December 3, the long-awaited visitation.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised

up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David as he spoke by the mouth of his

holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who

hate us, Luke 168 to 71. Notice two remarkable things from these words of Zechariah,

Elizabeth's husband, in Luke 1. First, nine months earlier, Zechariah could not believe his wife

would have a child. Now, filled with the Holy Spirit, he is so confident of God's redeeming work

in the coming Messiah that he puts it in the past tense. He has visited and redeemed his people.

For the mind of faith, a promised act of God is as good as done. Zechariah has learned to take

God at his word and so has a remarkable assurance. God has visited and redeemed, Luke 168.

Second, the coming of Jesus the Messiah is a visitation of God to our world.

The God of Israel has visited and redeemed. For centuries, the Jewish people had languished

under the conviction that God had withdrawn. The spirit of prophecy had ceased. Israel had fallen

into the hands of Rome and all the Godly in Israel were awaiting the visitation of God.

Luke tells us that another old man, the devout Simeon, was waiting for the consolation of Israel,

Luke 225. Likewise, the prayerful Anna was waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem, Luke 238.

These were days of great expectation. Now the long awaited visitation of God was about to happen.

Indeed, he was about to come in a way that no one expected.