JOHN030 - Dumbstruck

John 1:6-8

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Music by Jeff Foote

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast, and I got a movie thing that I want to tell you about, but I'm not going to tell you the name of the movie because if you haven't seen the movie, then I don't want to ruin it for you because it's one of the most powerful movies I've ever seen. I really loved it. And if you already know, you're going to know. But if you don't know, then you'll know when you're watching the movie and you'll be like, ah, it's from the Bible program. I heard about this show. This scene that I'm about to describe to you is the scene that destroyed me harder than any scene ever that I've ever witnessed in writing, in TV, in film, anything. This is the most emotionally heavy thing I've ever seen. As many of you know, I'm a dad. I have a son, and I have two little girls. I call them little girls. They're getting to be a bit grown up now. My heart is so soft for all of them, but it's soft in a unique way for my daughters. In so many ways, they taught me what love is and anything that deals with that precious bond between a dad and his little girl in film. It's immediately through my emotional armor, right? In this scene, there's this intrepid space explorer who goes on a mission, I don't know, save Earth. He has to go, but he has a daughter. He has to leave back home. And it's a long mission, but not a forever mission. And it's very hard to watch them say goodbye. Then what happens is this guy goes to this planet, and out there, like time moves different on this place that they have to go to. And he's on the away team to go down to the surface of this planet, and he knows that he can only be there for just this very brief window of time to get what they got to get or whatever. And a lot of time is going to elapse in his life and his world, but if he's in and out quick, like 90 seconds or whatever it is, it'll be okay. It won't be that big of a loss of time. But then something happens on the surface of the planet and they have to wait a whole cycle to get another window, another opportunity to get off the planet. I don't even know if I'm getting the details exactly right because I can't watch the show a second time. I've only seen it the one time in theaters where I sobbed like a baby uncontrollably over this scene. The guy, you know, he knows what just happened. He knows that because of that incident on the surface and having to wait another cycle, he just missed his daughter's entire life. He will stay young because time is passing differently for him, but her whole life is gonna fly by. He's gonna miss like everything. And he gets off the planet and they start the return trip home, and he starts to get all the messages that she sent. And the messages are her whole life. Everything coming back at once to him. And the actor, I'm not gonna say who it is because I want to ruin the movie, but the actor just sits there and sobs. He doesn't say anything, he just covers his mouth and weeps as he watches the unfolding of his entire daughter's life through just this rapid stream of messages while he's on this long journey home. I don't even remember if I watched it. I might have got up and walked out of the theater for a little bit to recover. I literally can't watch this movie again. But to me, that moment right there is the moment I picture, the face I picture when I think of the expression dumbstruck. That's what it looks like. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't have been able to muster a single word either. I would uh my mouth would be shut and I would sob. Dumbstruck actually has a literal meaning. Dumb means mute, you can't talk. But to be struck mute is to have something so calamitous, so shocking, maybe even so miraculous happen that words fail. I couldn't even speak. Well, sometimes people say that and they're just being dramatic and it's hyperbole. But dumbstruck is a real phenomenon, it really actually happens. And dumbstruck is what happens to Zechariah at the beginning of Luke here in the the prologue, the birth narrative of John the Baptist. And mercifully, I don't think the story is nearly as sad here in Luke as that particular film that I was just referencing. So let's just put on our gleeful faces and move forward with a more happier version of dumbstruckedness that Zechariah encounters here in the Bible. So we got the situation. Zechariah is a priest, he's an old priest during the time of late in the era of Herod, king of Judah. He's of the priestly division of Abijah, descended from Abraham two thousand-ish years earlier, through Levi, through Aaron, through Abijah, long line of high priests, so many blessings in their lives, but one blessing they lack is they have no children. His wife Elizabeth is barren, even though they've lived upright, godly lives. And now it comes Zechariah's time to go into the temple and do his priestly duties. Twice a year it would be his family, his priestly family's job to do it. But this time is special because within that priestly family, the lot fell to him, and he's the dude dedicated to go into the holy place, to the altar of incense, to burn incense to the Lord. This is a good place for a note of clarification right here. David on Patreon rightly raised the question about something I said yesterday, the day before, maybe both. I don't know. I haven't gone back and listened to it. But he apparently I gave the impression that he was in the holy of holies. He would not, Zechariah was not the high priest, so he wouldn't have been in the holy of holies. I might have just completely whiffed on that, like in the moment and just forgot what I was doing, or maybe I just didn't communicate it clearly. Either way, it sounds like I got it wrong. So thank you, David, for pointing that out. This is an important note of clarification. Zechariah in this scene is right next to the ultra-holy inner sanctum of everything that hardly anybody ever goes into ever. And he's burning essence to the Lord at this altar right next to it. And that's when the angel of the Lord appears to him here in Luke chapter one, which is a giant deal because the physical manifestation of the Lord hasn't happened here, where these kind of physical manifestations of the Lord used to be all the time. It hasn't happened here in centuries and centuries. But you know, I suppose he always could. And crazily, what happens when Zechariah goes in is God does manifest or he sends a messenger. It's the angel Gabriel, and he says, Yo, don't freak out. A lot of paraphrasing here, don't freak out, Zechariah. I'm here, I have good, you know, this is good news. You're gonna have a kid. And further, your kid, and then Gabriel starts quoting a bunch of inside baseball Bible prophetic language from the Old Testament. That the more he talked, the more Zechariah would have been like, Whoa, my son is gonna serve in the like the greatest priestly role ever to date. He is he has been chosen supernaturally by God for a truly unique role in a truly unique moment in the history of the unfolding of God's redemptive plan. And that is spelled out at the end of the Old Testament in Malachi, the very closing verses there. There's a language about a new Elijah who is going to come, and this new Elijah is going to quote, turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. Like we're talking revival. We're talking the greatest priestly prophetic role in history, like the penultimate guy. Penultimate means right before the ultimate. That is who John the Baptist is going to be. Dang. And you know, imagine if this guy showed up and said it to you or me. Okay, we're not Bible experts like Zechariah. This isn't our full-time dedicated priestly job. None of us have a job that our families had for 2,000 years. There's not a single one of us in this conversation who knows the Old Testament like Zechariah did or knows the story like he did. So he's going to receive this a certain way, probably. I mean, you'd hope at least. But let's just set him aside for a moment. How would you receive this with like yours or my level of knowledge of this stuff? I think we'd be pretty excited, right? I mean, that it's amazing. People have kids sometimes, but very rarely does an angel show up and make giant sweeping predictions about how God is going to use them in unique ways. But what would you say? What would be your next move? Because like what I just am reading you here, this is the end of what Gabriel says. You know, uh, he says, uh, the and he will go on before the Lord in the spirit of the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous people to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And now there's a conversational beat that happens right there at the end of Luke 1.17. Gabriel's done talking. Now it's like he bounces the ball or hands at the conch to Zechariah. It's like your turn. You just heard something very profound. Now what are you gonna say? What would you say? Uh thank you. I don't know, that doesn't seem strong enough. May it be so, Lord. This is the most wonderful news I've ever heard. What can I do to help? Uh that sounded a little needy. I don't well, I can tell you what Mary said. Like on just the next page over, there's a similar set of circumstances. The same angel, Gabriel, shows up to another person, Mary, who doesn't know the story as well. She's much, much younger. She's a kid. She likely has many, like lots of good childbearing years ahead of her. But she's not married yet. So, like Zechariah and Elizabeth, it's kind of a weird time to be getting pregnant in life. But Gabriel shows up with her and says something even more amazing that when than that which was promised to Zechariah and Elizabeth. We can just cheat ahead here after she gets told that the Holy Spirit is going to come upon her and overshadow her, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, and the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Dang. What does Mary say in response to that? Let's see if it's any good. I am the Lord's servant, Mary answered. May it be to me as you have said. Dang. She's just a kid. That was really good. I don't know if I would think to say that. That's so much better than thank you, or I'm gonna build three little altar huts and I'll do sacrifices to the I I don't know. People freak out when God shows up in the Bible and they don't really know what to do. I don't know that anybody in the Bible responds better to something like this than Mary. I'm the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said. Right on. Beautiful. I see why people like her so much. Okay, but then we go back to Zechariah. You'd figure he's much older than Mary, he knows the Bible much better. He's probably gonna say something even smarter and better than that. But here's what he says Zechariah asked the angel, Well, how can I be sure of this? I'm an old man, and my wife is well along in years. Are you kidding me, dude? Okay, look, people in the Bible make mistakes, and we don't always get them in their best moments. I'm sure. I mean, look, the text says Zechariah is blameless and upright. This is a good dude. I don't want to get after him too hard for this one thing. I'm sure I couldn't have done better. But also, this guy knows the Bible. He knows exactly Abram and Sarai, later their names were Abraham and Sarah. He knows exactly what they got wrong when they were in a similar situation to his situation with Elizabeth between Genesis 16 and 21. For those of you who are new to the story, God, way back in the Old Testament, the first guy he called is like, I'm you're the father of all of Israel, the Hebrews, the Jews, it's Abraham. And he tells Abraham, I'm gonna make you into a great nation. You're gonna have a ton of descendants, but he's old and he doesn't have any kids, and he keeps not having kids. But this promise is still out there. And God indicated that like his plan to save everything was gonna come through the descendants of Abraham, but there are no descendants, and we keep getting older. And Abraham and especially Sarah, they have a little giggle about it when God tells them you're gonna be with child. It's a very similar situation, and it's not a great look for Abram and Sarai in the Old Testament. You would think that Zechariah in this moment would be like, okay, just don't say anything. Think for a minute. What are the best Bible responses that I can conjure from the whole history of my family of faith that would be the right thing to do here? But he doesn't. And I think we can cut him some slack for that. There is a thing that happens sometimes when we get to working on a passage like this where I'm really into the story. I just want to do it all at once. I'm gonna keep going, but it's gonna be too long. So we're gonna do the thing where we pause and we pick up right where we left off. No big long intro or anything tomorrow. We're just gonna keep churning through this story and this incredible encounter between the angel and Zechariah, and then the news that happens after that, and then another visit from an angel that happens after that, and then resolution to both of these stories. Luke chapter one dovetails so beautifully with John chapter one, and we're gonna do the whole thing. So pausing right there and picking up tomorrow. I'm Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.