I have great compassion for Zechariah. He’s the father of John and it’s his prophecy we hear today. To understand this section known as the Benedictus, we have to take a running start at this to understand the context.

Zechariah was visited by the Angel Gabriel. He’s terrified and Gabriel does what every angel does and says, “Don’t be.” Which is like telling someone to calm down. I’m unsure if that ever works.

The angel effectively says, “You’re gonna have a baby and he’s not going to drink, he’ll have a weird diet, and announce the long awaited savior out of the house of David.” To which Zechariah replies, “I’m too old for this.” (Pastor Luke translation)

Gabriel must have been having a bad day what with being being sent out of heaven to talk to a bewildered virgin and her fiancé. The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”(actual NRSVUE translation).

Imagine Elizabeth’s pregnancy—a mute husband for nine months. As a priest, Zechariah is out of a job temporarily because most of a priest’s job is verbal. Then comes the birth, and on the eighth day, during the circumcision, the family assumes the child will be named Zechariah after his father. But Elizabeth insists, “No, his name is John.” They turn to Zechariah to make sure he’s on board with this Gentile name. He writes on a tablet, “His name is John.” Immediately, he regains his speech and is filled with the Holy Spirit, giving the prophecy we hear today.

This prophecy is one of hope and memory: God has remembered God’s people. It speaks of a Savior from the house of David, of being rescued from enemies, and of John preparing the way for the knowledge of salvation. It’s a powerful moment, but it doesn’t often make it to Christmas cards or Advent wreath ceremonies. There’s no carol about a high priest being struck mute, but maybe there should be.

Meghan spoke last Sunday about the truth of Jeremiah. How God would establish a new covenant and each person would “know the Lord… for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sins no more.” That day dawns at the birth of John.

The author of Luke is concerned with the context here of the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus as signs of God’s redemption. It doesn’t come to Rome, or the governor’s palace. It doesn’t come to King Herod. Instead, we have an elderly priest struck mute by a testy angel, and a woman with a geriatric pregnancy sheltering her cousin Mary who also has some scandal around her pregnancy.

This is how God works. God works through conquered people. God is incarnated in a baby born in occupation, in a tense time, who proclaims God’s love that leads to liberation. The truth of this matter dispels all sorts of things. It dispels the myth that God is angry, when in fact God is love and forgiveness and the beloved community is at hand. That God has appeared in Jesus to “guide our feet into the way of peace.” (vs 79)

But here’s the thing about peace. It’s divisive. Jesus knows this for the prince of peace himself suffered violence both verbally from the scribes and religious leaders and physically at his sham-trial and suffering on the cross.

Jesus seemed to know this as in Luke 12:51 he says he has not come to bring peace but division. I am always puzzled at that. I wonder why he would say such a thing. Jesus is always wiser than I am.

Have you ever noticed how calling for peace makes people violent? Those of you who lived through the Vietnam War Protests would know. How students were gassed. How police were called in on peaceful protests. How the veterans were treated upon their return home. Everything that happened at Kent State. All because the call for peace caused not peace, but a violent reaction.

There is a beloved UCC member who was a freedom rider and did a lunch counter sit in during the Civil Rights Era. These nonviolent protests got various condiments poured on his head. Later, his actions got police dogs sic’d on him and fire hoses turned on him. All in the name of peace. Yet the Klan could burn crosses and make threats just like the neo-nazis who marched in Wadsworth last year and in Columbus last week to no condiments being poured or thrown or police dogs or fire hoses. It’s maddening.

Here’s my last complaint: I once gave a sermon about how maybe we could spend less on bombs and more on education and infrastructure. This brought calls of me being a peace-nik communist and a few folks quit the church. Peace is a hard sell these days.

I don’t understand humans. Yet I have compassion. Well… sometimes. I often go between compassion, anger, and pity. Funny enough, there’s a translation issue in the gospels. This isn’t found in the Gospel of Luke but in Mark. Mark 6:34 has Jesus looking at the crowd and notices that the crowd are “like sheep without a shepherd.” He is moved with compassion/anger/pity. The Greek word splanchnizomai, meaning deep, gut-wrenching compassion. Sometimes translators use the word “pity” here. There’s also a textual variant that uses the word for anger as a few scribes tried to harmonize the text from elsewhere, specifically Mark 3.

Since this is about compassion, let’s stick with that. Compassion. A deep, gut-wrenching compassion. Have you ever read a book or watched a movie where you had a physical reaction? Often many of us do when watching horror movies, “Don’t go in there!” and we reach out as if we could stop the characters from going into the house that’s obviously haunted. Or when we see something on the news or in a documentary that moves us to tears. Or when we had the Watoto Concert here and 10 of you signed up to sponsor a child from that great organization.

Yet I hold onto compassion—gut-wrenching compassion, the kind Jesus felt for the crowds, like sheep without a shepherd. This compassion leaves us vulnerable. It’s not a weapon; it’s a way of being. It’s slow, often ineffective against hardened hearts, yet it’s the path we’re called to follow.

The prophets call us to prepare the way of the Lord, to level mountains and raise valleys, but those of us living comfortably on the mountaintops resist descending into the valleys to stand with others. Still, God’s compassion calls us. Christ, from the cross, calls us: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The Spirit calls us, inspiring unlikely people to sing blessings then and now.

You can tell who these compassionate ones are. They are the ones working to feed people. To clothe them. To heal people mentally, physically and spiritually. They speak truth to power. They cry easily, especially at injustice and the plight of others. They write embarrassingly large checks to nonprofits. They turn in their pledge on time (or by the end of the year). They want to leave the world and it’s people better than they found them.

These are the ones who follow the path of compassion and peace. And theirs is the Kingdom of God. Amen.