Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent
Luke 1.5-25 & 68-76
Sermon Series -- Erin Wathen’s Calling All Angels: An Advent Study of Fearlessness and Strength
Advent 1C
December 1, 2024
In our Advent Study, author Erin Wathen, Pastor of Grace Immanuel UCC in Louisville, Kentucky, relates a harrowing experience she and her husband had a few years ago. They had rented a cabin in Estes Park, CO. One night they sat outside in the chilly evening air enjoying the warmth of the cabin’s fire pit. Wathen was thinking about how serene and beautiful the evening was, when the sound of heavy footfalls close by caught her attention. Then, the motion detector in an outdoor spotlight cut on and revealed the silhouette of giant grizzly bear.
Wathen recalls, “It was terrifying in its proximity. But because it was moving so slowly (I now truly know what the word lumbering means), my instinct was to be still and let it just pass by. I took some slow, deep breaths, trying not to make a sound, as I watched its breath hovering in the light in the cold night air. Even when it came so close I could literally smell that wild cologne that accompanies truly massive and untamed beasts, I just sat still until it passed by in peace.”
The Wathens then made a quick—and I imagine quiet—retreat into the cabin and subsequently swore off the fire pit for the rest of their stay.
The unexpected arrival of the grizzly brought with it a surge of intense fear and yet they sat motionless in silence until it passed by. Thinking about that experience, Wathen says, “I’ve often since wondered…: how many more perceived dangers in our lives would just pass on by if we would only keep still?” [Wathen, pp. 20-21]
Sometimes, in moments of fear, of anxiety, of uncertainty, it is best not to react immediately, not to give into the natural fight-or-flight instinct, but to sit in silence so that we can listen and ponder and perhaps sense the presence of God.
Zechariah encountered something terrifying in the midst of his duties as a priest: an angel appeared to him. This is something most unexpected. Zechariah is in the midst of offering incense in the Temple—its is not only an important priestly duty, but also an opportunity that might only come to a priest once in his lifetime. And yet, it seems he did not expect to encounter the messenger of the Lord in the midst of his sacred duty. He is truly shocked and deeply afraid to find himself in the presence of God as represented by the angel who identifies himself as Gabriel.
Can any of us blame Zechariah? Biblical encounters with angels always seem to be fear-inducing events, thus the common Biblical reassurance in such situations is here repeated to Zechariah: “Do not be afraid.” Encounters with the Divine can be overwhelming experiences. Yet, our worship often becomes so routine that we simply go through the motions with no real expectations of a Divine encounter or revelation. In her book, Teaching Stones to Talk, Annie Dillard marvels at the dullness that too often afflicts us: “Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets! Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews! For the sleeping God may awake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us to where we can never return.”
It would seem that “the waking God” has chosen this moment to reveal God’s self as very much awake and at work and, more specifically, intent on drawing Zechariah into a new future from which there will be no return to life as he once knew it. Gabriel announces that the old priest’s wife Elizabeth, who has never been able to conceive and is past her child bearing years, will give birth to a son who is to be named John, a son who will be a prophet of the Lord. The couple’s fervent prayers for a child have been heard and answered—not perhaps as soon as they expected, but answered in God’s good time. Notwithstanding the delay, this, Gabriel declares, is good news and cause for joy.
Zechariah, however, doesn’t seem to see it that way, and he responds with skepticism: “How do I know this will be so? After all Elizabeth and I are getting up there in years.” The priest, who, as Sharon Ringe points out, should out of all people been the one to recognize the trustworthiness of God’s messenger, questions if such a thing could possibly happen. [Ringe, Luke, Westminster Biblical Companion, p. 29] Further, as a priest he should have immediately recalled the stories of Sarah conceiving Issac in old age following an angelic visit and of God answering Hannah’s fervent prayers with the birth of Samuel.
What prompted Zechariah’s response? Perhaps it was fear. Anyone who has had a child know how intimidating the prospect can be, how realism about the challenge ahead can temper the excitement of the impending birth. Even though I always wanted to be a father, I hesitated when Nancy said it was time to start trying to get pregnant. I hesitated because I realized what a huge responsibility we were taking on, how life altering it would be—and I also sensed that I didn’t know the half of it! I was anxious and so I wavered—and I was far younger than Zechariah. Surely, the “age-factor” must have struck fear in his heart when confronted with the news that the long hoped for child would become a reality.
But Gabriel didn’t stop with a simple birth announcement. He moved immediately into a declaration of the baby’s future vocation: prophet, also known as “thorn-in-the-side-of-the-comfortable-and-powerful.” Speaking truth to power and advocating for justice and equality—well, that’s a job description that often leads to trouble.
Why might Zechariah be afraid? Wathen sums up the reasons: “To recap: Zechariah encounters a heavenly being in the midst of his ordinary tasks. Terrifying! He receives impossible news, which he is simultaneously afraid to believe (its too good to be true!) and is also afraid might be true (we are too old for this, Lord). He’s not only going to be a father; he is going to father the resistance. He’ll join the ranks of parents everywhere whose children are peacemakers and justice seekers, first responders and teacher, humanitarian aid workers and career truth tellers: in other words, this man will never sleep again.
“What does he have to fear? Literally everything.” [Wathen, pp. 18-19]
This fear is, I suspect, not only the reason for the angel’s declaration, “Do not be afraid.” It is also the reason for Zechariah’s nine-months of muteness. It’s not so much a punishment as an opportunity. After all, what were the circumstances in which Gabriel appeared to the priest? He was performing the offering while the people prayed outside. Zechariah was alone in a quiet place. As Wathen observes, “removing oneself from noise and distraction often clears the way for divine encounter.” [p. 14] I’m reminded of an old monastic piece of advice, “Go into your cell [room]; it will teach you everything.” The solitude and silence of a monk or nun’s room creates a space in which one can honestly encounter oneself, with all of your hopes and fears and positive and negative character traits, and also a space in which one might encounter God.
Thus, Susan Robb suggests that Zechariah’s “gestational season of silence” might actually be a gift. “Maybe,” she muses, “it will be a great gift for him to not be able to speak as he ponders what Gabriel has proclaimed; how God has miraculously worked to bring life and light to the middle of [God’s] people’s yearning, barrenness, and darkness in the past. Maybe it will be a gift for him to silently watch his wife’s formerly barren belly swell and move with the life God will provide within. Maybe it will be a blessing for him to just listen in silence to what God has to say to him.” [Robb, The Angels of Christmas: Hearing God’s Voice in Advent, p.15]
I think Robb is correct. Zechariah is silenced by Gabriel so that he might stop focusing on himself—his fears and anxieties; his and Elizbeth’s perceived shortcomings—and instead place his trust in God who abounds in steadfast love, God who is always doing a new thing. Instead of expounding on all the potential problems of this surprising pregnancy, Zechariah’s silence gives him space to ponder the angel’s words and God’s past goodness and faithfulness. It gives him an opportunity to begin to see where and how God is at work in his and Elizabeth’s lives and in the life of God’s people.
It seems to work. When, after nine long months John is born, there is some controversy over what the child should be named. When Elizabeth announces that his name will be “John,” the assembled relatives and neighbors balk. They believe he should bear a family name, that of his father or perhaps grandfather. They appeal to Zechariah. He writes out his response, “His name is John.” And with that act of obedience and declaration of trust, the old priest’s ability to speak returns. His last words had expressed skepticism and fear. But after nine months of silence, his next words express praise and hope.
Zechariah gives thanks to God whom he now realizes is at work to save Israel by raising up a mighty savior. His son John will prepare the way for this savior, this Messiah, by turning people away from their fears and anxieties and toward God’s future, by leading them away from their misguided and sinful ways—away from selfishness and the lust for power and wealth—and lead them instead on the path of wisdom and peace, the way of love for God and compassion and care for their fellow humans.
Zechariah’s silence has opened his mind to what God had done in the past and opened his eyes to what God was going to do in the future, indeed what God was beginning to do in the present through his newborn child. Thus, a few verses after our second reading, Zechariah concludes his him of praise with a declaration of hope that draws from the ancient words of Isaiah: “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, 79to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” [Luke 1.78-79] The same man whose fear led him to doubt Gabriel’s good news, now proclaims a word of thanksgiving and hope to all who hear his words. And he does so in the middle of the challenges before him. Though uncertainty and anxiety loom before him like a grizzly bear in the dim firelight of the future, his hope and his trust are in God.
In this remarkable transformation from fear to faith, Erin Wathen sees a way forward for us as we face our own “grizzlies:” Maybe if we sit in a quiet place, like Zechariah, we will find that courage for facing the unknown and seemingly terrifying is born in contemplation and stillness. Can we stay out of the noise before the rush of the [Christmas] season carries us away and think about who it is that we wait for? If we can do that with intention, we might find that much of what we fear simply dissolves in the resounding silence. [Wathen, 21] And for what does not dissolve, we surely will find that the strength and the courage to carry on comes from knowing that the one we wait for this Advent is the Resurrected Savior, who has overcome the world.