Advent Day 16

". . . to show the mercy promised to our fathers

and to remember his holy covenant,

the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us

that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,

might serve him without fear,

in holiness and righteousness before him all our days."

~Luke 1:72-75

God has promised mercy since the beginning. Mankind's Savior was predicted in the curse over the serpent and has been reiterated throughout Israel's history. God's love, deliverance, grace, and forgiveness cycles throughout the Old Testament. Once again, we are told that God remembers His covenant. The covenant made generations ago with Israel's forefathers holds just as steady in the time of Zechariah as it did in the time of Abraham. No matter how often God's people have forgotten it; God never has. Their position to Him will never change because He remembers. No matter how often the Israelites have failed to uphold it, the covenant rests purely on God's shoulders. It has outlived person after person, and now their means of grace, the person substituted by every sacrificial lamb, is come. God will not break His promise; it is being fulfilled. And all the people of Israel have to do is receive it.

And in doing so, we are given the privilege of serving God Himself. We are given the heart that longs for service. We are freed from the striving of service. We have nothing to earn and everything to enjoy. We do not serve God as prisoners of sin, fearing His condemnation, but as children of the Most High, forgiven and redeemed by the cross. Though we are unworthy, we become participants in God's restorative work.

We are given the means to walk as holy and righteous before Him. We are given the desire to make different choices, to be transformed, and to seek holiness. We are given the relationship of being before Him in a more intimate way. And we are given the status of Jesus's perfect life in the presence of our Father.