Advent: The Season of the Spirit and Power of Elijah!

Photo by Paula Muehlendorf Shaw 2012

In preparing my heart for the coming of Jesus Christ during this season of anticipation, I decided to divert a bit from my usual blog posts and do a study of the Advent story in Luke.  God willing, I will post daily whatever revelation the Lord gives as we journey through these passages.

Luke 1:5-17   (New Living Translation NLT)
(The scripture text is copy and pasted from www.studylight.org)

⁵It all begins with a Jewish priest, Zechariah, who lived when Herod was king of Judea. Zechariah was a member of the priestly order of Abijah. His wife, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly line of Aaron. ⁶Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God's eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord's commandments and regulations. ⁷They had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and now they were both very old.

⁸One day Zechariah was serving God in the Temple, for his order was on duty that week. ⁹As was the custom of the priests, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary and burn incense in the Lord's presence. ¹⁰While the incense was being burned, a great crowd stood outside, praying.

¹¹Zechariah was in the sanctuary when an angel of the Lord appeared, standing to the right of the incense altar. ¹²Zechariah was overwhelmed with fear. ¹³But the angel said, "Don't be afraid, Zechariah! For God has heard your prayer, and your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son! And you are to name him John. ¹⁴You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice with you at his birth, ¹⁵for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. He must never touch wine or hard liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth.  ¹⁶And he will persuade many Israelites to turn to the Lord their God. ¹⁷He will be a man with the spirit and power of Elijah, the prophet of old. He will precede the coming of the Lord, preparing the people for his arrival. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and he will change disobedient minds to accept godly wisdom." 

This story begins during the reign of the most evil king Judea had ever seen.  Herod had accomplished extraordinary feats, re-building the temple in Jerusalem, literally turning "Samaria into a Greco-Roman showplace, complete with theater, racetrack, pagan temple, and streets lined with colonnades and statuary.  On the coast he built a similarly lavish port city of Caesarea." (See Alfred Hoerth's , Archaeology and the Old Testament, 1998, p 421) But he was viciously protective of his throne.

During the time of Herod's reign, when John the Baptist and Jesus were born, Herod's sons began to vie for the throne. He had three sons put to death! Knowing this, helps to understand the kind of man who would have no qualms killing all the first born sons throughout Judea when he heard the news about Jesus from the wise men. 

I love how many layers of meaning are in the scriptures.  Take the names of those mentioned in this passage.  Zechariah means remembered of Jehovah.The Lord ordained the man through whom the front-runner of Jesus would be, would be a man named for that very time. The Lord remembers His promise to save His people. 

The Lord also remembered Zachariah's cry for a child.  He and his wife were past the age of child-bearing.  In the tradition and law of the era, Zachariah would have been totally within his rights to legally divorce his wife, Elizabeth.  The fact that he did not tells us he really loved her.  We can with all certainty assume they asked God for a child. Imagine the honor in knowing that your child was a totally prophetic child of God.  John was the name the angel told Zachariah to name his son. John means beloved of God.  Beloved doesn't just mean loved, it means greatly loved!

I believe we, as proclaimers of the Good News, "Jesus is coming!" are also greatly loved of God! And we can go out into the community around us in the spirit and power of Elijah! This is a season of the prophetic!  Let us build up! Let us encourage! Let us declare the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Zechariah was also a priest in the division of Abijah.  Abijah means my father is Jehovah. Of all the divisions of priests, how awesome is it that the one whose name proclaims Jehovah as Father is serving at the time of the beginning of the Advent of Christ's being born, the Son of God and Son of Man?

The division of Abijah was also the eighth division.  Eight in the Bible stands for new beginnings.  The beginning of the New Covenant is starting here, in the sanctuary, with a pronouncement to Zehariah of a soon to born son who would prepare the way of the coming of the Redeemer of the world, awakening the hearts of God's people to repent and receive their King!

Pray with me: Today, Father, I ask You to search my heart.  If there are any ways in which I have turned from You or from my children, reveal them to me so that I may repent. If there are any ways my mind has become disobedient to You, forgive me and change my mind to receive Godly Wisdom! Let me, like your servant John, go out in the power and spirit of Elijah this Advent season.  Prepare me, Oh Lord!