If you were asked to tell the Christmas story to someone

who had never heard it before, where would you start?

As a teenager of the 90s, I am partial to the Dave

Matthews Band and their song appropriately titled

“Christmas Song.” I was moved the first time I heard the

lyrics. Matthews launches the narrative this way:

She was his girl

He was her boyfriend

Soon to be his wife

Take him as her husband

A surprise on the way, any day, any day

One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy

That’s a good way to begin. And then there’s the gospel

writer Luke, perhaps the most gifted storyteller in the

whole New Testament. His lens points us in a decidedly

different direction. The first faces we see belong not to

a healthy little giggling, dribbling baby boy, but to an

elderly couple from the Judean hill country. Zechariah.

Elizabeth. Luke starts his story not in Bethlehem, but in

Jerusalem where Zechariah, a rural priest, has gone to

perform his annual duties at the Temple.

You would agree it’s an odd way to open the record of

the Messiah’s birth. These two minor characters. They

appear nowhere else in scripture. Elderly folk who fade

from sight after this opening scene. And yet, what if I

told you that Luke’s prologue provides precisely what

you need this Advent season?

Luke says that Zechariah and Elizabeth have no children

in their advanced age, and it is a story that readers

of scripture will recognize. We have heard it before,

repeated throughout the journey of God’s people.

Abraham and Sarah. Isaac and Rebekah. Rachel and

Jacob. Hannah and Elkanah. Yes, we have met this couple

before in the pages of scripture. We know their faces.

Weary and worn. Drained and downhearted.

But Luke, it’s December! The season of Advent. A time

of expectant waiting for joyful celebration. Why start

here? Because Luke knows something about us. Not all

of us start the season filled with anticipation. And so,

Luke gives us this story of faithful believers who, like

their ancestors, have almost stopped waiting, who no

longer wake each day with expectation or hope. They

represent us, any of us who have felt dispirited, downcast,

demoralized. Any of us who have stopped believing for

what we hoped would come. And I would guess that

means all of us at some point. There is a chance that you

find yourself in that place this morning.

Here’s the thing. If we read these ancient stories,

we know that God’s blessing often surprises, often

shows up when it is least expected. But knowing that

in the abstract and trusting it in our lives are two

very different matters. Consider Zechariah. The man

is a priest. His entire vocational life revolves around

rituals of remembrance and blessing. His profession

is proclaiming the promise of God. And yet, when

that promise is presented to him in the Temple in an

unmistakable way, he is unable to see it. I get that. I

think most of us can relate.

The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor suggests that

Zechariah’s weakness is not the sin of disbelief, but the

“habit of hopelessness.” That description rings true to

me. It describes one way we can approach these four

weeks, this Advent season. How we can go through the

motions and attend the services and sing the carols and

read the verses and go to the gatherings, and through it

all fail to imagine a future different from the present.

Call it emptiness. That feeling that God is a distant,

lifeless concept rather than a force for our redemption.

Call it emptiness. What so many feel this time of year.

Our inability to see fresh possibilities. The fear of taking

one step toward something new. Call it emptiness.

The pain of strained relationships. The unwillingness

to reach out and ask for help or forgiveness. Call it

emptiness. The loss of vocational dreams discarded. The

vacant space of personal hope abandoned. Emptiness.

The sense that all this planning, all this preparing, all this

striving, all this showing up will leave us no more fulfilled

in four weeks when we are packing up the decorations

we just took down for next year.

But that emptiness, the emptiness of our time, is about

more than our personal lives. It describes leaders who

cannot muster the courage to craft a vision beyond

self-serving sound bites and short-term victories. It

describes the hateful rhetoric and jeering taunts in

place of constructive dialogue for the common good.

Emptiness. It is the assumption of the worst in others

that justifies the worst of us.

And, in this season, there is also the risk of theological

emptiness: our failure to expect the arrival of God in

our world and in our lives. After all, that is the promise

of Advent—that God will show up. That God will bring

hope to your life, wherever you are. That God will shine

light into whatever darkness you are battling. And there,

bathed in light… There, spoken to by a messenger

of hope, Zechariah could not believe it. And maybe

you can’t either. Not yet. And so, the priest is given

the spiritual gift of silent reflection. The first Advent

season: nine months to quietly watch God do what God

does. I can already tell you love the idea that God tells

the preacher to stop speaking for a while. Picture his

face. Zechariah needs a break. But he is not the only

character in this story, not the only path through Advent.

Thank God there is Elizabeth. Her first words in the

story come only after her husband has been silenced.

Elizabeth is given no angelic messenger, no dramatic

vision. She is not visited in the Temple. She just knows.

She just trusts. She just hopes. And so, when she

speaks, her words are praise. “This is what the Lord has

done for me.” Elizabeth expects God’s blessing, already

on its way. Elizabeth trusts that hope is coming. God

help us in the Church if we lose the will to welcome

hope when it comes.

Elizabeth gives us what we need today. There is

something about this season, about this Incarnation,

the Word becoming flesh and living among us in that

newborn baby. There is something here that suggests

that hope might actually have the last word—that joy

will come when the darkness has faded and all is light.

And in the meantime, these ancient stories, these elderly

people, they keep us on tip toe to perceive the possibility.

As a kid, my favorite Christmas tradition took place

in mid-December. A group of us would gather in the

parking lot at Vandalia Presbyterian Church, and we’d

be handed song sheets and Santa hats. Together, we

made our way to the Village Green retirement home

just a few miles away, and for about an hour we would

walk the halls singing familiar carols. Some residents

opened their doors; others closed theirs. Before

leaving, we would always gather around that artificial

tree in the center of the lobby, and some residents—

maybe a dozen or so—would be brought into that

space. Some would sing along; some were sleeping.

Some were aware of what was happening; others had

vacant stares. An unusual place to sing of new life

and joy on the way. Perhaps. Except for this: the souls

gathered in that space knew more about the tenacity

of hope than any of the carolers. As a child, I remember

watching their eyes with wonder. Their faces displayed

the wisdom that only waiting can produce.

And so, nine months after the angelic encounter in the

Temple, into a world overcome by despair, almost deaf

to the voice of hope, a child was born. Despite family

tradition, his parents named him John. Zechariah, who

finally found his voice, was insistent on that. And then,

the old priest speaks words of blessing for his firstborn

son, words of blessing for a waiting world: “And you,

my child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

by the tender mercy of our God the dawn will break

upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and

in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of

peace.” The old man knew what he had been waiting

for. He came to wake us up. To renew our expectation.

To prepare us for what…or who...was coming. Mary’s

child. God’s own son. Friends, it is Advent. For now, let

all mortal flesh keep silence. Let every heart make room.

Hope is on the way. Amen.