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His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

\u201cPraise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
salvation from our enemies
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0and from the hand of all who hate us\u2014
to show mercy to our ancestors
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0and to remember his holy covenant,
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0and to enable us to serve him without fear
\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. (Luke 1:67-75)

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For three months, Mary had stayed with Zechariah and Elizabeth as Elizabeth entered the late stages of her pregnancy.\xa0 Was Mary still there when John was born?\xa0 Was she still there when Zechariah sang?\xa0 Maybe.\xa0 I\u2019d like to think so.\xa0 Luke doesn\u2019t say for sure, but the timelines he gives us certainly leave the question open! (see 1:36,56)

Even if Mary wasn\u2019t there anymore: Zechariah was still full of quiet ponderings from when she was.\xa0 He had had nine months to ponder the meaning of John\u2019s coming birth.\xa0 He\u2019d had three months to ponder the meaning of Mary\u2019s news of her child to be named Jesus.\xa0

Zechariah the priest knew his scriptures.\xa0 And now he had a window into the secret, silent workings of God through these parallel pregnancies changing the world within his own house.\xa0 He of course heard what Mary and Elizabeth thought of it as they talked and prayed it through.\xa0 I\u2019m sure he interacted with them too through his raised eyebrows, smiles, and nods.\xa0 But Zechariah himself could only talk it over with God in the silence of his own heart and mind.\xa0

In that silence, a lifetime of scriptures prayed, lived, and lodged in his bones collided with this new, life-giving work of God in the wee humble community of his home.\xa0 What did it all mean? \xa0A grace of God named John to prepare the way of the Lord, followed by an heir to the throne of David to be called by a name meaning \u201cThe Lord Saves.\u201d\xa0

In the silence, Zechariah\u2019s world and theology were transformed by this new work of God.\xa0 It was objectively the same scriptures he had always known, but given this new work of God that he now subjectively experienced: those same scriptures resonated now with a different tune, but admittedly one that rang with a truer harmony.\xa0

Zechariah erupts into Spirit-breathed, scripture-bathed prophecy that could easily be mistaken for any number of Psalms.\xa0 And it is a prophecy not so much about his own son John, as it is about Mary\u2019s son Jesus\u2014the one who would be the salvation of Israel, the end of all fear, the redemption of relationship, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the long promises of God, kept.\xa0

God is sovereign.\xa0 He does new things.\xa0 Good things.\xa0 With Zechariah, will we be silent enough and humble enough for long enough to listen, learn, and have our worlds transformed in light of the work of God?\xa0 If so: songs of joy like these, are ours.

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