The Benedictus - 24 Jun 1962

This morning we want to consider one of the Prayer Book hymns or ‘canticles’ as they are called – the Benedictus. It is one of the canticles to be sung at the morning service after the second lesson. It is the Song of Zecharias. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for He hath visited and redeemed His people.”

This is St. John the Baptist Day – 24 th June. We are familiar with the incidents connected with the birth of John the Baptist. One day when Zecharias was burning incense in the Temple, the Angel Gabriel appeared unto him and told him that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son in her old age, who would be a forerunner to the Messiah whom they all were looking forward to. But Zecharias would not believe it. As a punishment for his unbelief he was made to remain dumb until the day of the circumcision of the child. On the day of the circumcision the child was named John as the angel named him. Then the father’s mouth was opened, and he broke into a song of praise – ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for He hath visited and redeemed His people.’ It is called Benedictus because that is the first word in the Latin version of the hymn.

Let us look at this hymn a little and see what this hymn meant to Zecharias when he sang it, and then ask what it ought to mean to us when we use it at the present day.

The hymn falls into two halves. The first eight verses are a thanksgiving for the dawn of the Messianic Age. The last four are an address to his own little baby son. Let us consider the firs part the thanksgiving. The old priest had seen many evils in his time. All his life, cruel oppressors had been crushing his nation. Perhaps he had seen the Roman soldiers entering the Temple and plundering it and murdering the priests who were officiating there. He must have thought of the cruelty of Herod who murdered people as he liked. So he longed for the day when “we would be saved from our enemies and from the hands of all that hate us.” He had for years believed that the day was coming for he trusted in God’s promises. God’s ‘holy prophets’ had foretold that day since the world began. God had promised it to the nation’s forefathers and made a covenant and sworn an oath to Abraham, “that we being delivered out of the hands of our enemies might serve him without fear.”

And now at last he knew that the day had come. The Angel Gabriel had told him as much in the temple. Elizabeth had told him Mary’s wonderful secret. The birth of his own child had confirmed the message. So he burst into a song of praise not for his restored speech, not even for the birth of his son, but for the coming of the Messiah. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people and hath raised up a mighty salvation for us in the house of His servant David. (Mary was a descendant of David.) That is the first part of the hymn. It is a thanksgiving for the coming of the Messiah.

The second part of the last four verses were words addressed to his own little baby. “Thou child will be called the Prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give His people the knowledge of salvation.” People looking at John were already asking, “What shall this child be?” But Zecharias had no doubt in his own mind as to his son’s destiny. He was to be the forerunner of the Messiah. Did the little boy disappoint his father’s hopes? No. He grew up to fulfil them to the very letter. As a grown man he said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord.” As a great preacher he used all his powers to prepare the people to receive Jesus. “Repent,” he said, “for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” Some of the best of our Lord’s disciples were trained by John the Baptist.

Now, what should the hymn mean to us today?

From the very earliest times Christians have used this hymn in their work. The fact that he compared the coming of Christ to the breaking of dawn – “The dayspring from on high hath visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness” led to its being sung generally as a morning hymn. In what sense can we sing it today? One old Puritan objected to it when the Prayer Book was being revised. “I am not Zecharias. So why should I sing this song?” He meant that the words beautifully expressed the feelings of an old priest, but they did not express his own feelings sixteen hundred years later. But church people sing it because they feel that the words do express their feelings.

We want to be constantly thanking God for keeping His promise and sending us a mighty salvation through Jesus Christ, “that we being delivered from the hands of our enemies might serve Him without fear.” Our enemies are not the same as Zecharias’s enemies, but they are just as real. We know more than Zecharias would have understood how mighty is the salvation God has raised for us.

When we come to the second part of the hymn we can sympathise with the Puritan who objected to it being sung in the church. We are not nursing babies as we sing. Who is the ‘Thou child’ that we address? In the second part we have to think of ourselves as the ‘child’. The ‘Thou child’ is the singer, for however old we are, we are all children of God. There are many hymns where we address ourselves. For example take the hymns: 1)Awake my soul, and with the sun,2) Hark my soul it is the Lord, 3) Christian, seek not yet reposes 4) Fight the good fight. In these and other hymns we talk to ourselves. In the same way in the Benedictus when we sing ‘Thou child’, we are addressing ourselves. When we were baptised as babies, these solemn words were said over each of us: “We receive this child into the congregation of Christ’s flock, and do sign him with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under His banner against sin, the world and the devil and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end.” In other words in baptism the hope was expressed that we too, like John the Baptist, would work in the world and witness for Christ preparing the hearts and minds of people for the coming of Christ. Every Christian is expected, in the words of the canticle, “to go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways to give knowledge of salvation unto His people.”

So every time we sing the canticle the last four verses should come as a challenge to us. What are we doing, by our work and the quality of the lives we live, to prepare for the coming of Christ into the world? The hope expressed about John was that he would “go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of Salvation unto His people.” The same hope was expressed about us at our baptism. John did not disappoint those hopes. Shall we?