Zechariah breaks his silence with praise for redemption. As a consequence of doubt, God had punished him with muteness for the nine months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Now, after confirming the name of his son is John, his voice returned with praise for God and a Holy Spirit inspired prophecy.
Luke 1: 68 Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people.[1] Zechariah is so sure that God is working that he used verbs in the past tense. We know that God did visit the earth in the form of Jesus. Jesus was both God and human and came not only to visit but to redeem all of humanity.
Redemption
As a child, my mother collected Green Stamps from the grocery store. Each time we went, we received stamps in proportion to what we spent. We saved these, and when we had enough, we could turn them into the redemption center to receive products from their catalog. I experienced what it meant to redeem in this simple way.
Redeem means to recover ownership of by paying a specified sum or to buy back.[2] Biblically, it can also mean a rescue. God had given Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden, but they lost it due to their sin. Evil now permeated God’s good creation. Yet God had a plan, but it would be costly.
We humans could not pay the blood price to redeem ourselves from sin, so God did it Himself. He prophesied that He would send someone to free us from the prison of sin. Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. [3] Jesus applied these words to Himself as He preached in His hometown of Nazareth (Luke 4:21).
The Ultimate Rescue Mission
God planned the ultimate rescue mission by sending His Son to be our Redeemer. Jesus gave His life so we might live. 1 Peter 1:18 For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19 It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20 God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake.[4] We often think of gifts during the Christmas season. The biggest gift we will ever receive is the gift of Jesus as our Savior. God has also given us the gift of song to give voice to praise our Lord for the enormous gift of a Savior. Through familiar Christmas carols, we can give praise for redemption, the gift that Jesus gives to all believers. To learn more, listen here:
https://podpoint.com/light-of-christ-church-podcast/the-gift-of-song
[1,3,4] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation. Tyndale House Publishers.
[2] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition