especially in the spiritual parenting. That's why the Apostle Paul, when he wrote Ephesians chapter 6, fathers bring them up. Fathers bring them up.

Does the wife have a responsibility as well? Yes, she does. Principally, it lands on the shoulders of the father. Now, this attitude of righteousness. The word translated attitude refers to a mindset. Those who are disobedient come from a mindset too. So John's ministry will include changing, converting mindsets. Changing mindsets. We'll see that John challenged those who came to pass judgment on him.

He was not well liked by these folks. He didn't have kind, tender terms for them. You brood of snakes! That kind of thing, you know. If they were hypocrites, John said so. Okay? John said so. If they had lives that didn't match up to their claims of spirituality, he said so. And we're going to see that later. A people prepared for the Lord. John would be a real puzzlement to many who were trying to figure out who he was and what he was doing. They didn't get it. Huh? Are you this guy? Uh-uh. Are you that guy? Uh, no. Well, are you that? No. Well, then who are you? Right? Yeah.

Though John would draw a great deal of attention, his purpose was not to draw attention to himself. Did others misunderstand that? Yes. His purpose was to draw attention to the Lord, and he knew that. Instead, John's purpose would be to prepare hearts to receive the message about and from Christ the Lord. So, we've got some questions for you. Ready?

Who was this angel of the Lord? Will he show up again in Luke? The same one. Will Zacharias take the angel's message to heart and put his faith in the angel's revelation? What will the people outside who are praying and waiting think of Zacharias when he comes out of the temple? What will Elizabeth think about what the angel said to Zacharias? Will John preach one or two gospels or any gospel at all?

Hmm. I'm not going to answer those today. You'll have to come next week. Okay? All right? Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this, we certainly can see ourselves in Zacharias and Elizabeth. We can see In there, sometimes we have an idea of when God should answer and God's answer is going to come at a different time and in a different way than we expect. And Lord, we can also see, as we see in Zacharias, that sometimes what we think is a very special day ends up being more special than we thought and more special than we'd planned. And thank you for those surprises, and thank you for the intensity of this encounter as we look forward in the weeks ahead to seeing how this turns out. We just give you thanks for the revelation you've given here and the things that you're going to teach us through these things. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.