Year
C, Advent 2
Luke
1:68-79
My
husband and I did not have any advance notice when we learned that a baby would
be placed with us. We received the call
the day of our son’s birth and were told we had to pick him up the next
day. It was a 12 hour drive. Fortunately we had a lot to discuss in that
12 hour drive. One of the topics was
what we would name him. We had not talked about names. It was just too hard to discuss tangible
things like names and registries when we had no idea when we would have a
child. During those 12 hours we narrowed
it down to a few names. However, as soon
as we saw him, we knew none of those names would work. He didn’t look like an
Isaac or a Jacob. We had Joshua for 3
days before we settled on a name. By
then we were already sleep deprived and completely overwhelmed with the
suddenness of it all. Once we settled on the name Joshua and announced it to
our family, I looked at my husband, who is also an Episcopal priest, and asked,
“What’s the biblical meaning for Joshua.” He said, “God saves. It’s the anglicized version of Jesus.” I replied, “We just named our child Jesus? Because having two priests as parents isn’t
bad enough, now we put the entire salvation of the world on him?” While this
concerned me a little, I was too tired to come up with another name and we had
already told the whole family. Jesus it
was.
Naming
a baby is a big deal. It always has been. Our psalm today isn’t actually from
the Book of Psalms. But it is still considered in the psalm genre. It is
Zechariah’s response to the birth and naming of his son. Zechariah and Elizabeth had wanted children
for a very long time. However, Elizabeth was considered barren as she was past
the age when woman normally had children. In today’s digital age, we have all
kinds of creative birth announcements--but I challenge any of you to find a
more unique birth announcement than the one Zechariah received.
He was in
the temple offering incense to God. Most
Jewish priests only had this opportunity once in their lifetime. It was an extraordinary honor. According to
Jewish belief at the time, he was about as physically close to God as any human
could be. He was there at the altar in a
cloud of incense when an angel appeared to him and said, “Do not be frightened,
Zechariah; your prayer has been heard.
Your wife Elizabeth shall bear a son whom you shall name John.”
Now
since we are in church and this is the Bible, we don’t think too much of this
kind of birth announcement. But consider it for a moment. Imagine if you experienced that today, or
heard about it today. Would you believe it?
Probably not, even if it was on the internet, we would assume it was
some kind of hoax. Angels don’t deliver
messages to regular people. Therefore,
we really can’t blame Zechariah for reacting with disbelief. He asked the angel how could this be as both
he and his wife were old. Well
apparently this did not please the angel and Zechariah was struck mute. (My
husband has a theory that striking Zechariah mute was actually an act of mercy
because who knows what would have happened to him if he went and told his dear
wife that she was too old to have a baby.)
Whether his
muteness was a punishment or a gift, I cannot help but think about how hard
that must have been….to be mute for 9 months, after such an extraordinary thing
happened. He probably didn’t try to
communicate the event since he didn’t believe the angel’s words initially.
However once Elizabeth told him the astounding news that she was indeed
pregnant…imagine how he must have felt. Did he try to write the story all down,
or did he still doubt and wonder?
I
like to think that he held it inside himself and turned it over in his mind and
heart while he marveled as his supposedly barren wife’s belly grew. He must have communicated with her eventually
as she knew that her son’s name was to be John.
In our reading for today, a group of family and friends was gathered 8
days after the birth for the circumcision. This was also where they
traditionally named the male child. Elizabeth shared that his name would be
John, but the friends and family wanted confirmation from the father. Since he could not speak, he wrote the name
out. “His name is John.” It was then and
only then when Zechariah was able to speak again. You would think the first words out of his
mouth would have been something like, “The craziest thing happened to me…” But no, the text tells us that the first
thing he did was praise God and share the prophesy that we heard today as our
psalm.
The prophesy
started with praise of God and ended with words about who his son would
be. “You my child, shall be called the
prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way,
To give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.” That
seems like a lot of pressure on a kid. I
might have named my child after Jesus, but at least I didn’t declare him a
prophet. However, then Zechariah switched
gears a little. He said “In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on
high will break upon us, To shine in those who dwell in darkness and the shadow
of death, and guide our feet in the way of peace.”
Zechariah’s
son did not end up having a very easy life.
His job was to prepare people for Jesus. He did that by talking about
sin and judgment, but also offering opportunity for forgiveness. In the end, he was killed because he insisted
on speaking truth to people in power. He
did all of that because he truly believed that Jesus was that dawn that would
break through the darkness. Sometimes
when we read these stories in church, we find ourselves relegating them to the
past. John was the prophet who paved the
way for Jesus. But then he died. Even Jesus, who died and was resurrected,
seems to stay relegated to the past. We
cannot leave these stories in the pages of our Bible. We still need a dawn to break upon us. While we have experienced the light of
Christ, we still find ourselves dwelling in darkness and the shadow of
death. We have accepted darkness and
death as our cultural norm. In Advent we
are reminded that while we may feel as though we are surrounded by darkness, we
are merely walking in shadow. If there
is shadow, then that means there has to be light somewhere. The light is always
there if we look long enough and never give up hope.
The angel
told Zechariah to name his son John.
John means, “gift of God.” We
might not all be named John, but we are all gifts of God and children of God.
We are all here on this earth to remind people that Jesus isn’t dead. We are here to remind people that even the
longest night will come to an end.
Morning always comes. My husband
and I waited for a baby for 7 years and there were times when I felt suffocated
by the hopelessness of it all. Morning
doesn’t always come as dramatically as a newborn, but it always comes. Sometimes it comes with rain and clouds, but
behind it all, we know the sun is there.
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