Soon enough we are shaken from such reverie.  Present demands and responsibilities call.  Immediate pleasures and amusements apply for time and attention.

It doesn't seem sensible to live in the past.  Sure, we can visit there once in awhile, but to plunk down in the past is different.  Most psychologists probably agree that being realistic about the present and positive about the future is much more emotionally healthy than to dwell on the past.

That makes sense.  No one can turn back the clock.  So it would seem that nostalgia, though adding flavor to Christmas, is a little "seasoning" which goes a long way.  We don't want to overdo it.

Or do we?

It strikes me how much Zechariah finds refuge in the past.  And I don't mean in wistful or sentimental ways. Rather, the past is a sanctuary for him, a place of real safety.  Zechariah retreats to the past.  He clings to it, draws strength from it, and it is where He loves to be.  How so?

Countless times Christians have sung the canticle of Luke 1:68-79, Zechariah's song.  The church calls it the "Benedictus" from the opening Latin words, "Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel" (Blessed be the Lord God of Israel).  We reach back repeatedly into Scripture for the language of our worship.  We reach back and embrace this song of thanksgiving uttered by Zechariah at the birth of John the Baptist.  But with Zechariah we go even further.

Back hundreds of years to the holy prophets; back a thousand years to the house of David; back two thousand years to father Abraham we find a voice and a reason to use it. 

Zechariah discovered that without the past He had nothing to say.  Without roots in the mercy of God promised to our fathers, the present made no sense.  Think about it.

As we know, Zechariah was made dumb (speechless) for nine months during Elizabeth's pregnancy.  We ordinarily focus on his incapacity to speak as God just making Zechariah have lockjaw because he didn't believe the angel.  But Zechariah's silence was more than a physical disability.  Equally significant is that Zechariah had NOTHING TO SAY.

Any person lacking faith in the Word of God lacks the faculty to say anything worthwhile.  Without the prior fluency of God speaking His Promises and swearing out His Oath to remember His holy covenant, Israel would be mute. 

Say what one will, without the Gospel, a man has nothing whatever to say worth listening to.

Even if we fill the world with man's words, none of them communicate a blessed thing if they don't fundamentally issue from the Word of Christ and are spoken from faith in that Word.

Zechariah's prior failing was that he dismissed the past for the present.  Even trying to be realistic and unassuming, he intended to be helpful to the angel.  He thought it was worth mentioning that he and Elizabeth were advanced in years.  He thought it was worthwhile to tell the Lord that a couple of dried up old-timers are poor candidates for parenthood.  He thought it would be helpful to say something more reasonable than God's Word. 

But in the face of God's pronouncements, the only thing we have worth saying is Amen.

And this is what Zechariah learned after all and declared in the Benedictus. 

In the past, God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets that we should be saved from our enemies.  Zechariah now retreated to those promises and fiercely clung to them.

In the past, God raised a horn of salvation in the house of David.  Zechariah now banks his every hope on this pledge God made.

In the past, God swore an oath to Abraham to bless all people on earth with holiness and righteousness by The Seed of Abraham who will arise, and all the nations will be blessed in Him.  Zechariah found his haven in God's credible Word, and this is where he would stay.  

From the past, from the precedent of God's promises, Zechariah now had something important to say; not his own nonsense or yada, yada, yada, but the Truth which is nothing less than the ancient. unchanging Word of God.  The promise was of Christ.  The promise was Christ.  And God's promises still stand.

Dwell on that.