Date︰Dec 16, 2018
Venue︰Tsim Sha Tsui Baptist Church
Title︰Nurturing Parents: Elizabeth & Zechariah
Passage︰Luke 1:39-45,67-79
- At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,
- where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.
- When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
- In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!
- But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
- As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
- Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
- His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
- “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
- He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David
- (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
- salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—
- to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant,
- the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
- to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear
- in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
- And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
- to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,
- because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
- to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”