NATIVITY By Mike Herron

minister to God in worship and prayer and be the Lord’s messenger to His people. 12 Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him. 13 But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John. Zechariah’s fearful response echoes the reaction of the prophet Daniel centuries before: ‘Don’t be afraid, Daniel…your request has been heard in heaven.’ (Dan 10:12) God was answering Zechariah’s prayer to have a son in the autumn of his years. The Lord himself named him John, meaning ‘God is gracious.’ This was more than the birth of a child; it was the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s purpose for the nation of Israel. The angel actually speaks in a musical manner: ‘The message of the angel takes on a metrical form when turned into Hebrew and it is a prose poem in Greek. Luke has preserved the earliest Christian hymns in their oldest sources.’ 6 14 You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. Great ‘joy and gladness’ is the Greek agalliasis- a word for extreme exultation found only in the New Testament. This kind of joy is not known outside the realm of the gospel. The personal joy of the parents is spread to the many who will be glad for John’s illuminating ministry to the entire nation. Zechariah would most likely be too old to see the fulfillment of the prediction that someday, in the sight of God, his little son would be the greatest of all the prophets. John, who was both a New Testament prophet and a priest of the Old Testament era; was given the task of announcing the end of the priesthood of Aaron and ushering in the new era of grace under Jesus the Messiah.