Our scripture text, as we are continuing through a short sermon series on the songs of the Gospel of Luke, is found in Luke chapter one, verses 67 through 69. Actually, verse 68. is the main focus that you will find in your text, but I will begin reading with verse 67. This is the word of the Lord. And his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant the oath that he swore to our father Abraham to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet in the way of peace. This is the word of the Lord. Have you ever sat to just watch a sunrise? I think many of us have. I imagine we've all seen beautiful sunrises. And there's something just as awesome about the sun edging up on the horizon, pushing away the darkness of the night. It's encouraging. It kind of makes you happy. And little wonder then that sunrises are often used as a metaphor for hope. And the author of this Christmas Psalm that we are looking at this morning, Zechariah, certainly had that image in mind as he pours out his heart in praise to God. Zechariah was a priest, a minister of the Old Testament people of God or to the Old Testament people of God. He was a faithful priest along with his wife, Elizabeth, We read that they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord. But despite his zeal for the Lord, Zechariah failed to believe God's promises given specifically to him. And for that unbelief, he was struck with the inability to communicate, to speak for nine long months. You see, Zechariah was the father of John the Baptist. John was the forerunner of Jesus Christ. He was the last of the Old Testament prophets. Zechariah and his wife, they had no children for many years, and now they were old, just like Abraham and Sarah. They were past the age of childbearing. But one day, while he was going about his priestly duties in the temple, an angel of the Lord comes to Zechariah, and he tells him that he and his wife would have a child, and that they would name that child John. And from this child, he and Elizabeth, his wife, would have joy and gladness, and many would rejoice at his birth. Now, despite that good news and despite the heavenly origin of both the messenger and the message, Zechariah openly declares his doubts. I mean, it isn't possible that he and Elizabeth would have a child in their old age. And so the angel says to Zechariah, behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time. And that is precisely what happens. For nine long months, Zechariah cannot speak. And imagine that. Imagine the difficulty that would bring a priest who was appointed by God to minister to the people in the temple. Now eventually the child is born. He is named John. And Zechariah then is finally able to speak. once again. And what does he say when he speaks? Well, what are those first words? He doesn't complain about the nine months that he's gone through. He doesn't even rejoice in the fact that this burden, this disability has been lifted from him. Instead, he opens his mouth in a song of praise, a song inspired by the Holy Spirit, a song that prophesied of the mercy of God that was now dawning upon the world. Like a sunrise on a horizon, God's salvation was rising upon the cold darkness of people who had long lived under the shadow of sin and death. And this song is traditionally called in Latin, the Benedictus, for it is a song of blessing, a song of praise for the redemption of God has drawn nigh. A redemption that was needed because as Zechariah makes very clear in this song, people are living under the darkness of sin's curse. Now, while the words of this song are full of happiness and hope and joy, there is a dark element here as well. I mean, joyful deliverance implies that there must be something from which one must be delivered. Redemption, which means to release from bondage by paying a price, implies that there must be something that you need to be released from, something that is binding you, that is chaining you, that is imprisoning you. if there is a price that needs to be paid. So what is that darkness again? Well, generally speaking, it is of course the curse of sin upon the world. And scripture frequently uses the language of darkness or night or shadow to portray the state of this world. But within Zechariah's song, he points to three specific reasons people are living in darkness. And the first of those is the ignorance of God himself. This ignorance that comes, comes as a result of the absence of his truth. And it is a willful ignorance because God has revealed himself. It's just that people don't want to know him. They would rather not know God and what he expects of them. Because if they are to face him, if they are to be enlightened, to understand who he is, their identity will also be revealed for what it is as lawbreakers, violators of God's holy law, sinners by nature. And so humanity turns off the lights. They flick the switch so that they can continue to sit in darkness in their own ignorance. And that is the darkness that Zechariah mentions in verse 79. And notice the posture of those in this darkness. They aren't walking. They aren't milling about. They're just sitting there. in the darkness. They are planted there. They are not moving. They are not making any attempt to escape it, to move towards the light, which means that the light must come to them. And it does come. It comes down from heaven itself. It is the voice of God calling out, bursting forth in the revelation of His mercy and hope. So Zechariah sings out that just as God has spoken through the mouth of the prophets of old, he is now speaking again. And he is speaking of his salvation, salvation that comes through the remembrance of his holy covenant, as we see in verse 72. And he has shown mercy that was long ago prophesied by many a prophet and father of old. The long silence was coming to an end. God was speaking into the dark ignorance of humanity and revealing his salvation. But there's another aspect of this darkness as well, of which Zechariah speaks, and of which the world sits. That darkness is enemies. He sings of the deliverance from enemies. Twice he speaks of salvation being deliverance from these enemies. And what kind of enemies? Certainly, he may have been thinking of very real physical enemies. I mean, God's people have always had enemies, those who seek to oppress them or even destroy them because of who they are identified with. Just as we saw in our New Testament reading from John, the world hates Christ's disciples because they hate the Christ. But from a Syria to Babylon to Moab to the Philistines many powers have attempted to bring disaster and destruction upon the people of God. But all of those Empires and all those powers that we read about in the Old Testament. They pointed to another enemy, other enemies. You see, they are representative of even older enemies than themselves. And as we will observe, Zechariah had those old enemies in mind, those ones that were spiritual in nature, those enemies being sin and Satan and death in the grave. See, Satan's always been an enemy of God and all his creation. He has never been its friend. I mean, that's why the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 6.12, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. I mean, the devil is a destroyer. His temptations are always designed to bring ruin and chaos, no matter how pleasant his platitudes may sound, or the promises that he makes, they always end in barrenness and ruin. But there is another enemy, and that is sin, our own sin. It is an enemy of all people. The scriptures reveal to us that we are born with this enemy, that from the moment of our birth by nature, we are citizens of the kingdom of darkness. And that darkness, unless we are delivered from it, is a darkness in which we continue to sit waiting for the final enemy to overtake us, that being the enemy of death. And Zechariah here, he evokes the language of King David from the 23rd Psalm when he speaks of the shadow of death. And it's such a haunting image, something that seems so inescapable. I mean, you try to dispel the shadow as long as you can, and you may delay it for a time, but eventually it comes. You cannot chase it away. The shadow of death is there. And humanity has long sought to overcome this specter. And even the unbelieving world, to some extent, knows that death is an enemy. But death exists because sin exists. The curse of death's shadow fell upon the world because of the willful sin of people. And so we read those frightful and painful words echoing down to us from the mouth of the Lord as a curse that is recorded in Genesis 3. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. And so here is this terrible picture of darkness, humanity sitting in the darkness of sin, waiting for the shadow of death to overtake them. Oh, we need a dawn to break. We need a light to edge up on the horizon, to encourage us, to chase the shadows away, to tell us that there is salvation, that there is good news that has come. And that light indeed has come. You see, not only does Zechariah explain that the world is sitting in darkness, but he also gives us the light. He tells us God has visited, visited his people so that they can escape the darkness and know him. And so that is why he breaks forth in verse 69. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people. He has visited. He has entered the picture. He has come right into that moment of need. It's a direct action. He doesn't just stay on his heavenly throne and looking down and saying, oh, what a shame. Look at that darkness they're sitting in. And he says, no, I'll go rescue them. And he steps off the throne and visits his people. Because they need saving. They need his redemption. They couldn't make it happen on their own. After all, left to themselves, they're just sitting there in the darkness, in ignorance, waiting for death's shadow to overtake them. And so we see here God's salvation spoken of as God actually visiting an intervention of sorts, intervening into the darkness, And without that intervention of God himself, there would be no salvation. I love how Philip Ryken puts it. He says, salvation is not a human invention, but a divine visitation. See, God can intervene by coming down because he has the power, the might, to do so. Look at verse 69. I love the language he uses here, Zechariah, as he speaks of God's power and might to save. He says, God has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David. Oh, what is a horn of salvation? I mean, this is one of those phrases you read and what's going on here? Well, we see this little phrase actually several times throughout the Bible. It has to do with strength, power, might, ability. You see, in many ancient cultures, a horn of an animal was considered to be a symbol of power. It was the business end of the animal, the thing that got other things done. The bigger the horn, the more powerful the creature. And we still kind of think of horns and that strength to be representative of power. You think of the automaker Dodge, and what is their line of trucks called? The Dodge Ram, and it has this image of a horn. The idea is that it's a powerful truck, which it is not. A Ford F-150 is better. That's beside the point. But the horn is that power to portray power. And so you read in the Old Testament even that if a nation state has its horn broken, it means that their power, their might has been broken as well. But there's another image of a horn that Zechariah has in mind here. You see, among the objects of worship used in the temple, of which Zechariah would be very familiar because he was a priest, there was an altar made of bronze, a brazen altar. And God gave very specific instructions on how this altar was to be made and what it was to look like. And we can actually read them in Exodus 27, one through two. This is what we read. God says, you shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long, five cubits broad. The altar shall be square and its height shall be three cubits. and you shall make horns for it on its four corners, its horn shall be a one piece with it and you shall overlay it with bronze this altar that is square and has four horns at its corners was to burn the sacrifices that the priest offered up in atonement for the sins of the people and with on those four corners on these four horns, they would sprinkle blood of that sacrifice to signify the need to be purified because through the shedding of blood atonement was made we read that even in the New Testament Hebrews 922 indeed under the law almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins and so Zechariah is saying here that God has raised up an altar like that altar in the temple. But this altar is not in the temple. It is in the house of David, a horn of salvation. What's he talking about? Well, he's not talking about his own son, John, because John's not of the house of David. He's talking about the child that is in Mary's womb. He's talking about the Christ. That is the horn of salvation that had come. You see, Zechariah recognized that God was indeed mighty to save because he saw the evidence of that when he looked upon his wife's cousin, Mary. Salvation had indeed dawned by the very mighty hand of God who had come to visit his people in the flesh. But not only is God mighty to save, he is also faithful to save. This deliverance, this redemption of which Zechariah sings is not something new. It wasn't a contingency plan that God made later because people had sinned. It was a purposed rescue mission designed, planned, and declared by God even before the creation of the universe. And by visiting his people, driving away the darkness, scattering all their enemies, he is fulfilling every last word, every syllable of blessing that he has spoken to his people. And that is why Zechariah declares that the mercy of God was on display in God's remembrance of his promise to Abraham. And we saw this even last week in Mary's song, that God remembers what he has spoken of old. And he says here, as he sings forth his song, that God saved them from the hand of all who hate them. Why? To show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father, Abraham. Remember that oath? to bless all the nations through them, to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear. Notice something interesting in those words. He says that God isn't only remembering the holy covenant, the oath that he swore to Abraham, but he was granting That's the language he uses to grant us, or give to us, or fulfill that promised blessing to us, right now, in the moment, to deliver us from our enemies. In other words, in saving people from sin and Satan and death, God is granting in real time the blessing that he promised long ago. It wasn't a blessing just for Abraham. It was for all whom God has granted the grace of his oath, his promise. And he's faithful to fulfill it. He was faithful not only to Abraham, but to all who would taste of his redemption. And this child that is born to Zechariah, his own son, is confirmation of God's faithfulness. I mean, after all, God had promised to him, you're going to have a son with Elizabeth, and it happened. God was faithful to his word. And that is why this very last stroke of his song is a blessing upon his newborn child. He says, you child, you will be called a prophet of the most high for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways. But you see, John doesn't just confirm the faithfulness of the Lord to save for John or for Zechariah, but also for the world. I mean, these words take us back again to the prophets of the Old Testament. You see, in God's providence, he had promised that he would send a messenger who would be John to go before the coming Messiah. And hear the words again that are spoken through the prophet Isaiah. This is from Isaiah 40. A voice cries, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low. The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. John would be that herald, crying out, make way for the king. And so in a very real, in a very personal way, Zechariah was witnessing the faithfulness of God being confirmed as he looked upon this little baby that he could hold in his arms. The messenger was here. And if this is the messenger, the king must not be far behind. And that means that this cold shadow, which is gripping the world, is beginning to melt away. The sun was rising on the horizon. And that is the message that God wants all people to hear. For as John goes out, how does he prepare the way? What does he do? He makes known the knowledge as we see in verse 77, the knowledge of salvation to his people. Remember one of the reasons the world sits in darkness is because they are in the state of ignorance of knowing who God is. They don't know him. They are ignorant of his ways. But John went out and he proclaimed the knowledge of that salvation. The knowledge that God was mighty and faithful to save. The knowledge that he had visited his people and brought redemption. And notice what that salvation is also in verse 77 is very specific. He says it is the forgiveness of sins and thus falls. another one of those old enemies. So one by one, they're coming down. The ignorance is being pushed away by the revelation that Christ has come. And as sin is forgiven, sin is defeated. And as sin is defeated, so death must also be defeated. For death is the curse. So Zechariah sings aloud, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Yes, there is darkness, he says, but there's a light. There's a light that is so bright that darkness cannot overcome it. And this light that shines upon us shines the path of true peace, leading us forward. For it is a peace that we enjoy with the Heavenly Father. Peace that says, you are forgiven. when you have fallen. Peace that whispers, I will never leave you nor forsake you when you are afraid and feel alone and abandoned. It is peace that promises life, which overcomes death. So God has visited his people and now we can know him. But why has he done this thing? What is the end goal, the primary purpose? We find the answer to that within this song as well. In fact, it's in the very opening lines. You see, God visits his people so that we can know him, so that we might worship him. You see, Zechariah starts the song, he says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Now think about that phrase for a moment. When we say bless the Lord, what do we mean? I mean, we understand, as we've seen many times past, that the idea of blessing is closely tied with happiness. So when we read, for instance, the Beatitudes, we understand them as being happy or blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will be comforted. But the Bible does speak of another kind of blessing, and that is the blessing here. It is the blessing that we speak to God. This is not the blessing that God brings upon us. It is not that happiness, that joy that he hands from his grace and mercy. When we talk about blessing God, when we say, bless the Lord, oh, my soul with all that is within me. We aren't actually doing something to make God happy. Now, it is true that worship that pleases the Lord is like an aroma, a sweet aroma of sacrifice coming up before Him. But this kind of blessing has to do with a sense of being, of being praiseworthy. In other words, God within his very being, within his very nature is worthy of our praise. So when Zechariah says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, he's saying, God of Israel is praiseworthy and all praise be to him. He is lifting up the name of the Lord so that others would hear it and see what the Lord has done. And what has he done? Well, as he says, he has visited his people. You see, God saves his people so that his people will sing his praises. And so we read in verses 74 through 75 that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. God delivers us from our enemies, from sin, from Satan, from death, pulling us out of the shadow so that we might serve him. And how do I serve God? Through worshiping him. In fact, it's very interesting to note that this word that Zechariah employs for God, Serving God is the ancient Greek word that speaks of religious rights performed as part of worship. That's what it is. It's a verb form of the noun Lot Rhea, which translates into the Latin liturgia. You see where this is going from which we get our English word liturgy. You see, that's why we gather on Sunday and worship him as we do. We are serving our God. Why are we serving him? Because he's visited us. He's given us his redemption and salvation. And so when we gather on the Lord's day, when we sing hymns of praise and we pray together and we confess our sins together and we hear the assurance of gospel pardon and we give of The gifts that he has given us and we partake of the ordinary means of God's grace in word and sacrament When we do these simple things we are serving our God Think about that right now we are serving the king of the universe and We are saying in one unified voice to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and indeed to the whole world, blessed be the Lord, our God, who has visited us. You may be sitting in darkness. waiting for the shadow of death to overtake you. But look to the horizon. We'll tell you of the light that has come and has shined upon us as we serve him through worship. We have the knowledge of salvation, which is the forgiveness of our sins. We have tasted of God's tender mercy, for the sunrise is shining upon us from on high. It has given light to us who once sat in darkness, in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. That's this song. That's what this Benedictus is all about. It is our song that God has visited us to drive away our darkness with the light of his redeeming grace so that we might give him all the praise he is worthy of receiving. There's such a plague of individualism that is overtaking the world today. And individualism, I think, that makes people feel so lonely as they sit in that darkness. But when we gather to worship him, to serve him, we are saying, no, you don't have to sit in the dark any longer. Come and look at the light that is Jesus Christ. And so if you are sitting here this morning and you feel the oppression of that darkness, Zechariah is saying to you, Look to the horizon. The sun is coming up. The light has dawned. Salvation is here. Forgiveness of sins is yours in Christ if you but look to Him in faith and repentance. God has not remained silent. He has not simply sat upon His throne, removed from us, but He has reached down with His mighty arm of strength and his faithful remembrance to deliver those who sit in death's shadow. The night has ended. The day has come. And so come and let us worship. Let us say with Zechariah, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. Let us pray. Father in heaven, We thank you for your word that has revealed to us the knowledge that our salvation has indeed come and that we no longer sit in darkness for the light of truth of Christ has dawned within our hearts. We ask that you would Let that light grow that you would strengthen our faith even as we go forth into the darkness of this world so that we would be that light letting it shine for all to see so that they may to know this hope that the gospel brings. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.