On Getting What You Ask

Luke 1:13-17
Advent 1
December 1, 2024

But the angel said to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’


The first Christmas carol from the Gospel of Luke is a surprising song from an angel. On the day when the priest Zechariah offers prayers in the Jerusalem temple, the angel Gabriel appears to him. “Your prayer has been heard,” he says. “Everything you’ve asked has been granted by God.”

Now, that is an amazing gift. Who receives everything on their wish list?

I’m assuming all of us have a wish list. There are the things we want and the things other people want to give us. The conversations begin over pumpkin pie at the Thanksgiving table: “Do you have a wish list? Christmas is coming. The sales start tomorrow. No shipping charges until next Tuesday.” That’s how it sounds in a consumer household. The deals match the desires.

I was gently badgered for a list. My list is simple: three books, three CDs, and world peace. This year, I declared, please no more printed t-shirts, no more socks, no more coffee mugs. I have enough.

I’m wondering what’s on your wish list. Hopefully, it includes world peace.

And I am wondering what was on Zechariah’s wish list. If you were a priest in Jerusalem, once in your life you might be invited to light the incense and put the prayers of the nation into the air. Only once could you do this. No doubt it was heavily scripted. The priest was praying for all the Jews everywhere. It was a huge prayer – a prayer for the mercy of God, a prayer for loving kindness, a prayer for the working out of God’s holy righteousness. That was Zechariah’s job: pray that really big prayer.

The angel said, “Zechariah, your prayer has been answered. Your wife Elizabeth will have a baby. You will call him John.” Ahh, there are the prayers we say, and the prayers we are supposed to say – and then there is the desire of our heart. It is the gift we really want, the gift that gives us life, hope, and a future. It does not always get spoken out loud, but it’s there. Of course it’s there.

Zechariah and Elizabeth were getting up in years. They were really old, maybe fifty or fifty-five. Long past the expiration date. As such, they remind us of Abraham and Sarah, father and mother of the Jewish family, childless until they, too, were visited by an angel. Luke wants us to remember it’s never too late for the promises of God, especially an eternal God. God can make anything happen, which the old priest should have known.

(He shouldn’t have asked, “How can this be?” But I’m getting ahead of myself. More on that in three weeks.)

I want to focus on the gift, in this case, the gift of a child. Unexpected, unanticipated, unimaginable, yet real. When an angel says, “You’re having a baby,” there are not a lot of options open to you. The veterans of childbearing will smile slyly and say, “Your life is going to change.” They never fill in the details. They just smile.

And this particular baby – what a child of God he is going to be! Gabriel promises, “He will be great before the Lord.” Not average, but great. He will also be alcohol-free; that may sound curious, but it suggests he will be raised with the discipline of the Nazarite vows. It was an invitation reaching back to the sixth chapter of the book of Numbers, to live a pure and uncontaminated life as a way of honoring God. It also meant never cutting your hair which explains the appearance of the child who will be John the Baptist.

Furthermore, Gabriel says John will be full of Holy Spirit. That’s the prophetic presence of God, the ability to be a truth teller in a world of self-deception. And if that’s not enough, this child will be just like the prophet Elijah. That, too, is coded language; on the last page of our Old Testament, the prophet Malachi predicted one like Elijah would come. Zechariah and his people had been waiting for over four hundred years for that promise to be fulfilled.

Gabriel promises Zechariah he will get the child he has always wanted. Yet he, his wife Elizabeth, and all the people are going to get a whole lot more. We are talking now about something greater than t-shirts, socks, coffee mugs, books, and CDs under the Christmas tree. Something on the order of world peace, or at least the prospect of it.

Have you given any thought to this? Maybe the world needs something more than consumer spending for the holy days? In our house, we heard whispers of it when the cranberry sauce was still on the table. One of the young adults confessed that Black Friday has lost a lot of its luster. This is one who spent Thanksgiving Night in a parking lot to score some deals at dawn at one of the Big Box stores in Dickson City. All that seems crazy to her now (thank God!). She sees there are bigger matters to consider, which takes us back to the story of Zechariah.

The angel says, “You will have a son named John. He will be great, holy, full of God, just like Elijah, the greatest prophet we can remember.” And his primary work will be to “turn” – to turn the children of Israel back to their God, to turn the hearts of fathers back to their children, to turn those who are disobedient to the wisdom of righteousness. To summarize quickly, his life’s work will be to turn people from themselves toward God and God’s gifts. And he will do his work through his words.

If you know the story, Zechariah will ask, “How can this be?” I think he’s not just talking about the miracle birth to old-timers, but the nature of the work that their miracle child will undertake.

For instance, “He will turn the hearts of fathers to their children.” Is that a promise that parents will start showing affection? Perhaps. That would be a good thing. But it’s more. It reveals a concern for children and their well-being, a constructive continuity between “now” and “then.” Some parents regret the kind of world they are bequeathing to their children; John the Baptist will say, “Do something about it.” Give up your selfishness. Take responsibility for future generations. Open your heart to who comes after you.

By the way, that line “turn the hearts of fathers to their children”? It is the last sentence of our Jewish scripture, the very last words spoken by the prophet Malachi (4:6). God’s concern for our children’s future has been lingering for a good long while.

And the angel said John would “turn the disobedient toward the wisdom of the righteous.” That is a Jewish ism. It’s also a phrase that was tidied up when translated into English. The spiritual problem is more disobedience; it’s a willful disobedience with a large dose of foolishness and measure of hard-headedness. That is who some of us are, or at least who I am.

When I was a kid, I told my father about a mechanical problem with my car. Fortunately, his heart was already turned toward me. He told me how to address the problem, and then I thought I could improve on his suggestion. It did not work. I didn’t tell him right away. He noticed the problem and said, “Well, you can do it your way, or you can do it the right way.” Best diagnosis of my spiritual condition that I have ever received!

That’s what John the Baptist was born to point out: you can do it your way, or you can do it the right way. God’s way.

And everything John said and did was in service for his life’s purpose: “to turn the children of Israel back to the Lord.” They were already God’s children, loved, claimed, instructed – but they believed they could live their terms, not God’s terms. It never works that way. So, we hear the invitation to turn, to re-turn, to return again and again. This is the essence of repentance, the essence of the spiritual life, to turn and to re-turn. In the confession of a favorite hymn, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love; here’s my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.”

The invitation is always there. To come back. To come home. To return. This continuous call of the Gospel is not to those who have never heard of the love and grace of God, but to those who have. Life is hard. Trust erodes. Faith can fade. It is easy to be disappointed, discouraged, disillusioned, disenfranchised, and disengaged. Yet the angel can appear at any time. The prophet’s voice can be heard. A priest’s religious duties can be interrupted by the Living God who is at the center of it all.

That’s the promise of this Advent season. As the northern hemisphere grows dark, the angels of God announce the lights are on. The silence of sadness is interrupted by music we did not create. If we are the slightest bit attentive, something can spark in our spirits. Hope is reignited. Visions return. Songs are lifted. And a Holy Voice whispers, “There is a place for you here.”


(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.