Morning
Read Luke 1:68-79
Silence is kept for two minutes.
Reflection
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,and has remembered his holy covenant, 73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, in his beautiful poetry calls us back to the story. The long arc of God’s faithfulness, his covenant, has not been overcome by alienation or exile. God is drawing near doing what God does, rescuing, redeeming. The people of Jesus’ birth, Israel, thought their enemies were a sequence of pagan oppressors who ruled their land and demanded allegiance and taxes. But Jesus’ life, just as it unmasks our sin, will unmask our true overlords, not “flesh and blood” as the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 6, but sin and death. Zechariah sings out here that our enemies do not get the last word, that God is working his power, his love, to cast out all fear and to enable us to serve the Lord “in holiness and righteousness…all our days.”
Pray: Lord, give us power to cast off every weight of sin that holds us back to serve you in all confidence. Grant us the trust in you to live holy and righteous lives, in the joyful knowledge that we are rescued and renewed by your faithfulness to your covenant, your faithfulness to us.