Since March 6 of this year—which is to say, Ash Wednesday—I’ve been committed to a particular prayer practice, Morning Prayer using the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Common Worship (Daily Prayer edition). Just like anyone, under stress, or extreme busyness, I can miss a day here and there. So, it is not by any means a perfect prayer practice. But it is the steadiest and the most deeply enriching one I’ve had in years.
So, I get to pray the words I’ve just read to you—in fact, I get to sing them—every single day. People have been praying or singing the Canticle of Zechariah as a part of Morning Prayer since the sixth century, when it was added by an obscure saint in Gaul (now, better known as France). It’s called “The Benedictus,” from the very first words of the Latin translation: Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel.”
What I have wondered is, Why? Why these words, why this particular song, and why every morning? The answer seems to be: this passage captures the very essence of the gospel.
Here’s the context: Several months before the angel Gabriel appears to either Mary or Joseph, he stops by the Temple in Jerusalem, for a visitation with one of its priests, Zechariah. Interrupting Zechariah in a once-in-a-lifetime act of service, the angel announces that the priest’s wife Elizabeth will give birth a child. This is very surprising news, as Elizabeth is well past the age of menopause. Nonetheless, this miraculous pregnancy will happen, but to chasten the skeptical priest, the angel sentences him to a period of silence, until the baby is born and named. Zechariah is struck silent, and Elizabeth conceives.
The Benedictus is the fruit of a nine-month gestation of awe and wonder. The baby—who, by the way, will be John the Baptist!—does indeed show up as foretold. Zechariah’s voice is restored, and he immediately breaks into this ecstatic song of praise.
Here, in the translation (1) from my prayer book:
Blessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel,
for you have come to your people and set them free
You have raised up for us a mighty savior,
born of the house of your servant David.
Through your holy prophets you promised of old
To save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us,
To show mercy to our forebears, and to remember your holy covenant… ~Luke 1:68-72
Of course, Zechariah is delighted – he’s overjoyed!—to have a baby with his wife after so many years of hoping for one. But the roots of this joy are even deeper than that, planted, as he sings, in the words of prophets like Jeremiah.
The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
and he shall reign as king and deal wisely,
and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ~ Jeremiah 23:5
And here he comes! Zechariah has the word of an angel, as well as wriggling, swaddled proof in the form of his own miraculously born child. Another child is coming: the One who will be born of the house of God’s servant David, a holy and righteous king.
I think it’s hard for Americans to get our heads around the notion of kings… our government was formed, after all, in an act of rejection of an unjust and unrighteous king, so we have a kind of built-in suspicion about monarchs in general. All monarchs, even the ones we may deeply admire, end up disappointing their people—or worse.
Jeremiah describes such kings with angry words:
Woe to the shepherds
who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord.
Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel,
concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people:
It is you who have scattered my flock,
and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them.
So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. ~ Jeremiah 23:1-2
For those of you not caught up with the latest season of “The Crown,” I’m about to spoil the 3rd episode, so you may want to plug your ears. On a grey day in October 1966, following days of heavy rain, a mountain of waste from a coal mine began to destabilize, and quickly collapsed and buried part of a small Welsh town called Aberfan. There was an elementary school buried under that mountain of rubble. 116 children and 28 adults were killed. The disaster caused a heartbroken fury to erupt among the town’s residents, who had been complaining to the national government about the danger of the refuse pile for years.
The Prime Minister left London to visit Aberfan the very same day as the accident. When he arrived the desperate townspeople were still trying to pull their children from the rubble, a terrible, unforgettable sight. Deeply shaken, he called Queen Elizabeth later that same day, trying to persuade her that she ought to pay a visit to this community, so engulfed in grief.
In the TV series, the Queen has a very reasonable, even compassionate reason for refusing to go. “The Crown does not go to disaster sites,” she says. “The Crown goes to memorials; the presence of the Sovereign at a disaster would cause chaos, and interfere with efforts at rescue and recovery.”
It took a full 8 days following the disaster for the Queen to go to her grieving people. For many, her visit was too little too late. And though the TV series certainly tells Elizabeth’s story sympathetically, throughout the series we witness, over and over again, how her conviction about what is proper for “the Crown” to do actually gets in the way of her being a truly good Queen.
The child Zechariah sings about will be a different kind of Sovereign. This Sovereign will not favor to power or position or even image to the detriment of his people. In fact, we can skip to the last chapters of his story and watch as this king offers his own life for the people in his care, undergoes humiliation and execution at the hands of the state; even, goes to his grave. This king’s care for his people has no limits, and knows no bounds.
I’ve been using a word over and over that is a kind of Presbyterian/ Reformed catchword: “Sovereign.” A traditional understanding of this word is that God is always in control—which would go nicely with a notion of Jesus Christ as king. But the story of Jesus is not of one who chooses to exercise control, but one who yields to events, even yields to death. (See Luke’s account of Jesus weeping and praying in the garden, as his arrest and death come nearer. If he has an option to use the power of God to change the situation, he does not exercise it.)
The problem with the traditional idea of God “always in control,” is that it implies God is fine with a mountain of coal refuse burying children, even that God made it happen. Any reasonable reading of scripture assures us, God is not fine with such a tragedy. So, if God exercises sovereignty, it may be that it doesn’t look like we expect it to look.
Jesus practices (and through Jesus, God practices) something theologians call “relational sovereignty.” (2) This shows God to be truly personal, and loving, and non-manipulative. God’s creatures—including humans—affect God. God still has an overarching, divine purpose and plan, but God does not act in ways opposed to God’s own commands to us—which Jesus (and Deuteronomy) sum up as: love. God is sovereign over God’s own sovereignty, choosing how to exercise it, responsive, creative. God’s power is always used in the context of God’s love for us, God’s relationship with us, God’s compassion for us.
In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. ~Luke 1:76-79
And there it is: the heart of the Gospel, and the true nature of Christ the king: Christ shows, in every possible way, the bottomless depths of the compassion of God. That’s why Zechariah sings this joyful, overwhelmed song of Thanksgiving—for something that hasn’t even happened yet. The Benedictus is a hymn of thanks for the One yet to be born.
For the One who comes to set his people free: Thanks be to God.
For the One raised up for us as a mighty Savior. Thanks be to God.
For the One who fulfills the words of the holy prophets: Thanks be to God.
For the One who remembers God’s holy and ancient covenant people: Thanks be to God.
For the One filled with tender compassion: Thanks be to God.
For the One who is the dawn breaking on those dwelling in darkness: Thanks be to God.
For Christ the King, the Prince of Peace: Thanks be to God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
~~~
(1) Psalms and some canticles in the PCUSA Book of Common Worship are from the expansive/ inclusive language Psalter of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
(2) Roger E. Olson, “A Relational View of God’s Sovereignty,” Patheos blogs,
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2019/11/a-relational-view-of-gods-sovereignty/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&utm_content=57