The True Israel
Paul’s words, “not all Israel is Israel,” have been widely misread, leading many to redefine Israel rather than defend God’s faithfulness. As a Gentile follower of Jesus, I feel the weight of answering a question that isn’t mine to settle.
People sat scattered across the sofas and armchairs in my living room, Bibles open. We were wrapping up two years of studying the Torah together. The room felt thick with both accomplishment and unfinished business, like like we had reached a summit only to realize there was another massive ridge beyond it.
Then someone finally asked the question that we had been circling for weeks—maybe months:
“Okay, I get that this is about ancient Israel. I get that the Torah is their story. But where are these people today? Who is the true Israel? Who are these people now?”
It was an important and heartfelt question, and one that has seen heated debate by popular commentators. I swallowed, and opened my Bible to Romans 9, trying my best to help a room full of Christians make sense of a letter we’ve so often treated like a theology textbook. But as I began to guide us through the passage, something unexpected happened.
I felt anguish.
Paul’s words “not all Israel is Israel,” have come to mean so many different things and unleashed devastating outcomes he never intended. While the question itself was good and asked by someone sincerely searching for an answer, the fact that we even have to ask it left me deeply bothered me.
I was grieved that I—a Gentile follower of Jesus, disconnected from any Jewish community—was the one trying to answer it. What right do I have?
It doesn’t matter who I say Israel is. It matters who God says Israel is—and who the Jewish people themselves say they are. I felt that absence of a Jewish voice so sharply. But since I had no better option, I read Romans 9:2 aloud, feeling every word of Paul in my bones.
“I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.”
The Tears Behind Romans
One of the most theological books in the New Testament contains a guttural lament.
Behind Paul’s careful reasoning stands a man with tears running down his face. A Jew born into Israel’s story, he now watched many of his own people reject the Messiah he believed was promised to them. The pain ran so deep that Paul said he would trade his own salvation if it could mean their redemption.
Romans, for all its theology, is still a letter—written to real people by a real person at a real moment in history. Like my small group, the believers in Rome were mostly Gentiles. Years earlier, Emperor Claudius had expelled the Jews from the city (around AD 49), scattering the Jews and Jewish followers of Jesus. By the time Paul wrote, the Roman house churches were Gentile-majority communities. That shift shaped how they saw themselves in God’s plan. They wondered, was God done with the Jews who had been run out of town?
So when Paul confronts this and asks, “Has God’s word failed?” (Rom. 9:6), he’s not condemning Israel’s disobedience. He’s defending God’s faithfulness in the face of Israel’s unbelief.
The Famous Line
“For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.” — Romans 9:6
Few lines in the New Testament have shaped Christian theology more—and perhaps few have been more misunderstood.
Over time, many interpretations have taken root:
“Ethnic Israel isn’t the true Israel; the Church is.”
“The modern state of Israel is different than the biblical nation of Israel. The true Israel is spiritual, believers in Christ.”
“Israel is a symbol of God’s people—Christians.”
“The true Israel is a lost group, scattered among the nations—not the Jewish people today.”
And on the sayings go. Together, these kinds ideas form what’s known as Replacement Theology—the belief that faith in Jesus replaces Israel’s covenantal election.
Toward the end of the first century, the Jew/Gentile house-churches in the Roman world became increasingly Gentile-majority. Over time, and for a variety of reasons, these Gentiles began to reinterpret Israel’s story as their own, recasting the Hebrew Scriptures through a distinctly Christian lens. Gradually, this led to a theology that redirected Israel’s promises to the Church—until “true Israel” came to mean believers in Jesus, and the Jewish people were seen as rejected, replaced, or set aside.
This shift left a deep interpretive scar that the Church has struggled to move past. Even today, most of us have inherited a story that strips of Israel of her biblical identity, and that has affected nearly every area of modern life and faith.
Our reasoning assumes Israel’s covenant identity depends on spiritual performance or political ideologies rather than divine promise. Yet Paul’s whole argument in Romans 9–11 rejects that idea.
Paul’s line, “Not all Israel is Israel,” doesn’t pit Israel against the Church. In his day, there was no “Church” to oppose Israel.
Instead, Paul was distinguishing between Israel—the unbelieving majority—and Israel—the faithful remnant within. Throughout Israel’s history, a faithful remnant preserved the covenant while others rebelled (see Elijah in 1 Kings 19, Isa. 10:22, Deut. 30:1–6).
The contrast Paul refers to is within Israel, not between Israel and the Church, or Israel and some other group. When Paul grieved over Israel, he wasn’t lamenting the faithful remnant but the unbelieving majority of his own people, the same covenant people still scattered among the nations and within the land today.
His hope was not in human persuasion or missionary effort, but in God’s faithfulness to redeem them. Israel’s story, in Paul’s view, is unfinished, but not forsaken.
That’s the part Christians so easily miss. It seems we have so easily allowed our doctrines and geopolitics to define Israel, rather than take God’s word for what he says about them.
Who Israel Says She Is
That’s why I felt anguish that day in my living room. I have no right to answer the question.
For too long, Christians like me have done most of the talking about Israel. We interpret her Scriptures, stories, and prophecies. We define her identity, usually without hearing from the people to whom the story actually belongs. The Jewish people wrote and preserved the Scriptures we stake our lives on. Maybe we ought to listen to what they have to say about them, before forming our own conclusions.
If Paul’s words about the remnant are true, then that remnant still exists today.
So rather than simply explain what Paul meant in this article, I want to let someone who embodies Paul’s message do the talking.
My friend Matt Davis is a Jewish follower of Jesus and co-founder of The Jewish Road. He carries this tension in his own life. Matt feels the deep joy of knowing Messiah, a pastoral love for the Christian church, and the ache of longing for his people to know the Messiah too. Like Paul, Matt believes Israel’s story doesn’t end in rejection, but in redemption.
Here’s how Matt explains who the Jewish people are and what hope still burns for Israel’s future:
“The Jewish people, including those living in Israel today, are still part of that covenant family God chose through Abraham. But I understand why the question [of Jewish identity] comes up.
Some people assume that because most Jews today don’t believe in Jesus (about 98%), they must have forfeited their status as God’s chosen people. Others have heard conspiracy theories, that the modern State of Israel is just a political project, even a plot funded by wealthy families like the Rothschilds. Still others look at the return of Jewish people from all over the world and say, “How can these scattered, mixed-heritage people possibly be the same as the Israelites in the Bible? Too much time has passed. The diaspora has blurred it all.”
From there, it’s an easy leap for some to say, “Well, if the question of Jewish identity is that muddled, maybe the only real answer is that all the promises God made to the Jewish people now belong to a ‘new Israel’ - the church.”
But before you accept that conclusion, you have to ask: If the Jews living in Israel today are not the ‘real’ Jews…then who is?
History itself seems to have no confusion on this point. From the early church’s persecution to the Crusades, from the pogroms of Europe to the Holocaust, and even to the attacks of October 7, the Jewish people have carried a unique mark since the days of Abraham. If they are not the covenant people, why has the enemy - whether spiritual or human - been so consistent in identifying them as such? The Jewish people have been singled out again and again as those Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God’s covenant was never based on flawless genealogy or perfect faith. It was based on His own promise. Throughout history, Israel has been exiled, scattered, and regathered - just as the prophets said would happen (Isaiah 43:5–6; Ezekiel 36:24). That scattering didn’t dissolve the covenant, it fulfilled the very warnings God gave through Moses. And the regathering we see today isn’t a random political accident - it’s part of the long, slow return that God Himself said He would accomplish.
As for unbelief, Paul is clear: “As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers” (Romans 11:28).
The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. Unbelief may break fellowship, but it cannot break the covenant.
So when you see Jewish people in the land of Israel today - whether they came from Ethiopia, Russia, America, or Yemen - you are looking at living evidence that God keeps His word. The covenant conversation is not about who holds the most pure DNA or whether the state of Israel’s politics are perfect. It’s about the faithfulness of the God who made an everlasting promise and has not gone back on it.[1]”
Listening to the Voice of the Remnant
Matt’s words humble me, “Unbelief may break fellowship, but it cannot break the covenant.” I spent many years believing the deception because I was too naive and complacent in my own faith to go meditate in the Scriptures for myself. I believed because of my faith in Jesus I was “in,” and that was all I cared about. I tuned out in Romans. I did not heed the voice of the remnant God has so mercifully preserved. I read Paul, but I didn’t listen to Paul.
That was terribly wrong.
Now, I sit in repentance. God has been so merciful to bring me along. People like Matt have been so kind. They’ve helped me grow and welcomed me to the table to learn with them. But anguish still washes over me.
I grieve because I didn’t know God’s promises to Israel were still alive.
Paul grieved because he knew God’s promises to Israel were still alive.
Matt grieves, and also rejoices, because he knows those promises still reach into the present.
As Gentile believers, we must learn to carry that grief with the faithful remnant like Matt—not by speaking over Israel’s story, but by learning to honor the root that supports us.
Romans 9–11 is not an academic puzzle. It is a window into God’s heart.
A heart that refuses to abandon his people.
A heart that gathers the nations without discarding the firstborn son.
A heart that binds Jew and Gentile into one olive tree rooted in Abraham’s covenant.
We must find the humility to hear story of Israel as told by the faithful remnant today. To believe in who God says Israel is.
The Messiah of Israel will complete what he began—here, in the world he made, among the people he chose, for the sake of every nation he longs to bless.
This is the hope we stake our lives on. This is the gospel of the kingdom going out to the nations.
Up Next: Matt’s words, and the questions that emerged in our small group, moved me so deeply that I knew the conversation couldn’t end there. I asked him to write a letter sharing what was on his heart for the non-Jewish American church. His words are honest, powerful, and carry a message we can’t afford to ignore. I’ll be publishing his letter here next week. Stay tuned and subscribe to stay up-to-date.
Notes
[1] The Jewish Road, Are the Jews in Israel Today Still the People of Promise?, accessed December 10, 2025, https://thejewishroad.com/blog/are-the-jews-in-israel-today-still-the-people-of-promise.
Anna’s Witness | The Redemption of Jerusalem
The priesthood must have grown familiar with her presence. An old widow, maybe wrapped in shawls, her eyes bright with unspent fire.
This reflection is part 4 of “A Messianic Advent,” a series exploring the first songs of the Messiah’s coming through the songs and words of those who waited — and still wait — for Israel’s redemption.
Luke 2:37-38
She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God
and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward
to the redemption of Jerusalem.
The Prophetess Who Refused to Leave
The priesthood must have grown familiar with her presence. An old widow, maybe wrapped in shawls, her eyes bright with unspent fire. Did they see her with reverence and respect like Deborah? Or did they assume she was drunk, like Hannah?
Anna, daughter of Phanuel, tribe of Asher—one of Israel’s lost tribes, scattered in exile—still waited, still prayed.
Luke tells us she was “very old,” that she had lived with her husband seven years and then remained a widow until the age of eighty-four. In truth, that is nearly all we are told. Luke devotes only a few verses to Anna, and she never even speaks. And yet he considers her presence essential to the birth narrative of Jesus. Why?
Anna’s actions assume a whole world of Scripture, memory, and Jewish expectation that Luke does not stop to explain—because he assumes his audience already knows it. That world is essential to understanding why Jesus was born at all. It is also a world many of us were never taught how to enter. It has taken me many years of study to learn how to imagine Anna’s story faithfully within first-century Judaism, and to place her hope where it belongs: within Israel’s long and faithful waiting for redemption.
Anna never abandoned her post: “She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.”
Others came and went. But Anna stayed in the temple.
The prophets had promised that one day the Lord would return to Zion, that comfort would come to his people, that redemption would rise again from Jerusalem. Anna believed that glory would burst right through the eastern gate. She wanted to be there when it happened. So she waited.
Waiting as Worship
Waiting, to Anna, was not wasted time. It was worship. She had learned that the God of Israel fulfills his word in his time. The same God who brought Israel out of Egypt, who returned them from exile, would send his Redeemer. For Anna, waiting was an act of faithfulness. It was her way of keeping the lamp burning, of guarding hope when the night was long.
Then, one ordinary day, her waiting ended.
A young couple entered the temple with their infant son—too poor to afford a lamb, offering instead two turtledoves. The Spirit stirred, and Anna saw what very few could see: the Redeemer had come to his temple.
Simeon had just spoken his blessing when she approached. Her fasting turning to feasting in a heartbeat. She gave thanks to God and “spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.”
That phrase—the redemption of Jerusalem—was charged with prophetic meaning.
It echoed Isaiah 52:9: “The Lord has comforted His people; He has redeemed Jerusalem.”
It was the promise that God himself would return, restore his dwelling, and reign again from Zion.
A Hope that Looks Forward
Luke says Anna spoke of the child to all who were looking forward—the remnant within Israel who had not lost hope. My guess is their number was small. The remnant usually is. In what was probably a crowded, busy temple-complex, Anna recognized the baby Messiah because she had been looking forward.
She had studied and prayed; she had given her life to being a watcher on the walls, a guardian of the House of the Lord. Unlike Zechariah, who likely knew of her, Anna did not waver. She believed. She waited for the Lord to restore Jerusalem—and when she saw the child, she ran to spread the news.
It’s strange to me that our celebrations of Jesus’s birth is often the opposite of Anna’s. Where our messages are anchored in remembering the past—what already happened back in Bethlehem—Anna’s announcement is eschatological. She looked forward in this child to the dawn of Israel’s restoration and the beginning of the world’s renewal.
Today, Jerusalem still waits. Its stones and people still cry out for peace. The nations still rage, and creation still groans. Yet Anna’s testimony remains: the Redeemer has come once, and He will come again.
In his first coming, he entered his temple as a child; in his next, he will enter as King. The same eyes that looked up at Simeon in wonder will one day look upon Zion with great rejoicing. The same baby Anna beheld beside the pillars of the Temple will one day make her a pillar in his own.
Anna’s faith bridges those two horizons. Her witness reminds us that the story of salvation does not begin at the manger and end at the cross—it moves forward toward a coming kingdom.
The redemption she longed for was not merely for herself, but national restoration and cosmic renewal. This was the same hope the prophets foresaw:
the day when righteousness and peace would kiss,
when Torah would go forth from Zion,
when the nations would stream to Jerusalem to learn the ways of the Lord.
Advent Reflection: Waiting and Witness
Advent is about hope, joy, peace, and love. But it isn’t only those things. Advent is the spirit of Anna.
When the Messiah appeared, she testified to all who were already looking forward. In an instant, every year of patient waiting became prophetic witness.
In every generation, God raises up Annas—those who refuse to abandon their post, who intercede through long nights, who believe that the King of glory will return through the eastern gate. Anna’s story asks the question: do we have a faith that looks forward, too?
Anna’s story anchors our Advent in both patience and prophecy. She reminds us that worship is not only magnifying what God has done, but bearing witness to what He has promised yet to do.
The Redeemer has come—and the redemption of Jerusalem, and of the world, unfolds in His hands.
And so, as we light our Advent candles and trim our trees, Anna invites us to keep watch with her. To make our hearts a temple of waiting.
To pray for peace, to face the east, and to wait—
with Anna,
and with all creation,
for the final redemption.
This reflection is part of “A Messianic Advent,” a five-part series tracing the songs and voices surrounding the Messiah’s birth. Up next the conclusion to the series: Glory in Zion.
Mary’s Song | The Promise Made Flesh
The hills of Judea rejoiced when Mary began to sing. Were her feet swollen, still dusty and dry from the long walk south as new life swelled within her? She was young—too young, perhaps, for the weight she now carried.
This reflection is part 2 of “A Messianic Advent,” a series exploring the first songs of the Messiah’s coming through the songs and words of those who waited — and still wait — for Israel’s redemption.
Luke 1:46–55
The Promise Made Flesh
“My soul magnifies the Lord.”
The hills of Judea rejoiced when Mary began to sing. Were her feet swollen, still dusty and dry from the long walk south as new life swelled within her? She was young—too young, perhaps, for the weight she now carried. Yet the words rose from something older than she was, older even than the language she spoke.
For centuries, Israel had waited. No prophets. No new word from heaven. Just the echo of promises spoken to the mothers and fathers who had long since turned to dust. And now—here in the body of a young, Jewish woman—the silence broke.
The Spirit that once hovered over the waters now hovered over her. The same glory that filled the tabernacle had entered a humble womb. When Gabriel said, “The Spirit of the Most High will overshadow you,” Mary did not hesitate to believe the impossible. And when that promise caused the baby inside her cousin Elizabeth to leap for joy, Mary’s young soul could not stay still either.
“My soul magnifies the Lord.” The word magnify means to make great—to see God as he truly is. Her faith gave her sight. Mary saw what few had ever dared to imagine: that the Holy One of Israel had stooped low to lift his people up.
Her song was the anthem of a people who had waited four hundred years for heaven’s silence to break.
Why Sing, Mary?
If we were to ask her why she sang, Mary might laugh—singing is what her people do. And she already knew the melody, drawn from the marrow of her people’s memory.
For generations, Israel had sung the psalms of exile and return, of longing and lament. Mary’s song was the voice of Israel remembering who she was.
Try as our individualistic culture might to make Mary’s song a private reflection, she did not sing for herself. She sang for her ancestors—for the barren and the broken, for the downtrodden and oppressed, for every woman who stood in the face of evil to protect the promised seed and not yet seen its fulfillment. It wove together Hannah’s prayer, Miriam’s victory, Deborah’s triumph, Eve’s ancient hope, and the psalms of David into one unbroken chorus—a song older than Mary’s own bones, and larger than her own joy.
This was not a new song. It was the continuation of the oldest one, the story of God remembering his mercy and his covenant, and of a young woman surprised to find herself standing at its very center.
That day in Elizabeth’s home, her voice joined the chorus of generations who had waited for the God of Israel to move again—and now, at last, he had.
The Promise Alive
“He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful…
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but lifted up the humble.”
It’s almost impossible to read these verses without feeling the weight of the entire Hebrew Bible pressing into Mary’s body. The child she carried was the embodiment of every promise ever made to Israel. The holy covenant once written on stone was pulsing with life beneath her ribs. The Messiah was Israel’s son before he was Mary’s.
He would redeem the nations, yes—but only as the outworking of his faithfulness to Abraham’s family. Salvation flows outward through the covenant, not around it. Inside her, God’s oath to her people was coming alive in flesh and blood.
“He has brought down rulers from their thrones but lifted up the humble.”
God chose shepherds over kings—
the outcast over the powerful,
the disregarded over the revered—
those the world had written off or learned to dominate.
God was turning the world right-side up in the most impossible way.
Mary knew it. She knew that every kingdom built on oppression, every throne secured by violence or pride, would one day crumble before the reign of her child.
Every throne of man will one day bow before a Jew.
And so, the Magnificat is no lullaby—its a battle hymn of the lowly made triumphant.
The king had entered the world through the covenant of Israel’s womb.
Advent Reflection | Joining the Song
The story of Israel has always been about restoration. Every law, every festival, every sacrifice embodies the same hope—that God will draw near, cleanse his land, exalt Israel, bless the nations, and dwell with his people forever.
Mary’s song declares that this hope is no longer deferred. The long exile of sin and sorrow is ending. She sang because in her body, Israel’s story was reaching another mountain peak:
The promise to Abraham became tangible.
The throne of David received its heir.
The dwelling of God moved from tent to temple to flesh.
The popular Christmas song Mary Did you Know is answered by her own song with a resounding and unapologetic yes! The covenant she hoped in, the promises she knew all about, became incarnate. And this is how heaven always seem to come—unexpectedly, but faithfully, and through the obedience of the ordinary people who trust in the promises of God.
Christmas exalts global joy—peace on earth, goodwill to all. But if we linger a moment with Mary, we may find the heart of the gospel waiting there: through this family, we too have found God’s life and blessing.
Mary was blessed not simply because she bore the Messiah, but because she believed in the promises to her people. Advent invites us into that same faith: to sing long before any sign of the promise is fulfilled.
Christmas celebrates the truth that God’s mercy is not abstract but ancestral—it has a lineage, a story, a name, and a song. A song Mary already knew, passed down from the blessed women who had sung it for generations.
This December, let us learn her song again.
May we carry her faith on the other side of its moment—
waiting for the day when the son she bore will return to finish what he began:
to restore Israel, exalt the humble,
and fill the world with the knowledge of his glory.
He who is mighty has done great things,
and holy is his name.
This reflection is part of “A Messianic Advent,” a five-part series tracing the songs and voices surrounding the Messiah’s birth. Up next: Simeon’s Blessing | The Consolation of Israel.
Zechariah’s Song | The Covenant Remembered
An old priest stood in the temple, the scent of incense curling through the air. For centuries, heaven had been silent. No prophets. No visions. No fresh word from the God of Israel. Only the faint echo of ancient promises—unbroken, but waiting. Then the silence was pierced.
Before Luke brings us to Bethlehem, he takes us somewhere older. Before the manger, before the shepherds, before the Bethlehem star ever rose, there were songs—ancient, aching, Jewish songs—carried through centuries of silence.
Many Christian Advent traditions begin with inward reflection, wrapped in candlelight and ringing with carols. But Luke begins with the songs of a priest, a mother, a prophet, and a widow—voices who knew the promises long before we sang the carols.
This is Advent as Scripture tells it. A Messianic Advent explores the first songs of the Messiah’s coming through the eyes of those who waited — and still wait — for Israel’s redemption.
Luke 1:68–79
The Silence and the Song
An old priest stood in the temple, the scent of incense curling through the air.
For centuries, heaven had been silent. No prophets. No visions. No fresh word from the God of Israel. Only the faint echo of ancient promises—unbroken, but waiting.
Then the silence was pierced.
Zechariah saw an angel standing beside the altar of incense. The message was impossible: his barren wife, Elizabeth, would bear a son—a child who would restore the hearts of Israel to their God and prepare the way for his anointed one. But faith can falter, even in the most faithful places. And Zechariah, like so many before him, could not believe. “Too old,” he said. “Too late.”
He walked out of the temple unable to speak—a priest silenced by his own unbelief. A priest appointed to bless could no longer bless. A mouth meant to proclaim God’s mercy was shut.
Months passed. Elizabeth swelled with life.
And when the child was born, the silence broke again—but this time into faithful praise. Zechariah’s tongue, once stilled, was loosed by God’s mercy. So it’s fitting that his first words were not about himself, or even about the little miracle in his arms. They were about God and about Israel—about a story still alive.
This is where Luke begins Advent. Not in Bethlehem, but in the temple. Not with shepherds, but with an old priest and a covenant refusing to die.
The God Who Remembers
“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and redeemed His people.”
Before Jesus was born, Zechariah held his own son and saw more than a miracle—he saw a promise remembered. For generations, heaven had been silent, the temple corrupt, and Rome’s shadow heavy upon the people. Yet even then, God had not forgotten.
The old priest knew the story of redemption began beneath Canaan’s stars, when God swore to Abraham a family, a land, and a future. It has always been a Jewish story—holy, particular, a fierce tale of faithfulness and folly. Through wilderness and exile, covenant and kingship, lament and longing, God’s promise endured.
As Zechariah watched John’s first breaths, he realized Israel’s covenant was breathing again. His son would not prepare the way for a generic Savior, but for Israel’s deliverer—the Son of David through whom light would rise and spill outward, until even the nations stood within its glow.
“He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David.”
Mercy and Memory
The days Zechariah lived in—and the season of Jesus’s birth—were not bright ones for Israel. The people, the land, the covenant family had known failure, compromise, and long centuries of suffering.
So why act now? Why remember them again?
“To show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham...”
Mercy and memory—these are the heartbeats of Zechariah’s song. And they remain the heartbeats of Christmas today.
The mercy Zechariah sang of was not about God’s mercy towards sinners. It was for people we have only ever read about, people long gone by our own time—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was God’s mercy that remembered the covenant he swore to them long before our nativity scenes and Advent wreaths, long before the manger and the star.
Zechariah’s song is not a lullaby; it is prophecy. His joy is not anchored in vague hopes of “peace on earth” or “forgiveness of sins” or even in the loosing of his own tongue, but in the restoration of a nation—the mercy God promised to their fathers, stirring again in his generation.
“We have been rescued from our enemies
so we can serve God without fear,
in holiness and righteousness
for as long as we live.”
In the days before Jesus’s birth, Zechariah sang the eternal vows of a relationship God refuses to let fail.
And in the days before we celebrate his birth, we are invited to sing those same songs too.
Advent Reflection: The Promise Remembered
At Christmas, it’s easy to be swept up in our beloved traditions—wintery waiting, sentimental starlight, and familiar hymns that celebrate a Savior born to save us. But I fear that if Zechariah walked into one of our Christmas Eve services and sang his song, few of us would understand him. He didn’t sing about Jesus coming to save “the world” or to comfort “every heart.”
He sang about God keeping his covenant with Israel—the foundation on which everything else stands.
Before we rush to “good news for all people,” Scripture calls us to listen to the song that came first—the song of mercy to the fathers and the covenant God swore to Abraham. Before our carols lift up universal hope, Zechariah sings of promises spoken to a particular people, in a particular land, through whom God would someday send blessing to the nations.
Zechariah’s song is not the beginning of a new story; it is the continuation of a very old one. One we still have a chance to learn.
Christmas brings joy and generosity, beauty and nostalgia. But Zechariah’s story warns us as much as it invites us. We can be just like him—slow to believe that God can still do what He has promised, especially through the people or the places we’ve already decided are too barren, too broken, too late.
But the old priest learned what Advent always teaches—and what we modern readers often miss: God’s promises do not expire—not with silence, not with age, and not with our unbelief.
Of John, his father said:
“And you, my little son,
will be called the prophet of the Most High,
for you will prepare the way for the Lord,
to give His people knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins.
Because of God’s tender mercy,
the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide us to the path of peace.”
And by that same mercy, the rising sun has already broken upon us, too. Its warmth has reached even our hearts, stirring faith in the God who has not given up on his plan for shalom.
This Advent, as we celebrate the birth of Israel’s redeemer, the same mercy that loosed Zechariah’s silence can also shatter ours. A baby in his arms, another yet to be born; a child already given for a people who do not yet recognize him. The birth of the Messiah stirs our faith and lifts our song—not only in celebration of what we have received, but in awe of the God who keeps his word.
And so, as we sing our carols and rejoice in the birth of the King of the Jews, may the song of the old priest still haunt our hearts:
Christmas is the covenant kept,
a promise remembered,
and the light of God’s tender mercy
falling upon all of us who have stood in our own unbelief.
This reflection is part of A Messianic Advent, a five-part series tracing the songs and voices surrounding the Messiah’s birth. Up next: Mary’s Song | The Promise Made Flesh.
All Scripture quotations NIV: Holy Bible, New International Version® (Anglicised), NIV © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.