The Word Made Flesh
The account in Luke 1 about Zacharias’ encounter with the angel is another one of those very familiar passages it’s easy to skim through without really thinking about what I’m reading. But as I read it aloud to my students at school this week, something stood out I had never noticed before.
Imagine the surprise, wonder, awe, and fear that filled Zacharias as the angel Gabriel appeared to him in the temple. Then the angel spoke:
“Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.” (vv.13-15)
This is an astonishing promise, especially considering that Zacharias and his wife were “well stricken in years.” (v.7) But what the angel says next is even more astonishing:
“And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (vv.16-17)
As I read this the other day, I suddenly recognized the words being spoken as a quotation from the Old Testament. Not only is Gabriel citing a prophecy about the coming of the Messiah, he is actually referencing the last two verses of the Old Testament.
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6)
Notice the differences between the prophecy and Gabriel’s pronouncement. There is some explanation of “I will send you Elijah,” making clear that this was not actually going to be Elijah, but a prophet in the same spirit or kind as Elijah. The fact that Gabriel does not mention the curse at the end of the verse isn’t particularly a problem, because the curse was what would happen if the prophet did not come.
But to me, the astounding, amazing, awe-inspiring thing about this is the utter faithfulness of God these two passages demonstrate.
Between the writing of the book of Malachi and this first event of the New Testament era there was a span of about 400 years. during these “silent years,” as they are often called, God did not communicate with His people as He had always done before. There was no “new” revelation from God—only the expectant silence of those who waited for Him to speak again.
With this in mind, look again at the similarities between the last revelation of the Old Testament and the first (chronologically speaking) of the New Testament. God is, in essence, picking right back up where He left off. He is taking those same “last” words of the Old Testament and fleshing them out in living detail.
We see this quite literally throughout the Christmas accounts: the fulfilling of promise after promise, the reminder of detail after detail of Old Testament prophecy, and then seeing the fulfillment in the fulness of living reality. God is indeed the Word made flesh.
As we go through what often end up being the mere motions of the Christmas season, take a little time to look deeply at the familiar passages and truths from Scripture, considering the unchanging, unfailing everlasting faithfulness of God.
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John 1:14