67 His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
68 “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
69 He has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
71 salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
72 to show mercy to our ancestors
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
74 to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
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Today’s passage leads me to think about promises, and the importance of keeping them.
Think about the importance of promises. They can be simple things, like promising to meet someone for lunch at a certain place and a certain time. Or promising to finish a chore by a given time. Or they can be much weightier and significant, like a legal contract, or like getting married or taking an oath of office.
Promises are important. There are many aspects of life that would be significantly disrupted if we could not make promises or trust the ones made to us. Think of the hurt involved when a promise is broken. Think of the blessing when a significant promise is kept.
Our God keeps His promises. All of them. This is one of His chief attributes for which we rightly praise Him. Think of His promises and their place in our lives: Promising to provide for us, to love us, to forgive us, to hear our prayers. We live in the hope of the fulfillment of the promise that He will raise us up on the last day and bring us into the New Creation. Paul describes salvation itself as faith in God’s promises (Romans 4:14-16).
Today’s passage, the first half of the Benedictus, Zechariah’s song, is all about promises. Yesterday we looked at how Zechariah responded to being able to speak after nine months of silence. We saw how the first thing he did was to praise God. In today’s passage we have the first half of the content of that praise. And essentially, Zechariah is praising God because He has kept His promise.
Zechariah is thinking of the promises to Abraham and to the people of God that He would protect them, redeem them, and bring them salvation. These are the promises of a Messiah, a Savior, and all that He would bring. All so that His people would be able to “serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”
Zechariah is rejoicing because in the promise that his son, John, would prepare the way for the Messiah, is the promise that the Messiah has come. God has kept His promise.
So today I am rejoicing in having a promise-keeping God. He has kept His promise to send a Savior, and He is at work in my life today, keeping all the rest of His promises to me.
Lord, bless me with faith in Your promises, trusting that You indeed will fulfill every promise You have made.
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