Transcript
Our passage actually begins in verse 57. But for the sake of some review and background, let’s read three earlier verses in Luke chapter 1, beginning with verse 5.
There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.
Now verse 57, which begins our passage for today:
Now Elizabeth’s full time came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth a son. When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her.
Now it was so on the eighth day that they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him by the name of his father, Zacharias. But his mother answered and said, “No, he shall be called John.”
But they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.” So they made signs to his father, what he would have him called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, saying, “His name is John.”
And they all marveled. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, praising God. Then fear came on all who dwelt around them. And all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all those who heard them kept them in their hearts, saying, “What kind of child will this be?” And the hand of the Lord was with him.
They rode the same school bus dozens of times. Their paths crossed in the aisles of their local grocery store. At one time they only lived a block apart. And yet neither one of them realized that they were looking for each other. And neither one of them knew that they were actually mother and daughter.
You see, about twenty years ago Shirley Vaughan Flournoy gave up her little baby daughter Cherilyn to adoption. But shortly after she did so, she regretted it. And she spent years searching for her daughter unsuccessfully. Many times the thoughts crowded in on her. Where is she? How is she? What is she doing?
Meanwhile her daughter Cherilyn was equally eager to locate her true mother. At the age of eleven she called everybody by the name of Vaughn that was listed in the Kansas City, Kansas telephone directory. Not realizing that her mother’s name had been changed to Flournoy.
Early in 1985 Cherilyn contacted an adoption worker in Kansas City. And in August of that year the adoption worker located her mother living right here in the city of Dallas. On the very day that she found this out, Cherilyn took the thirteen-hour bus drive from Kansas City to Dallas. And she was joyfully reunited with her mother.
Sherilyn moved into a two-bedroom apartment with her mother and her fourteen-year-old sister out in Oak Cliff. As you can imagine, mother and daughter had a lot to talk about. And they talked and talked and talked. And sometimes they almost forgot to go to bed.
And it was during these conversations that they made some surprising discoveries. Not only did mother and daughter have similar facial features. And not only did they wear their hair alike and have almost the same taste in clothing. But they found out that from 1976 to 1979 they had lived only four blocks apart. And that one year they had only lived a block apart.
They discovered that the mother had worked as a substitute school bus driver in the Kansas City area. And that one of her regular passengers was her daughter for a period of time. The mother actually delivered newspapers to the very house where her daughter was living. And Cherilyn discovered that two of the children with whom she played in the middle school band were actually her half-brother and her aunt.
Needless to say, mother and daughter were having a ball. They admitted that they quibbled about some of the things that mothers and daughters always quibble about. Things like housekeeping and men and dating. But after a month together the thrill had still not worn off.
And Shirley Flournoy was quoted as saying, “I always prayed and hoped that one day she would have enough initiative to strike out and look for me.” One day she did. And Sherilyn was quoted as saying, “I feel like I’ve got a new beginning, a new life now. I think things will look up for me now. I’m ready to relax and settle down and enjoy my job.”
A photograph that appeared in the Dallas Morning News just about exactly a year ago showed Shirley and Sherilyn with their faces right together. And one thing was completely obvious. These two women were family. These two women were mother and daughter.
Now that’s a charming story, don’t you agree? But it is also an effective reminder that some of the strongest ties that exist on the face of the earth are the ties that exist between parents and children and between children and parents. Someone has said, “Blood is thicker than water.” They were absolutely right.
And it really probably is not a surprise that two of the most popular shows on television today are programs that are focused basically on happy families. And one of the shows, of course, is The Bill Cosby Show. And the other show is actually entitled Family Ties.
Family ties. And that’s what I would like to talk to you about this morning. Family ties. Did you know that the ties that bind your family together are not only crucial for the success of your home? But they can have a profound effect on the people who live all around you. They can have a profound effect on the people who live all around you.
And so the question that I want to let you think about this morning, very seriously, is this. What do the neighbors see? That’s an important question. What do the neighbors see?
Now I sort of suspect that just about everybody in this audience has some really great memories about neighbors who have lived next to you over the years. And I will never forget the neighborhood around South Sixth Street where I lived over thirty-five years ago. Where my family lived while I was finishing grade school and completing my high school education.
To our left lived an elderly couple named the Cherrys. And we treated them real nice because they were our landlords. And to our right lived a family called the Stecks. And they had only one child, a daughter named Margarita. She was very nice.
And I hate to say this, folks. She was sort of homely. And down the block a couple of doors lived the McConaugheys. And Mr. McConaughey worked with my dad at the army depot. And Doris was in my class at school and went through the rest of grade school and high school with me.
And I have to say this. She got prettier and prettier. But I was a slow mover even in those days. And a good-looking guy in our school beat me to the punch. And he married her.
And across the street from us lived the Eichelbergers. They were a kind of rough-hewn family. And their reputation was established one day when Mr. Eichelberger chased somebody off his front porch with a baseball bat.
And down the street on the other corner lived the Schockies. And they had a teenage boy named Gary who was one of these guys that was always skating the thin edge between being a pretty nice guy and becoming an out-and-out thug.
And around the corner on our side of the street lived the Orbals. And Franklin Orbal was one of our best buddies in the neighborhood. And everybody in every neighborhood needs a Franklin Orbal. He was the plump, pudgy, good-natured guy whose parents were as nice as the day is long.
And if you had asked any of these people who Zane Hodges was, they might have said, “He’s the bookworm that lives up the street who is skinny as a rail and he wears gold-rimmed glasses that look like they belong with a man sixty years of age.”
But that’s the neighbors, aren’t they great? And I’ve always said, what would a neighborhood be without neighbors?
And maybe I will surprise you this morning by telling you this. That the passage of scripture that we have read today is basically about the neighbors. It’s basically about the neighbors.
Now maybe you thought it was about John the Baptist or about his parents Zacharias and Elizabeth. And of course there is a sense in which that is true. Because this family stands at the very center of the story.
But basically the key to this story is to be found in the relatives and in the neighbors of this family. Or to put it much more simply, the key to this story is what the neighbors saw. What the neighbors saw.
Now I don’t need to tell you, do I, how a neighborhood works? Every self-respecting neighborhood has a neighborhood grapevine. And sometimes news travels on a neighborhood grapevine almost as fast as the speed of light.
And this morning I want you to sort of listen in with me to a conversation between two neighbors of the family of John the Baptist. We are going to pretend that their names are Sarah and Salome. And their imaginary conversation goes something like this.
Sarah drops in on Salome one morning. And she says, “Salome, you will not believe the news that I have for you today.” And Salome replies, “Uh, Sarah, don’t keep me dangling. What is your news?”
“Well, Salome, do you know that old lady named Elizabeth who is married to the priest?” “Yes, I know her. What about her?”
“Salome, that woman is pregnant. I swear to you that woman is pregnant.” Salome does a double take. And she says, “Uh, Sarah, it can’t be. Elizabeth is sixty years old if she’s a day. And if you want my personal opinion she’s pushing sixty-five. There’s no way that woman could be pregnant.”
“That’s what I thought too,” says Sarah. “But I saw her. She kept herself out of sight for five months. And this is the sixth month of her pregnancy. And all you need to do is to look at her and you know she’s pregnant.”
“And that isn’t all. There’s something else too.” “Well, okay, Sarah. What is it? What else is there?”
“You know her husband, that old man the priest Zacharias? He has lost his voice. He cannot speak a single word.” “Ah-ha,” Sarah says. “Salome, it sort of serves him right. I always did say that old man talked too much. But how did that happen?”
“Well, they say it happened the last time he was down in Jerusalem to do his duties in the temple. And then one day he had to go into the temple to burn incense. And he was perfectly all right when he went in. But when he came out he couldn’t say a word. And everybody figures that he had some kind of a vision. But of course he can’t tell us about the vision because he isn’t able to talk.”
Sarah says, “Salome, I’ll hand it to you. If your news is right this is the biggest thing that has happened in our village since the drought five years ago. And I only hope one thing, Sarah. I only hope everything goes perfectly all right with Elizabeth. Because you know it’s bound to be tough having your first child at the age of sixty-five.”
Now folks, I admit it. I made that conversation up. You all knew that. But I am willing to bet, I am willing to bet, that in the last four months of the pregnancy of Elizabeth there were at least a dozen conversations very much like that.
And I have to feel that over that community there was a shadow of concern for this elderly woman who was pregnant for the very first time in her life. Something might happen to that pregnancy. And because this was before the days of hospitals and before the days of pediatricians, even if Elizabeth went her full term something could still happen to her or to the child or to both of them during the labor pains of childbirth.
And can’t you imagine how the neighborhood grapevine electrified that community when it was able to report that not only had Elizabeth passed safely through the experience of childbirth but that she also had given birth to a beautiful bouncing baby boy?
And above all things the people in that community were struck by the amazing mercy of God to this elderly woman to whom He had given a child in her old age. And the Bible tells us that when her relatives and when her neighbors heard that the Lord had magnified His mercy to her, they rejoiced with her. They rejoiced with her.
Now listen to me very carefully. If you live long enough in one neighborhood and if you have a Christian home where God is feared and respected, sooner or later God will magnify His mercy in your home. And your neighbors will see it.
You see, if God gives us a child at all, no matter what age that child may come to us, that is a token of His mercy. Because the Bible says children are an heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is His reward.
But every parent in this audience knows this. That in the process of raising children there are all sorts of problems. There are trials and there are troubles and there are heartaches and there are moments of anxiety and concern. And all of these experiences are opportunities for God to magnify His mercy in our home so that our neighbors can see it.
And don’t you see what is happening here? Because of God’s amazing kindness to an old lady and an old man who loved Him and feared Him, a whole network of family members and the neighborhood saw the magnifying of the mercy of God. They saw what God could do in a household that feared Him.
But then came the second surprise. Then came the second surprise. You know, I’m willing to bet that when John, the infant John the Baptist, was circumcised eight days after he was born, that more people attended that circumcision than had ever attended a circumcision before in that tiny little village in the Judean hills.
I mean, this is something that you would want to tell your children and grandchildren about. “Kiddos, I actually saw the circumcision of a little baby boy whose parents were in their sixties. I was there. I saw it myself.”
And I doubt very much if anybody in that community wanted to miss this important religious and social event. And I have to feel that the neighbors and the relatives turned out in force.
But believe me, they could never have guessed what was going to happen next. You see, everybody who came to that circumcision sort of figured that this little baby would be named Zacharias after his father. And they had already begun to call him that. “Zacharias, why little Zack, you are one cute little pumpkin. Here’s Zacky boy. Let your aunt Maggie hold you.”
And while they were doing this, all of a sudden Elizabeth interrupted. And I’m giving you a free translation of Elizabeth’s words. When Elizabeth says, “Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it. That little baby boy of mine is not named Zacharias. He is going to be called John. John. John.”
“Elizabeth, you can’t be serious. And there isn’t anybody on either side of your family named John. You can’t call this kid John.”
And after a few minutes they were getting a little exasperated with this stubborn old lady who had made this off-the-wall suggestion. So they turned to the head of the house, probably expecting that he would veto his wife’s suggestion. And they made motions to Zacharias to indicate to him that they would like to know what he wanted to call the baby.
Surely he wants to call his little baby Zacharias after himself. Zacharias motions for a writing tablet. They hand him a wax writing tablet. And with a pen or a stylus he writes some words in the wax. And these words are so definite that they settle the issue once and for all. Because Zacharias writes, “His name is John. His name is John.”
And the Bible says they all marveled. They all marveled. But they really didn’t need to marvel. And even if they didn’t understand it right now, they were going to understand it, I am sure, before they left the house that day.
You see, the angel Gabriel had told Zacharias that his son would have a special place in the plans and purposes of God. This child was to be the forerunner of Jesus Christ. And his name was going to be John.
And what Zacharias and Elizabeth were doing was something that they had been trying to do through many years of their life. They were obeying the word of God. They were obeying the word of God.
And in this splendid moment in their lives, husband and wife, father and mother, are united by the strongest ties that can ever bind parents together. They are deeply committed to the will of God for their child. They were profoundly committed to the will of God for their little baby boy.
Tell me this morning, Christian parent, let’s be honest for a few minutes, shall we? What do you really want for your children? Would you be satisfied for your children to grow up and have a nice prosperous life? Would you be satisfied if they had a nice home and a happy family?
Or are you and your partner in marriage concerned above all other things that God’s plan, God’s purpose, and God’s will for your children should be fulfilled?
Just this past July at the Christian Booksellers Convention in Washington, D.C., one afternoon a middle-aged couple walked into the Regency Viva booth and they sat down on our sofa. Turned out that they ran a bookstore somewhere in the Atlanta region, as I recall. And they bought some of our books to sell in their store.
And after we had finished our business together we began to chat. And these parents were telling me that they had a grown daughter who was married to a graduate of Dallas Seminary. And that the graduate of Dallas Seminary was committed to going over to Japan to serve the Lord as a Christian missionary.
And I think that I said something about Japan being a long way from Atlanta. And this is the answer that the mother gave me. She said yes, she knew that Japan was a long way away. And of course they could wish that their children would be closer to home.
But she said, “One time I was talking to a woman back home who said this to me. The woman said to me, ‘I would a whole lot rather have my children a long way away living for God than near to home living in sin.’”
And then the woman who was talking to me said this. She said, “Of course my husband and I wish that we could see our daughter and her family more than we will be able to see her. But we are pleased that she will be serving God in Japan.”
And there was something about the look on her face when she said this and something about her words that sort of ran a thrill across my heart. Here were two parents whose primary desire for their daughter was the will of God.
You want to talk about family ties this morning? You want to talk about them? Here’s the strongest family tie there is. A husband and a wife, a father and a mother, fully yielded to the will of God for themselves first and for their children.
And suddenly it happened. Suddenly it happened. I mean, there was that wax tablet and on it were the words that expressed Zacharias’s obedience. “His name is John.”
And suddenly Zacharias didn’t need a wax tablet anymore. Suddenly he didn’t need to write notes to communicate. And the Bible says that immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue was loosed, and he spake, praising God. He spake, praising God.
And when I read this story I feel like saying to Zacharias, “Old man, you have come a long way. Old man, you have come a long way since that day in the temple when you couldn’t believe the words of the angel. When you thought that you and your wife were too old to have a son.”
And now nine months later you are doing what you ought to have been doing at the beginning. You are praising God before your family, your relatives, and your neighbors.
Husbands, fathers, listen to me. There are too many Christian homes all across the country where the husband is the silent partner in religion. Where the husband is the silent partner in religion.
And if you were born again by faith in Jesus Christ you are not only the head of your household. You are their leader in praising and worshiping God.
Husband, father, let’s be honest. When was the last time that you gathered your family together and led them in a prayer of praise and thanksgiving because of the blessings that God had bestowed upon your home? When was the last time you did it?
Hear me. That’s not your wife’s job. That’s not your children’s job. That’s your job.
A number of years ago on one of the highways of this nation there was a tragic automobile accident. And it claimed the lives of four young people who were riding in the same car. It was evident that liquor was responsible for this tragedy. And they found broken liquor bottles in the midst of the debris and among the mangled bodies of the four young victims.
And the father of one of the girls who was killed was beside himself with frenzy and anguish at the untimely death of his beautiful daughter. And with a loud voice he swore that if he could find out who had given these young people their liquor he would kill him. He would kill him.
Later on at his home he went to the cupboard where he kept his favorite beverages. And he opened the cupboard. And he found a note written in the handwriting of the daughter who had died. And the note said this: “Dad, we are taking along some of your good liquor. I know you won’t mind.”
Fathers, husbands, that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? What do your kids find in your home? Do they find all your bad habits that you’re not getting the help of God to conquer? Do they find your indifference to the word of God? Do they find the empty beer cans that you guzzle while you watch the Cowboys on Saturday afternoon?
Or do your children find a father who is overflowing with the praise and worship of God? And believe me, if that’s what your kids see in you, your neighbors will see it too.
And is it any wonder that the Bible tells us that after these events the fear of God fell on all of those who lived around Zacharias and Elizabeth? On all of their neighbors. And word of these things spread throughout the hill country of Judea.
And everybody who heard about it knew that God was at work in that home. And they were asking the question, “What kind of a man will this little baby grow up to be?”
Listen. Happy, blessed is the home where God is working. Where God is working. And where the neighbors can see it.
There is a delightful little Mexican legend about a farmer named Isidro. And according to this legend one day Isidro was farming on his little plot of ground. And an angel came to him. And the angel said, “Isidro, the Lord wants to see you. Come with me.”
But Isidro was busy. And he refused to go. The angel came back. And the angel said, “Isidro, unless you come with me the Lord will send wind and drought and wither your corn.”
Now Isidro had fought the wind before. And he knew that drought could be relieved by the water from the river. And so he refused to go.
Two more times the angel came to Isidro. And two more times Isidro refused. Finally the angel came and said, “Isidro, if you don’t come with me the Lord will send you a bad neighbor.”
And Isidro stopped right in the middle of the row of corn he was working on. And he looked at the angel. And he said, “I’ll come with you now. I can stand anything but that.”
And dear, dear Christian friends, God forbid that we should be bad neighbors to our neighbors. But the only way to be a good neighbor is to have a home that is filled with the obedience and worship of God. A home where the mercy of God is magnified before men.
And let’s face it, shall we? There are lots of your relatives and there are lots of your friends who have never seen a home like that. They have never seen it. And maybe they never will. Maybe they never will unless the home in which they see it is yours.
Shall we pray?
Father, by your mercy and by your grace and by your enablement make each family in this audience this morning a good neighbor to their neighbors for your glory. And we ask it in Christ’s name. Amen.