Silent Expectation

Jilian Brown
Dec 6, 2021
7 min read

Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,

because He has visited and redeemed His people.

He has raised up a horn of salvation for us

in the house of His servant David,

as He spoke through His holy prophets,

those of ages past,

salvation from our enemies

and from the hand of all who hate us,

to show mercy to our fathers

and to remember His holy covenant,

the oath He swore to our father Abraham,

to grant us deliverance from hostile hands,

that we may serve Him without fear,

in holiness and righteousness before Him

all the days of our lives.

And you, child, will be called

a prophet of the Most High;

for you will go on before the Lord

to prepare the way for Him,

to give to His people the knowledge of salvation

through the forgiveness of their sins,

because of the tender mercy of our God,

by which the Dawn will visit us from on high,

to shine on those who live in darkness

and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet

into the path of peace.”

~Luke 1:67-79

In pondering how to go about the devotional thoughts for Advent readings, I began listening to music the other day in search of inspiration. I came across a band I’ve never heard of before called Poor Bishop Hooper. They are a husband and wife duo and their music is beautiful. They have an Advent album which centers around the characters in the Christmas story. One of the songs is about Zechariah. I thought to myself, now there is a guy we don’t talk about that much. We talk about his wife and we talk about his son, but we don’t spend a lot of time talking about Zechariah. So, that is how I want to begin this Advent series.

What we know about Zechariah and Elizabeth is that they were faithful followers of God. He was a priest and at the beginning of Luke's gospel, we read that it was his time to take the two week long priestly duty of using incense in the temple. This was a short job, though an important one and was likely something priests only did once in their lifetime because there were so many of them that it did not come around often. He was also chosen by lot. So, this rare task, which I imagine Zechariah was grateful to have the chance to perform, ended up leading to something else very unexpected. Rather than just burning incense at the altar, he was instead met by the angel Gabriel. Like all angel encounters in the Bible, this terrified him. We know that he and Elizabeth were without children. This is not unlike the story of Hannah in the previous post except that Elizabeth was really beyond childbearing age. When Gabriel said to Zechariah that he would have a son and his son would make a way for the Messiah, Zechariah had some serious doubts. The consequence for this doubt was Zechariah losing his voice for the entirety of Elizabeth's pregnancy.

As a vocal performance major in college, I became acutely aware that my instrument was a part of my body. I am not sure whether other people think about this very much, but the fact that other instruments are external means that no matter what is going on with your body the instrument will still play. That is not the case with the voice. If you have a sinus infection like I have right now, or many other maladies both minor and severe, your instrument does not work properly. What this means is you have to take really good care of your voice and body to be always ready for practice and performance. I recall a classmate of mine not long before her senior recital became ill and developed laryngitis. Of course, we all were familiar with the option of the steroid shot which was a last resort to get those vocal cords working at the last minute. However, her doctor and instructor recommended complete vocal rest. It was simultaneously sad and hilarious because she had to carry around a little whiteboard everywhere so that she could communicate anything. She could not speak for several days in an attempt to recover her voice so that she might sing in the way she had long prepared for her culminating recital.

When I was five, the movie "Little Mermaid" came out. I used to watch it every single day after kindergarten. Although my love of singing had already begun, this movie did quite a number on me in wanting singing to be a major part of my life. What is interesting as I think about that now is that a large part of the movie is about her NOT being able to sing. Or speak. She had to communicate with body language. (I can never hear the term "body language" without hearing Ursula‘s voice). This actually started to work until her plans were thwarted by Ursula who used her voice against her. Which just goes to show you how very important voices are.

Our Advent character for today had his voice taken from him for nine months so that he would believe that God is who He says He is and does what He says He will do. Seems like a bit of a harsh punishment to me, being that Gideon was allowed to ask for signs and wonders and received them. However, I have to think that this ramification was in line with the magnitude of the angel's message and perhaps even the level of faith Zechariah was expected to have. (You'll have to go back and read up on Gideon's family for that perspective). Here is what is interesting about Zechariah's story. We don’t get any interlude for him like we do with Elizabeth in seeing Mary while pregnant with John. No, we only see his loss of voice and then upon John’s circumcision, he regains his voice so that he may utter the name of the child which the angel told him. And then Zechariah launches into this beautiful praise that I don’t think I’ve ever paid much attention to. He gives thanks to God. He talks about expectation and I imagine from his nine months of silence he was able to ponder the reality of what God was doing in the world and in his family--past, present, and future.

I wonder this Advent if we might engage with some silence. The season is frenetic, commercialized, and straight up crazy sometimes. I saw a headline of an article yesterday that said, "10 things you can let go of this Christmas." I didn’t even read it but I thought there are probably 100 things we could let go of this Christmas. I think that each family is unique in what is special and meaningful to them at Christmas and it does not have to be prescriptive. For instance, my family does not do Elf on the Shelf. It is beyond my capability to come up with something creative and fun literally every day of the month. But I know families that love doing it and I think that is great. And impressive. We do Advent calendars and we do ornaments. We go look at Christmas lights and we watch Christmas movies together. This is probably the least hectic Christmas I have had in a long time because I am usually preparing for recitals for my students and/or myself. I don’t have any of that this year. Even though the kids have events at school and there are lots of fun things to do, it feels quieter to me this year. And that is not bad. I want to engage with silence this year. I want to know what God is doing in the world and in my family. I truly believe there are some things we can only learn from listening and we can not listen when everything is so loud.

So, just like my friend's silence prepared her for her beautiful recital and Ariel's silence prepared her for a beautiful and completely different life, Zechariah's silence prepared his heart and mind for the reality of God's plan. The words of his praise are proclaimed confidently and gratefully. I do not think he would have had those words nine months earlier. When he stumbled into the temple with incense, he had no idea what was before him. Nine months of silence had a way of creating certainty out of skepticism. I want to be ready for what God has not just for me, but for my kids. We hardly ever remember Zechariah, but everybody knows who John the Baptist is. It occurred to me several years ago that perhaps all of the great things I imagined for my own life are not actually going to come to fruition in my life, but rather in the lives of my children and the students that I teach. I do not know what your calling in life is and I do not know what your place in life is, but I do know God has a purpose for you. Sometimes, that purpose is very different than what we originally think. Zechariah thought his greatest calling was priesthood. It was a worthy calling, but his greatest calling was to raise John the Baptist who prepared the way for Jesus. Maybe my calling is not about me. Maybe if I listen, I will hear the great plans for my family and the world. I hope you have a space and time to carve out for silence this week. Our greatest expectations arise out of these spaces. This is the place from which our greatest hope springs forth. May we come out of those times with confidence in the hope we have and the words to proclaim it.