The sun almost seems to pop up at our cabin in Arizona. Especially in the darker months of the year, the canyon walls on either side of us mean that the sun appears late and disappears early, even later and earlier than happens in more open places near there in the winter. So when the light finally peeks over the rim into the dark space below, it feels quite dazzling.
I imagine there are canyons and vistas a little like Arizona in the Holy Land, although I’ve never been to the latter to confirm it. So I picture Zechariah imagining one of those sudden and brilliant sunrises as he cradles his newborn son John, who is become “John the Baptist,” and says, in the second-to-last verse of a song of praise in Luke 1:68-79, “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us.”
Though he may not have realized it clearly, Zechariah was prophesying the even more miraculous birth that was to follow his own son’s miraculous birth. John had been born to an old man and woman past child-bearing years. Jesus would be born to a virgin who had never been with a man.
The dawn breaks suddenly in Zechariah’s song and so it seemed to the people of Israel when Jesus came into the world. Indeed, He seems to arrive quite unexpectedly and sweepingly on the pages of history, with the good news about Him spreading quickly around the western world within a few decades.
Yet as Zechariah makes clear in the earlier portion of his song, that sudden dawn had long been anticipated and promised. By sending Jesus, God was keeping a covenant begun long ago with those who put their faith in Him.
Our message from Zechariah’s song is at least the same sort of promise that, no matter how dark the night around us, no matter how high the walls which seems to shut us in, the light will rise above it all and shine on us. This Advent, as we perhaps long more than usual for light in our poor dark world, let us be sure that the covenant is still being kept, that the dawn from on high has broken already and will break yet again. Let us live in His light while looking for the brighter light to come.