Day 20 Advent, 12/23/23: Christ came to set his people free (Luke 1:68)

2 more days to Christmas! Merry day before Christmas eve.

The Lord's hand was upon Zechariah and upon his son John the Baptist (Lk 1:66) and he sang a song of Christ coming to set his people free (Lk 1:68).

Bishop Barron asks, "How are you enslaved to sin? What do you have to do to become free?

Struggling through this most eventful and painful year, I go in and out of the 7 deadly sins: lust, sloth, gluttony (oh dear, Xmas!), wrath, envy, greed and pride. Impatience and hypocrisy fits in somewhere as well. David says, "I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me" (Ps 51:3). I can elaborate on each of the 7 or 9 sins. Only because Jesus took the punishment and penalty of my sins upon himself on the Cross, am I able to know God's deliverance and redemption by faith. What helps me is to always remember Scripture. Yesterday I remembered Luke 9:23, which is what Jesus says a disciple needs to do.

Lord, thank you for your mercy and grace to me to deliver me and your people from the power of sin and death. Help me to daily deny myself and take up my cross and follow you.

Saturday, December 23, 2023 Third Week of Advent Luke 1:57–66 Friends, today's Gospel tells the story of the birth and naming of John the Baptist. John's father Zechariah had been rendered speechless after his vision in the sanctuary, but we hear that "his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God." What follows this passage is the wonderful Canticle of Zechariah, which puts Jesus and John in the context of the great story of Israel. I would like to explore two lines of that great prayer today. The God of Israel, Zechariah prays, "has come to his people and set them free." This is what God always wants to do. He hates the fact that we've become enslaved by sin and fear, and accordingly, he wants to liberate us. The central event of the Old Testament is an event of liberation from slavery. We are, as sinners, enslaved to our pride, our envy, our anger, our appetites, our greed, our lust—all of which wrap us up and keep us from being the people that we want to be. Zechariah continues: "He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David." God will effect this liberation through the instrumentation of a mighty Savior. This should be read against the background of Israel's long history of military struggle against its enemies. A great warrior has come, and he is from the house of Israel's greatest soldier, David. God had promised that he would put a descendant of David on the throne of Israel for all eternity, and Zechariah is prophesying that this will take place.