Where does the Christmas 
Story Begin, Luke or Malachi?

It's Christmas time. You know what that means! Time to begin thinking about Malachi — that unknown prophet who wrote the last book in the Old Testament about 400 years before Jesus' birth. You are saying, "Hey, my Christmas story begins with the angel's appearance to Mary." 

But Luke starts with a Jewish priest named Zechariah while he is offering incense in the Temple in Jerusalem about a year before Jesus was born.  

While Zechariah was inside, an angel arrives. After telling Zechariah that he would have a son, the angel tells what John will accomplish: "Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous--to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." 

First, the 400 silent years (between the Old and New Testaments) serve as a bright-line break. When Zechariah does not believe the angel and attempts to quiz the angel for verification of how he could have a son in his old age, the angel shuts Zechariah's mouth so he cannot speak. This recalls Malachi where God states that priests failed to listen to the word of God and their lips no longer gave God's instructions and that God was wearied with the priests' words. Sounds a lot like Zechariah in the presence of the angel, doesn't it? The 400 silent years are matched with a silent priest, another event showing that the old no longer speaks to us. 

Second, and on the other hand, Luke's account shows that in God's plan the old and the new are closely linked, there is no impassable divide. In Luke's gospel we see the temple, a priest burning incense, and an angel of the Lord telling of a new prophet (John the Baptist) to call the people back to God. Sure sounds like the Old Testament. Zechariah's son John was the messenger spoken of in Malachi about the coming messiah. 

John's message was the last of the Old Testament prophets, but his message was about current events, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." John 1:29. And when John spoke those words, Jesus was not a figure in the distant past like he might seem to some people today, nor was Jesus some expectation in the unknown future. Jesus was coming toward him. Jesus is coming toward us, even today. 

So this Christmas, read the true first part of Luke's story of the birth of Jesus, read Malachi.

Images from dadney@cland.net at http://members.tripod.com/~Dvorah/index.html

The angel's words were God's words to Malachi 400 years earlier. So did the Old Testament end 400 years before Luke, or is it Luke rather than Malachi who records the last events under the legal system of Moses? Both may be true.