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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. (Amen.)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Three years ago, our four Midweek Advent Evening Prayer Services focused on what I called “Old Testament Divine ‘birth announcements’”: one by the Lord Himself mis-understood of Cain, two by the Angel of the Lord of Isaac and of Samson, and one by Eli the priest of Samuel (Advent 2022). In various ways those four Old Testament “Divine birth announcements” pointed forward to the three New Testament “Divine birth announcements” that our three Midweek Advent Evening Prayer Services will focus on this year, under the theme “Angels of Advent”. Tonight’s first of the three Services centers on how “Gabriel appears to Zechariah”, the account of which we heard narrated in tonight’s Second Reading. Tonight’s First Reading’s account of the Lord’s appearing to Samuel (1 Samuel 3:1-21) in some ways compares and contrasts to Gabriel’s appearing to Zechariah. In each case this year, our attention should be not primarily on the messenger but on the message, which tonight is ultimately a message of repentance, particularly suited to our penitential season of Advent.
As we heard in the First Reading, Samuel already was ministering to the Lord under the priest Eli, but Samuel did not yet have personal experience with direct revelation from the Lord, such as by a direct word or vision (TLSB, ad loc 1 Samuel 3:7, p.439). So, one night when Samuel heard a voice while he was lying down, apparently in the court of the Tabernacle, where the ark of God was, Samuel naturally assumed the voice was Eli calling him. After three tries, Eli helped Samuel understand that the Lord was calling Samuel, so that when the Lord, perhaps the Pre‑Incarnate Son of God Who is the Word (John 1:1-18), came and stood and called the fourth time, Samuel answered as Eli had told Samuel to answer, “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears”, or, as it is sometimes translated, “is listening” (NIV84, NASB95). So, the Lord told Samuel the judgment that He was going to bring upon Eli’s family, because Eli had not successfully restrained his sons from blaspheming God, and, the next day, Samuel confirmed that judgment for Eli (confer 1 Samuel 2:22-25, 27-36). Then, the Lord continued to reveal Himself to Samuel, who had been born of a line of Levites (TLSB, ad loc 1 Samuel 1:1, p.435), with the Lord’s using Samuel as a prophet, as a priest (1 Samuel 7:9), as judge, or “leader” (for example, 1 Samuel 7:15), and ultimately as a “king‑maker”, with Samuel’s first anointing Saul (1 Samuel 9:1) and then anointing David (1 Samuel 16:13), even as Zechariah’s son John the Baptizer centuries later anointed David’s descendant Jesus (for example, Matthew 3:13-17).
As we heard in the Second Reading, Zechariah was serving as priest before God, when he was chosen by lot to enter the Temple, near where the ark of God would have been, and to burn incense, what apparently would have been a “rare privilege, a high point of Zechariah’s life” (TLSB, ad loc Luke 1:9, p.1704). While Zechariah was doing so, the angel Gabriel “appeared” to Zechariah, or “caused himself to be seen” by Zechariah. Gabriel spoke to Zechariah the good news that Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, both from the priestly line of Aaron, would have a son who would go before the Lord to make ready for the Lord a people prepared. But, somewhat like Sarah with Abraham centuries before him (Genesis 18:9-15), Zechariah doubted that the Lord could fulfill His promise that he and Elizabeth could have a child (confer Luke 1:36-37).
In a sense both Samuel and Zechariah “heard” the Divine messengers sent to them. A distinction between “hearing” and “listening” that is sometimes made is that “hearing” is an involuntary passive function of sound entering ears that requires no effort or concentration, while “listening” is a voluntary active skill of paying attention to sounds with thoughtful concentration. We might further distinguish “understanding” and “heeding” or “obeying” what is said. Samuel arguably heard, listened to, understood, and heeded the Lord, while Zechariah arguably heard, listened to, and understood Gabriel but did not “heed” him with a response of faith and obedience, at least not immediately (compare Luke 1:57-79). Like Zechariah, we may question what is and is not possible for the Lord in our lives. Like Samuel, we may not yet know the Lord as well as we could, and, on our own, of course, we do not know the Lord at all. We may expect Divine messengers and Divine messages apart from God’s Holy Place and His Holy Word. We may hear, listen to, and understand, but not heed God’s Word with faith and obedience, and, without His Holy Spirit, of course, we cannot understand His Word (1 Corinthians 2:14), much less believe and obey it. As we sang in tonight’s Additional Psalm (Psalm 103:15-20; antiphon: v.20), our days are like grass, here and flourishing one minute and gone and forgotten the next (confer Isaiah 40:6-8), but the “steadfast love”, the “mercy”, of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who “fear”, or “believe in”, Him. Though our sinful natures and actual sins warrant temporal death and eternal damnation, when, enabled by the Holy Spirit, we turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, then God forgives us our sinful natures and all of our actual sins, whatever those actual sins might be, for Jesus’s sake.
In tonight’s First Reading, the Lord told Samuel that the iniquity of Eli’s house would never be atoned for by sacrifice of offering. The case was not that Eli’s sons had committed some “un‑forgivable” sin in such things as taking more than their share of the offerings (1 Samuel 2:12-17) and laying with the women who were serving at the entrance to the Tabernacle (1 Samuel 2:22-25), but the case was that, if Eli’s sons had repented, then they could have been forgiven, redeemed from their sin by the promise of the God-man Jesus Christ’s sacrifice of Himself on the cross for the sins of the world, just as we who repent are forgiven, redeemed by the fulfillment of the God-man Jesus Christ’s sacrifice of Himself on the cross for the sins of the world. As their father had warned, Eli’s sons had lost their mediator and intercessor before God (1 Samuel 2:25), as people likewise do today when they “blaspheme”, or “reject”, the Holy Spirit, the only truly “unforgivable” sin, because their rejection keeps them from receiving through faith God’s forgiveness of all of their sins by grace for the sake of Jesus Christ (for example, Matthew 12:31‑32). Out of God’s great love, Zechariah’s son John the Baptizer was sent—arguably as Samuel was sent and as pastors today are sent—to turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the “just”, or “righteous”. As we sang in today’s Additional Psalm, God’s righteousness is to children’s children, to those who “keep”, or “guard” His covenant. God creates and sustains saving faith and so forgives sin through His Word in all of its forms, especially His Word in the form of His Sacraments.
For some time there has been audio and video recordings of people reading the Bible, but with the developments of computer and phone applications and websites where an artificially‑generated voice recites the Bible, we seem to have crossed some sort of line. For any “artificial intelligence”, the A-I does not know what the words are or mean. We might not know exactly which of “the many and various ways that God spoke to His people of old through the prophets” (Lutheran Service Book 247; confer Hebrews 1:1 NIV) was how God spoke to prophets such as Samuel by His Word, but we arguably know that God does not speak to us through some dis‑embodied voice! In both tonight’s First and Second Readings there seem to be Divine physical presences, whether perhaps the Pre‑Incarnate Son of God or the angel Gabriel, both likely in the form of human men (confer, for example, Genesis 18:2), who spoke for the Lord. Likewise today, human male pastors, who similarly are authoritatively sent by the Lord, read and preach God’s Word to groups such as this group, and they apply God’s Gospel to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us in the Holy Supper. In all of these ways we hear and see and touch the Word of Life that has been made manifest to us, in order that we may have fellowship both with God and with one another (1 John 1:1‑4).
Gabriel’s news of John the Baptizer’s birth not only gave Zechariah and Elizabeth joy and gladness, but many others also rejoiced at John and eventually Jesus’s birth, including us. As we in tonight’s Additional Psalm called the angels to “bless”, or “praise”, the Lord, that same Psalm in verses we did not sing tonight calls also us, our own souls, to praise the Lord, even as it spoke of our “keeping” His covenant by remembering to do the His commandments. God’s angels should not be the only ones obeying the voice of His Word! Ultimately, we recognize both, as Eli did, that the Lord will do what seems good to Him, and, as Elizabeth did, that our reproach is taken away in God’s time and way.
Tonight we have begun this year’s Midweek Advent focus on the “Angels of Advent” with how “Gabriel appears to Zechariah”. We have realized both our sin and God’s forgiveness for Jesus’s sake. The next two weeks we will consider, in turn, how “Gabriel comes to the Virgin Mary” and how “An angel appears to Joseph”. May we thus be prepared with repentance to celebrate our Christmas observance of our Lord’s having come once in the past in order to save us, to receive our Lord as He comes to us in His Word and Sacraments repeatedly in the present in order to forgive us, and to be with our Lord when He comes a final time in the future in order to dwell with us in glory forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +