Responding to God’s Call

Zechariah

When God Turns On The Light: A Story of Hope in the Darkness

There's something universally unsettling about darkness. Whether we're children afraid of shadows in our bedroom or adults navigating uncertainty, darkness represents the unknown, the threatening, the places where we feel stuck and helpless. We reach for light switches we cannot find, doorknobs that remain hidden, and we wonder if we'll ever escape.

But what if someone who loved us simply turned on the light?

This is the heart of the Christmas story—a reminder that humanity sat in darkness until God, in His compassion and grace, pierced that darkness with the light of Christ.

A Faithful Couple in Dark Times

The Gospel of Luke introduces us to Zechariah and Elizabeth during one of Israel's darkest periods. Herod the Great, a violent and despised puppet king, ruled under Roman oppression. God's people were defeated, trampled upon, living in the shadows of foreign domination. Against this bleak backdrop, we meet a godly couple who loved the Lord and faithfully observed His commands.

Zechariah served as a priest—one called to bring God to the people and the people to God. This ancient role foreshadowed what Jesus would ultimately fulfill as the great high priest, the true mediator between God and humanity. Through Christ's perfect sacrifice, all believers become a "royal priesthood," called to represent Jesus and His kingdom to the world around us.

But here's a crucial truth that Zechariah and Elizabeth embody: a godly life does not guarantee a pain-free life.

For years, this faithful couple suffered under the weight of infertility. In their culture, the inability to conceive wasn't just emotionally devastating—it was economically disastrous and socially disgraceful. Their personal grief mirrored the suffering of their nation. Darkness served as the backdrop for both.

The Danger of Prosperity Gospel Thinking

It's tempting to draw a straight line from suffering to sin, to assume that trials indicate God's displeasure or punishment. We do this to ourselves: "Somewhere in my youth, I must have done something bad." We do it to others: "They must deserve it. They brought this on themselves."

This thinking echoes Job's friends—those unhelpful companions who insisted Job's suffering proved his guilt. Yet the Scriptures push back against this simplistic theology. While our actions have consequences, the Bible presents a more nuanced view of suffering. Often, Scripture doesn't draw a line from our suffering to the bad things we've done, but to the good things God desires to accomplish.

Zechariah and Elizabeth's years of pain took place under God's sovereign hand so that His power, goodness, and mercy might be displayed. God loves to use the weak to highlight His strength, the weary to point to His rest, the broken to magnify the divine healer.

As one writer puts it, "Our suffering has ministry in view." Our hardships qualify us for the most wonderful work in the universe—service in God's kingdom that glorifies Him.

The God Who Remembers When We Forget

Out of 18,000 priests serving in Israel, only fourteen each year had the opportunity to enter the temple and burn incense representing the prayers of God's people. The chances were minuscule—about 0.0007%. Yet Zechariah was chosen, not by accident or favoritism, but by lot, which they understood to mean chosen by God.

It's no accident where God places you either. Your job, your school, your family, your neighborhood—wherever you are, God placed you there on purpose as part of His redemptive plan.

When the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah with news that Elizabeth would bear a son who would prepare the way for the Messiah, Zechariah responded with doubt: "How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years."

His question revealed not honest inquiry but jaded cynicism. Zechariah had forgotten. He'd forgotten about Sarah, Rebecca, and Hannah—barren women whom God blessed with children. He'd forgotten about the God who rescued His people from Egyptian slavery. He'd forgotten about God's promises throughout Scripture to send a Messiah who would make all things right.

When we hold our obstacles up to our eyes like a quarter blocking the sun, we forget how infinitely greater God is than anything we face.

For nine months, Zechariah was rendered mute—a discipline that was also grace. In his silence, God spoke loudly. And Zechariah listened. The name Zechariah means "God remembers," and during those silent months, this man who had forgotten was reminded that God never forgets His people.

A Song of Salvation

When John was born and circumcised eight days later, Zechariah's tongue was finally loosened. Nine months of personal silence ended. Four hundred years of prophetic silence ended. And the first thing Zechariah did was sing—one of the original Christmas carols, filled with Scripture and focused entirely on God's salvation.

The theme running through Zechariah's song is clear: God has raised up a horn of salvation. He has visited His people to save them—not from Rome, not from their circumstances, but from their sins.

This is the heart of the gospel. We don't need advice. We don't need just an example to follow. We need a Savior. Jesus came not to condemn or criticize, not to tell us to get our act together. That wouldn't be good news because we can't get our act together. We can't save ourselves.

Even non-religious people understand we need justification. That's why we constantly defend ourselves, make excuses, review our good deeds and others' bad deeds. We know deep down we need to be justified, and we know deep down we can't do it. Our attempts are feeble.

But in the gospel, we are justified by God. If sin is us running from God, then Christmas is God running after us.

God With Us

Salvation isn't just legal justification before God. It's also the very presence of God Himself—Emmanuel, God with us. God saw His people sitting in darkness and said, "I will not leave them there." He purposed to bring them into the light.

Why? Because at His very core, God is a God of compassion and tender mercy.

Zechariah understood that his calling wasn't about him. His son John wasn't the point—John was the pointer. And that's our calling too: to point to the Savior who pierced the darkness, to show and tell with our actions and words about the grace that is ours in Jesus Christ.

This Christmas season, remember: you don't have to save yourself. You don't have to fix yourself. You don't have to justify yourself. In fact, you can't.

But a Savior has come. The light has pierced the darkness. The silence has been shattered. And because God is a God of grace, He has turned on the light for all who will come to Him.