He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”
and all were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
and he spoke blessing God.
Zechariah had received a promise from an angel, but he had doubted that promise, and been rendered unable to speak. This was, in a sense, the condition of all of Israel together with him as they awaited the Messiah. A promise had been given, but they did not all respond with the faith of Abraham. As more and more of the history of Israel was marked by a lack of fidelity in response to God, who was himself always faithful, the ability of Israel to speak a prophetic word or to offer right praise was eventually silenced. It was as though the very voice of God himself was muted because it could not find voices of faith to speak it. God, however, allowed this silence of the prophetic voice because it would cause those who sensed its absence to long for it more than ever, to finally be made willing to be open to it themselves and speak a faithful response, one which fully in agreement with the promise given.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
and he spoke blessing God.
We lose the ability to say anything of value when we forget about God's promises and stop relying on them. By contrast, the more our own words line up with the word of God the more they will have meaning, value, and prophetic, even world-changing power.
“What, then, will this child be?”
For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.
John himself demonstrated what it would look like to put fidelity of response to God over and above our desire to say and do our own thing, or to follow our own plan.
‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he.
Behold, one is coming after me;
I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet.’
Like John, we are meant to decrease. That is, all those aspects of ourselves rooted in the selfishness of the flesh and the unrenewed old self are meant to be brought to silence. This is so that our renewed self may increase, that we may live more in more the life of the Spirit, responsive to the presence of Jesus himself living within our spirits.
Let us learn to become God-fearing, sons of the promise of Abraham, who so treasure this "word of salvation" that we are willing to turn down all other noise so that it may be heard, and then to shout it from the rooftops.
It might seem oppressive at first to be silenced, as though something intrinsic to ourselves were being sacrificed. But this is not the case. It is rather that a disease of disordered affection is being starved of life so that it cannot outcompete the new life with which the Divine Physician desires to infuse us. He is healing us unto what we were always meant to be.
The LORD called me from birth,
from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.
He made of me a sharp-edged sword
and concealed me in the shadow of his arm.
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