Elizabeth & Zechariah | Generosity
The Old Testament ends in a dramatic sunset, followed by a dark 400-year night, kept alive with a theological pulse of expectation - will the sun rise again on God’s people? Where we pick up the story, in the first chapter of Luke, is during that dark moment before the sun comes. That hour often feels like the coldest, darkest, point of the night. During that darkness, there is simply no indication that God is worried about their plight. God’s people are in despair and hopelessness. Most of them are attempting to birth something new in their own power and through their own means. So it is fitting that Luke starts with the longing of Zechariah and Elizabeth and their painful contractions of hope. Like Abraham and Sarah in the Torah, these two were living in barrenness, hoping for new life but getting nothing. Barrenness was the inability to create life and goodness on our own. They lived in despair knowing that nothing truly new can happen in their life. They knew that if something was going to happen it would either be because they figured it out alone, or God opened up the impossible. What is required for the genuinely new to come into life? An act of creation! God enters, speaks assurance and truth, and generously creates a whole new world of possibilities! God’s generosity creates new life where there was barrenness and despair! And don't get it twisted, the sunrise of hope and new possibilities isn't the birth of John, it is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
This is the story of Advent.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Read Luke 1:67-80. What do you think Zechariah was feeling during this experience? How is he responding to God’s generosity?
Pray God would bring one person to mind that you can be generous with this week
Is there a way our generosity could answer someone else's longing, prayer, and despair?
Could our generosity bring joy, gladness, and rejoicing to a world filled with fear, doubt, and trouble?
What is one way you can be generous with your time, talents, or treasures this week?
December 4, 2022 - Gabe Shippam