The Gospel of Luke is the one that gives us the most information about the birth of Jesus. It is also the only one which includes what we’ve come to refer to as “the four nativity songs” or “canticles:” those of Mary (1:46-55), Zechariah (1:68-79), the angels (2:14), and Simeon (2:29-32). These have each come to be known by the opening Latin words in the 5th century Vulgate: Mary’s “Magnificat,” Zechariah’s “Benedictus,” the angels’ “Gloria,” and Simeon’s “Nunc Dimittis.” We call them songs, even though the Bible simply says these words were spoken. But their lyrical, poetic style lends validity to our traditional description of them as songs. If that is so, then they were probably “sung” in a style similar to chant, as were also the Psalms.
In each of these four, we can’t help but wonder how Luke knew about them: the circumstances of their initial utterance, and the text of what was said/sung. He does tell us in the introduction in the opening verses that he had examined what others had written as well as interviewing witnesses. That leads to the very likely conclusion that all four of these accounts came from Luke’s having talked with Mary, listening to and recording her memories. Of course, all this occurred under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, ensuring that we have the record as God’s own revelation. According to some ancient traditions, Mary spent the latter years of her life in Ephesus under the loving care of the Apostle John, as directed by Jesus in one of His “Seven Last Words from the Cross” (John 19:26-27). Perhaps Luke interviewed her there at some point.
It does seem quite likely that Luke gained this information about the canticles from Mary. Obviously, she knew about the annunciation wen Gabriel came to her, not only what he had said, but also how she responded in her “Magnificat.” As for Zechariah’s “Benedictus,” she would likely have heard the story from her relative, Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah. How about the angels’ “Gloria?” Isn’t it almost certain that she would have remembered what the shepherds told her and Joseph about the angelic host when they hurried to Bethlehem that special night? And finally, what about Simeon’s “Nunc Dimittis?” Once again, she was holding the infant Christ child when he spoke, and heard those memorable words that he had said (Luke 2:27-28).
We come now to the second of Luke’s nativity canticles, Zechariah’s “Benedictus” in Luke 1:67-79, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.” In most of our Christmas gatherings, he is not given the prominent place he deserves. While his initial response was not nearly as positive as was Mary’s, his later reflection, once his voice was restored, was full of mature theological praise. I would suggest using your imagination to visualize that amazing encounter he had when he was given the news about his wife Elizabeth’s unexpected pregnancy and the son to be born, who would come to be known throughout church history as John the Baptist.
The room must have been dark, illuminated by the soft, flickering light from the seven-pronged candelabra. But not so dark that he couldn’t see the liturgical temple furniture around him: the table and altar beside the candles. There was enough light reflecting off the gold-covered walls to show the huge curtain stretching 60’ up to the ceiling. There were the resplendent colors of scarlet and purple and blue with gold threads, and embroidered figures of angelic beings. That huge barrier blocked access to the Holy of Holies, with God’s mercy-seat throne atop the ark.
This was the most exciting day in his entire life as a country priest, a once-in-a-lifetime privilege! Zechariah had been chosen by lot to enter the inner sanctum of the temple to offer incense at the evening prayer. With 8000 priests living in Israel in those days, they had been divided into 24 divisions of about 300 priests each. Each division served for two one-week periods per year, with fifty-six priests chosen by lot to participate each day.
On this day, the lot fell to Zechariah to be the one to step into the Holy Place to offer incense. This was a singular privilege that many priests never enjoyed, and no priest was allowed to do so more than once. His heart surely soared as he stepped into this vast chamber, knowing how near He was to the throne of heaven. The sweet smell of the incense would have filled his nostrils as soon as it fell onto the coals on the altar.
And then suddenly his heart must have spasmed in divine arrest as a figure appeared at his side. No one else was permitted in this sacred chamber at this time; it wasn’t another priest. He instantly recognized it as an angelic being, even though his eyes had never seen such a being before. Like every person who has ever been confronted by an angel, he was instantly gripped with terror in the presence of pure holiness.
This was no mere angel; it was Gabriel, one of the two archangels who stand in the very presence of God Himself. The same Gabriel before whom Daniel had fallen prostrate in terror in Babylon 500 years earlier. His message to Daniel was to announce future details of God’s timing to send the Messiah. Now his message to Zechariah was to declare that the time had arrived.
The message included extraordinary details about the Elijah-like forerunner prophesied at the very end of the Old Testament. The one Malachi had said would come (Malachi 4:5-6) was to be born to Zechariah and his aged, barren wife, Elizabeth. This was a double blessing, a bombshell, since this couple had prayed for years that they might have children. Gabriel described the role this child, John the Baptist, would play in salvation history.
When Gabriel appeared to Mary, her response was one of humble acceptance: “Be it unto me as you have said.” But sadly, Zechariah’s response was one of woeful unbelief: “This can’t be, we’re too old.” John Piper dealt with this in one of his sermons titled, “How Not to Talk to an Angel!” Gabriel’s words betray indignation. “I am Gabriel; I stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you.” In other words, “How dare you question one who has come directly from God to speak to you?!”
The indignation turns into a pronouncement of discipline, a clear rebuke for his disbelief. Zechariah was left without the ability to speak for the entire nine months of his wife’s pregnancy. When he finally emerged to the crowd waiting outside, he couldn’t make a sound to explain what had happened. When he got home he couldn’t answer Elizabeth’s pleading questions, and had to resort to writing out his answers.
Within that sanction, though, was a wonderful blessing. One of which Zechariah took full advantage. During those nine months of divinely imposed silence he had ample time to reflect on all this. Every single day brought fresh opportunities to just brood and ponder and pray and meditate on his Bible. There’s a wonderful principle here, a “side-road.” This is an example of how God takes our sins, and the consequences we suffer, and turns them into channels of grace. What looks at first glance to be punitive turns out to be remedial.
Here is how John Piper explained it in a sermon on December 14, 1980.
I love to think of Zechariah in those months, groaning under God’s rebuke, yet gradually discovering the reward. At first lacerating himself: “Why didn’t I believe the word of God? Why did I have to be so skeptical? What a fool I was!” But then … gradually in the silence of those months, when he could not converse with his wife or friends, Zechariah began to see what was happening. It began to sink into his head and heart that these were stupendous, unrepeatable, incredibly significant days.
I cannot pass over this experience of Zechariah without making an application for our day. And it is this: If we don’t seek out silence, we will probably not feel the stupendous significance of God’s work in history on our lives. It would be a rare thing to be gripped and moved deeply in a noisy room. There is a close correlation between stillness and a sense of the stupendous. The most astonishing things about reality will probably be missed by those who use the radio and TV for a constant background drone. Be still, be dumb and deaf, and know that I am God.
What would it mean for your life if for nine months you could not hear or say anything! I have tried to imagine what it would mean for my ministry and home life. No preaching. No counseling. No singing. But lots more seeing. Lots more looking into the eyes of my wife and sons. (When was the last time you looked steadily into someone’s eyes?) Lots more reading the great books. Lots more writing journals, poems, letters, thoughts about life. Lots more prayer and meditation on the Word of God. All in absolute silence. If God should ever give me such a period, I hope that I would turn it to as much good as Zechariah did. Because when Zechariah came out, he came out filled with the Holy Spirit and singing what has come to be known as the Benedictus, a song filled with insight and with a sense of the stupendous significance of what was about to happen with the birth of Jesus.
John Piper, December 14, 1980
Now we shift to Scene Two, Act One. It’s nine months later. Elizabeth has enjoyed three very special months with her cousin Mary’s extended visit, sharing the intimate secrets of their miracle pregnancies. She has remained in seclusion during the last five months of her pregnancy, avoiding the nosy questions of gossipy neighbors.
Now that the baby has been born, the news races throughout their little country village. And at the circumcision ceremony, with a little boy just eight days old, they’re all there. Elizabeth must have been beaming with joy. And though Zechariah couldn’t speak a word, his smile must have stretched from ear to ear.
It was time to give this little baby boy a name. Everybody knew you gave a family name to a baby. But Elizabeth shocked them with the name John, a name that didn’t make any sense at all. When they challenged her, saying he ought to be named Zechariah, after his father, she answered with surprising firmness, as if to say, in fierce tones, “No, you don’t! He’s to be called John!”
Since Zechariah could not speak, they made signs to get him to indicate what the name should be. He asked for a writing tablet, and quickly scribbled, “His name IS John!” And it was at that moment that God said, in effect, “Now that you’ve learned the lesson, you can have your speech back.”
And then it happened. As one commentator said, “think of the spiritual voltage here!” Much to everyone’s astonishment, he spontaneously broke out in exuberant song. These were the first sounds he’d been able to make for almost a year. And the sounds were a song of praise to God that will be sung until Christ returns.
These must have been words that he had been singing in his mind, in silence, during this long period of reflection. There was no hesitation, no clearing of the throat, no wondering what to say. The Scripture tells us he was filled with the Holy Spirit. And here’s the song the Holy Spirit gave him to sing. It was just like Mary’s song, her “Magnificat.” It wasn’t about herself; it was all about the Lord. Even so with Zechariah’s song, his “Benedictus,” wasn’t about himself; it was also all about the Lord.
There is a new metrical setting of Zechariah’s “Benedictus” as number 294 in the “Trinity Psalter Hymnal,” which allows us to sing the same words that Zechariah did. It has been arranged in a metrical form, as has been the case with the 150 Psalms following as closely as possible the actual inspired text in Scripture.
Stanza 1 records the imagery of a horn. This wasn’t a car horn, or the horn in the brass section of an orchestra. This horn of salvation was the horn of an ox, of an animal as imposing as an African Cape Buffalo. Such horns were often spoken of in the worship of Israel. This is the kind of horn that was on each of the four corners of the great altar of burnt offering in the temple. It was fitting imagery for a weapon in God’s hands. The horn represented the strength and might of an incredibly powerful beast. When the Scripture speaks of the lifting up of a horn, the people would immediately picture such a behemoth, violently shaking its head, tossing its deadly horns in an intimidating display of power. Such horns were not only awesome in their beauty. They also symbolized the defense they could afford. And the vengeance they could wreak. And the authority they could command.
Blest be God, the Lord of Israel;
He has come to set us free!
And a horn of full salvation
He has raised from David’s seed.
God has visited His people
To redeem them as foretold
In the promise He had spoken
Thro’ His prophets from of old.
Stanza 2 records more about “the promise He had spoken thro’ His prophets from of old. This horn of delivering power was at the heart of the Old Testament prophecies of Messiah’s coming victory when he would deliver His people from tyranny far worse than that of Babylon or Rome. He came to redeem us from our slavery to the brutality of Satan. That visitation has begun in Jesus’ first coming, and will be completed when He returns! This stanza also refers to “His oath to Abr’am.” How wonderful to remember that our salvation is not some minor, recent addition to the Bible’s history of redemption. This has been god’s plan from eternity first promised in the Garden of Eden, and then fulfilled in the events of Jesus’ earthly ministry. God has had a “rescue plan” for His people from eternity.
God has come in might to save us
From the hatred of our foes.
From their cruel hand He frees us,
And His tender mercy shows
Mercy promised in His cov’nant
To our fathers whom He chose.
He will keep His oath to Abr’am
To release us from our woes.
Stanza 3 records the important Gospel details of what that oath involved. Mary had also sung about an oath sworn to Abraham. Taking oaths and making solemn vows was a familiar part of Jewish worship. It was much more customary then. It seems foreign to us. But it shouldn’t. We take membership vows when we join the church. We take vows when a child is brought for covenant baptism. We take oaths when we are ordained to church office. Part of our problem is that we don’t take them nearly as seriously as we ought to. We ought to stand at attention and take deep breaths as we do any of these solemn acts. We are in God’s courtroom, taking an oath with raised arm, as He presides from His bench, from His throne. But what Mary and Zechariah sang about was different. This is not an oath Abraham swore to God. That would be understandable. But this was an oath God swore to Abraham! Recall Genesis 22, when God provided a substitute at the moment Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac. The knife was in his hand, his arm raised high. When it was in midair, God stopped him, and made an unparalleled oath. “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess that gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. That was the oath that Zechariah was singing about.
God has sworn to grant deliv’rnce
And restore us to our place:
Serving boldly in His presence,
Just and holy all our days.
You, my child will be His prophet,
Called and sent by God most High.
You must go before the Lord now
To prepare His way aright.
Stanza 4 records the sunrise that comes with the preaching of the gospel. Zechariah sang about a sunrise that would come from on high through the ministry of his newborn son, John the Baptist. As the last mouthpiece for God at the end of the Old Testament, Malachi predicted a new dawn. “The day is coming, says the LORD of hosts, when the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall” (Micah 4:2). Centuries earlier, God had promised such a spectacular dawn through the words of Isaiah. “They have no dawn …. They will look to the earth, but behold, distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish. And they will be thrust into thick darkness. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish …. He has made glorious the way of the sea …. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has the light shined” (Isaiah 8:20 – 9:2). To the Hebrew mind, the blackest darkness was 400 years of darkness when God sent no prophets. But Zechariah understood Gabriel’s message to mean that the long night was almost over. The sky on the horizon was already beginning to lighten. The first rays of the sun would soon be visible.
Bring the knowledge of salvation
To God’s people in their sin.
Preach that God is tender-hearted,
And by Him are sins forgiv’n.
His great mercy, like the sunrise,
Brightly shines in deepest night,
Guiding those who sit in darkness
To the way of peace and light.
© 2018 Trinity Psalter Hymnal Joint Venture
We see that Zechariah sang about the horn of salvation, the deliverance from enemies, the oath sworn to Abraham, and the sunrise from on high. Put them all together in one picture, and this is what you get (as John Piper described it).
Satan may be a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, but none of those who take refuge in Christ, the horn of our salvation, can he destroy. If I were an artist, I would paint for my home a special Christmas painting this year and hang it on the wall near the manger scene. It would be one of those big oil canvasses. The scene would be of a distant hill at dawn. The sun is about to rise behind the hill and the rays shoot up and out of the picture. And all alone, silhouetted on the hill in the center of the picture, very dark, is a magnificent wild ox standing with his back seven feet tall and the crown of his head nine feet tall. On both sides of his head there is a horn curving out and up six feet long and twelve inches thick at the base. He stands there sovereign and serene, facing the southern sky with his massive neck slightly cocked, and impaled at the end of his right horn hangs a huge lion, dead.
John Piper, December 14, 1980
The tune used for this setting of Zechariah’s song in the “Trinity Psalter Hymnal” is NETTLETON, an 1825 composition generally attributed to Asahel Nettleton (1783-1844). This is not certain, and many just assign it to an unknown composer or compiler. The tune is well known by its common association with Robert Robinson’s 1758 text, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”
Nettleton was an American theologian and Evangelist from Connecticut who was highly influential during the 19th century Second Great Awakening. The number of people converted to Christianity as a result of Nettleton’s ministry was estimated by one biographer at 30,000. He was born 1783 into a farming family in Connecticut. During his early years, he occasionally experienced religious impressions. One evening while standing alone in a field, he watched the sun go down. The approaching night reminded him that his own life would some day fade into the darkness of the world beyond. He suddenly realized that he, like all other people, would die. These impressions were only temporary.
In the autumn of 1800 Nettleton came under powerful conviction of sin. This conviction deepened as he began to read the writings and sermons of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), but yet he remained unconverted. It was in 1801 that a revival came to North Killingworth, and by December of that year, 32 new converts were added to the Church. By March, 1802 the congregation had been increased by ninety-one professions. Among them was Nettleton, who, becoming “exceedingly interested” in mission societies, soon had “a strong desire to become a missionary to the heathen.” He attended Yale College from 1805 until his graduation in 1809 and was ordained to the ministry in 1811.
Nettleton led many Congregationalist revivals in New England in the first decade of his ministry. Operating in contrast to many modern evangelists, he would often move into a community for several weeks or months and study the spiritual condition of the people before attempting any revival work. His preaching was said to be largely doctrinal but always practical. Nettleton often filled the pulpits of churches where there was no pastor present. This allowed him to engage in pastoral care for the people. This practice is typically absent in modern evangelists’ ministries. He also refused to preach in any community where he had not been invited. He witnessed early in ministry the problems that can result from a pastor who feels as though he is competing with an evangelist. He also would sometimes refuse to preach in a church if he believed the request was not sincere. He rejected the idea that he was the cause of any revival and shunned those who looked to him rather than God to bring revival to their community.
During these early days of his career, in 1813, he is believed to have written the music for the William Phillips’ 1922 gospel song eventually to be called “I’m a Soldier Bound for Glory,” a hymn found in the “Songbook of the Salvation Army.” Beginning in 1821, and frequently for the remainder of his life, health problems limited Nettleton’s travels and ministry. During one of those periods he compiled and edited “Village Hymns for Social Worship,” a popular hymnal in New England for many decades.
In 1826, he became alarmed by the “new measures” being employed by many Presbyterian ministers in western New York state, especially by Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875). Nettleton’s theology was distinctly Reformed. He believed that salvation was a work of God alone and therefore rejected Finney’s practice of giving altar calls during church services and revival meetings. The introduction of the altar call, Nettleton believed, exemplified a denial of the doctrines of original sin and total depravity.
He became Finney’s most vocal critic and was the driving force behind the New Lebanon Conference in July, 1827, in which he, Lyman Beecher, and other more conservative ministers attempted to persuade Finney and his allies to change their methods. The conference essentially ended in a standoff, and Finney’s approach to evangelism became increasingly popular among Presbyterians and Congregationalists, to Nettleton’s frustration.
Here is a link to the music to the NETTLETON hymn as Diane Bish plays her own arrangement.