In our text, we see a couple – Zacharias and his wife, Elizabeth – who came from the priestly lineage of their forefather Aaron. They were righteous, they walked in God’s commands and ordinances, and they were blameless ... but they were barren. They had no children, but even with the prospect of children quickly fading, they never stopped serving the Lord, and they had never stopped praying for their miracle.
What is the longest you’ve ever prayed for something before God answered your prayer? When year after year goes by and it doesn’t seem like God is moving, at what point should we stop praying? I’d say if our prayers are in agreement with the Word of God and we are pursuing the will of God, then we should never stop praying. You may ask, “What if it takes years and it seems like time is running out on the possibility of an answer?” So what? Is anything too hard for God? Is God limited by time or distance?
Luke includes four songs in the birth narratives, each following a powerful moment in the narrative. The early church gave each of these songs a title in Latin, which as the language of Rome, became the main language of the early church. Today I want to look at these four songs in the order they appear and explore the main message of each of them as an outline for the Christmas story.
