The Divine Drama

I have long been fascinated with the characters involved in the story of Jesus' birth. Joseph, Anna, the shepherds. There really aren't many for such a stupendous event so each one is a treasure to uncover. Every Christmas I stare at them and listen for the Lord to bring one or more to the Light of my understanding. They somehow cast Light on that Sweet Savior in whose holy drama they played a part. They are the very natural elements of us all and by them we know humanity and ourselves. The Holy Spirit can take us right into the scenes of scripture and give us His view and knowledge. After all, He lived inside the story and then wrote it down by His own emphasis.       

Not for the first time, I am gazing at Zacharias.
"Read Your story to me, Lord."

The Last Priest and The New Priest
Zacharias

Luke introduces us to the first two players in this Holy Event, so long awaited by the heavens. Sovereignly set in place, both were descendants of the Levitical priesthood, Zacharias from Abijah and Elizabeth from Aaron.
       
God assessed Zacharias and Elizabeth by His Law and they were found righteous in His sight,

        "Walking blamelessly in all the commandments
        and requirements of the Lord. But they had no
        child, because Elizabeth was barren and
        they were both advanced in years."
        Luke 1:6, 7 NASB

Zacharias' time came to serve in the temple. He was assigned one week in his whole lifetime, in which he would journey to Jerusalem and serve in the temple. He had lived his whole life for this one time. At last he could perform Holy Temple duty! His priestly assignment was to burn incense, symbol of prayer.

The Altar of Incense stood before the veil into the Holy of Holies. Before that entrance, God had commanded that a special incense be kept burning at all times on an altar made of wood, covered in gold. There were three spices God ordered to be mixed in equal parts. And that incense was forbidden to be used apart from the Temple service. Anyone who took this mixture to himself would be "cut off from the people." (Exodus 30)

The priest had to mix the spices and tend the fire twice a day. The smoke from the spices made a sweet aroma and was a picture of the prayers of the priest and the people outside. In that place, before the altar of prayer was God's promise: "I will meet with you there."

So, after ritual baths and much preparation, Zacharias passed through the Outer Court, entered the Holy Place and began his work.

Suddenly an angel appeared at the right of the Altar of Incense. Zacharias was troubled "and fear gripped him." But notice he didn't bow. He never fell down before this terrifying presence.

This priest had kept the outward form but he had ceased to look to God Himself or to the realm of heaven. He was afraid but not struck down. He was "troubled" but not broken.

Humility was absent from Zacharias. Doubt is always the fruit of arrogance.

        The angel said, "Your petition has been heard
        and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,
        and you will give him the name John.
        You will have joy and gladness and
        many will rejoice at his birth."
        Luke 1:13-15 NASB

But the priest was in his august position and he expected no interruption of his religious duty. He was at last serving the Temple in form, and he had no welcome for God Himself.

"How will I know this for certain?"

"I require that you convince me."
You bow to me. You serve me. You account to me.

"I am old," his heart-belief was exposed:
"Though I have prayed for a son, I never believed I would have one. Viewing it from the human standpoint, it is impossible."

The question was doubt and doubt is always a 'No' to God and a displacement of Him. It is being steeped in the natural and believing only in the visible. The angelic messenger rose in holy indignation and introduced himself to this one who was not versed in the heavenlies . . . but should have been!

"I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news."

"You do not realize who you presume to examine. I come from the very throne of God with His message for you and you dare to question me."
Gabriel had not appeared since he visited Daniel. This angelic personage held a position so special before the throne, that his glorious authority made him the herald of Christ's birth as Son of Man. While Daniel fell on his face before the angel, Zacharias was merely afraid. The priest had lost his spiritual sensitivity. His service had replaced his Object.

"And behold you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time."

The great angel stood to the right of the incense altar, representing the demand that God be the Exclusive Object of prayer. God will meet us at the Altar of our burning desire for Him and the ground powder of our futile flesh, which cannot affect any result. And in the divine answer Gabriel brought to the priest, it was, as it always is,
a great purpose for . . . the Son of God.

       "For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; 
               and he will drink no wine or liquor and
                 he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while
         yet in his mother's womb.
                 And he will turn many of the sons of Israel
         back to the Lord their God.
                 It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him
              in the spirit and power of Elijah,
                  to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children,
                 and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous,
                        so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."
        Luke 1:15, 16

The incense of prayer cannot be used for personal use, for self-centered interests or else there will be the loss of fellowship. Prayers answered are for God's sake. I may ask for my concerns but ultimately the answer in the Tabernacle of Christ is going to be something for God. All is for God, Only for God. Even prayer is for His sake, His purpose, His increase, His will. Our focus on Him, for Him, about Him. not me.

"Nothing for me, all for Thee."

And so the divine response to Zacharias' human prayer was something, all for God.

Absolute. God's ownership is absolute, the completeness of His possessing. We never possess Him, He possesses us and we are swallowed in Him. Everything is God's and for God, even our children. But God's purpose becomes my personal fulfillment. The angel promised that Zacharias would experience his own "joy and gladness." All on God's ground inside His agenda.

That is the fire of the incense: the burning up of my selfishness. So very sweet to God! The mixed spices are the perfume of that personal burning, a fragrance created by crushing and released by fire, wafting to God for His pleasure . . . .  He is first, before all else, including me.

Faith is present when God is first. Zacharias' self-at-the-center made him live by doubt, because self-consciousness is always the death of spiritual inspiration. So his center was exposed by his unbelief. "You must satisfy me. This is about me, for me." The naked meaning of his question: "make me believe what God said AND that He said it!"

And so he was silenced by Gabriel's authority to defend God's character in God's Word. Zacharias' doubt would not be allowed expression. God's disfavor with empty service would be shown in public chastening. Unless Zacharias' testimony was from faith he would have no testimony. The reality is what God says. Human impossibility is irrelevant.

But this picture paints more than just God's dealing with one man. By the soon coming of the Person of God to earth, it constituted the end of a priesthood consisting only of form and tradition. The silencing of Zacharias was the shutting down of the Symbol for the welcome of the Real. It marked the end of the established priesthood. The entirely New was on the horizon.

The True Priest was coming and before Him, no human would now speak for God. The temporary priesthood was set aside, paled by the glory of the Son, the Eternal and Only Priest, through Whom God Himself would speak by LIVING!

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The priesthood was to radically change. John was the first mark of it. The trappings and symbols were obsolete. John wore no priestly robes, no immaculate white, and no blue of the heavens. No ephod, no turban. He was the commonest of men, preaching from no temple but the cathedral of the sky. His hearers were people of the open wilderness of mankind's barren need. John signified the new breed of priest - scandalous and strange, utterly outside the camp of religious custom. And such was the One also who John announced . . . a natural Man, unpretentious and not above the normal paths of low humanity but fully keeping the Holy Law without need of any priestly intermediary. And this is precisely what drove the unbelieving priests to madness.

Zacharias had represented the present breed of priests, a spiritual low of disconnected unreality, to which the system had sunk. And how God dealt with him signified His view of the whole.

The former priesthood was bounded, a set-apart clan. The new priesthood walked without barriers or ornaments, unseparated and accessible. The new Priest would come in such regal reality that He needed nothing to mark His position, support His role, or protect His Person. He was robed in Glory, adorned with Holiness and those who had spiritual eyes were dazzled by Him.

John was not merely the announcer of news. He was the forerunner of the very nature and ways of the New Priest. He was a picture, living and shocking, that would prepare the trampled people to see God outside the rigid leadership of an obsolete order.

Zacharias was a picture of the Old Testament priesthood, faithfully following the FORM without the OBJECT, which made the form meaningful.

In serving God, losing God.

Zacharias wanted to serve in the Temple but never expected God Himself. He had no personal revelation of the One he served. Zacharias had nothing to speak because he had no experience of God, and this is what was revealed in his unbelief. He did not know God Himself, only His law and His service.

"When the days of his priestly service were ended,
he went back home."

Gabriel had struck the priest with silence, probably deafness as well. There was nothing to do but "go home" and wait.

And so Zacharias was isolated to God alone for some nine formative, birthing months.

Copyright © 2005 Martha Kilpatrick