Year C. The Nativity of St. John The Baptist Luke 1: 57-66, 80 June 24th, 2001
Title: “When God names a person”
This is story of the birth of John, his circumcision, naming, and manifestation to relatives and neighbors along with a notice of his eventual manifestation to all of Israel.
Luke tells the story of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus and John by setting them side by side each other. Such a technique enables him to highlight the unique role each will have in God’s plan and to show Jesus as superior to John in just about every detail. If the angel Gabriel announces the birth of John to the husband, Zechariah, of the barren Elizabeth, he announces the birth of Jesus directly to the virgin Mary. Then Mary visits Elizabeth, who joyfully witnesses to the incomparable superiority of the baby in Mary’s womb compared to the one in her own. Mary sings a canticle and so does Zechariah. Both sons are divinely named before their birth and circumcision, although their names are not made public until eight days had passed. There are many other parallels as well. However, Luke clearly wants to show that Jesus, not John, is the Messiah. He also wants to show, at the outset of his gospel, what he will show in his second volume, Acts, that there are also parallel patterns between the life of Jesus and the lives of his disciples. The first two chapters of Luke are not only an overture to the Gospel but to Acts as well. John the Baptist stands for two truths in the New Testament. First, he is the model for all Christians who prepare for the final coming of Christ as John did for his first coming. Second, he stands as the model for the one person or several persons who are the means by which God prepares each Christian to convert to Christ. As such John the Baptist is a very important figure for Christians.
In verse fifty-seven, when the time arrived…she gave birth to a son: Luke sees God’s plan unfolding, but only in its proper time or “timing” time, Greek kairos, which both respects the earthly laws of time, Greek chronos, and God’s timetable, the “fullness” of time. That Elizabeth bore a son as it was prophesied she would underlines God’s fidelity, that is, He delivers on His word of promise, and His mercy, that is, He not only removed the stigma of barrenness from Elizabeth but also gave her a son, her only son, to carry on the family name. The latter, of course, would not in fact happen. This son will neither be named after a family member, nor will he marry and sire children. However, for now, the possibility is there and is cause for rejoicing.
In verse fifty-eight, Her neighbors and relatives…shared her joy: Joy would be the hallmark of the kingdom Jesus would establish and John would prepare the people of Israel to accept. This joy radiates out from the yet-to-be-born John in Elizabeth’s womb, to Elizabeth and Zechariah, to relatives and neighbors, to all of Israel.
In verse fifty-nine, …on the eighth day to circumcise the child: Circumcision marks John, as it will Jesus, with the “sign of the covenant” Genesis 17: 11, and incorporates him into Israel. Circumcision also meant the eventual obligation of observing Mosaic Law. Since Luke will stress in his second volume, Acts, that Christianity is a logical outgrowth of Judaism, both the circumcision of John and Jesus are important to note in this “overture” section.
Would have named him Zechariah after his father: The child, of course, was already named by God. In fact, even without that , it was Jewish custom to name a child at birth, not at circumcision. This ceremony would be similar to infant Christian baptism where the parents are asked to announce the child’s name, a name given at birth, but given new meaning at this ceremony of initiation into the community. Furthermore, it was customary to name a firstborn son after his grandfather rather than his father, although this practice may have been on the wane by this time, since none of the disciples of Jesus appear to be named after either their father or grandfather. Much has been made of these discrepancies in scholarly circles, but they do not matter. The story tells itself. The point is that the conception and birth of the child ran contrary to human expectations and traditions and so did his naming, all thanks to the mercy of God.
In verse sixty, No. He will be called John: We are not told how Elizabeth came to know the divinely given name. The most likely scenario is that Zechariah used the writing tablet to communicate it to her privately, but the question is unimportant. Elizabeth is following God’s plan over human preferences. “John,” Hebrew Yohanan, means “God has shown favor” or “God is merciful.” It is really an Old Testament expression. Not all human names, only those divinely bestowed, indicate a person’s character or mission. This child will be graced, his special character will be “in the Spirit,” and his mission will be to bring the mercy of God to all in Israel who will accept it.
In verse sixty-three, John is his name: Zechariah, on being asked by his relatives and neighbors, to agree with them to name the child after himself, wrote on a wooden slate covered with wax, he was deaf and dumb as a result of his disbelief in the angel’s words, that his name would be the name God wanted.
All were amazed: If the folks present thought that Elizabeth had pulled the name John out of a hat, they were amazed to learn that Zechariah, who was presently unable to speak or hear the present conversation they were having, came up with the same name!
In verse sixty-four, Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God: Luke often uses the word “immediately,” Greek parachrema) in connection with miracles. This is yet another miracle, a further sign of the character and role of the child now born and named. However, the first words out of Zechariah’s mouth are not his son’s name but a blessing and praise of God.
In verse sixty-five, Then fear came upon all their neighbors: This “fear” is nor fright but awe, a typically Lucan reaction to miraculous interventions such as this.
All these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea: It is understandable that the word would spread. This simple note goes a long way in explaining how John was so popular when he appeared in the Judean desert many years later. Such stories do not die as quickly as our daily newscasts.
In verse sixty-six, All who heard these things took them to heart: This way of saying that they remembered them for a long time.
What, then, will this child be?” With such an auspicious beginning this child was clearly destined to have a great role to play in salvation history. The auspices raise the question, but does not answer it.
In verses sixty-seven to seventy-nine,: Zechariah’s hymn of praise to God, called the Benedictus, is sung at this point.
In verse eighty, The child grew and became strong in spirit: A similar note is made regarding Jesus’ coming of age.
And he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel: There was a community of monks, Essenes, in the Judean desert, Qumran, who would take in children, mostly orphaned, and raise them in their disciplined life. It is plausible, though not provable, that John’s parents, being elderly, may have died shortly after his birth and he might have been raised by this group. Certainly, the adult John shared their eschatological outlook and their ascetic approach to lifestyle. Despite his father’s being a priest in Jerusalem, John is never seen as having anything to do with the Temple. Despite the Essenes’ disdain for the priests of Jerusalem, thinking them lax in levitical purity, avaricious, and politically inclined, they still respected what the ideal priesthood was supposed to be and John, son of a rather holy priest, would have been welcomed by them.
In Luke and Acts we see the beginnings of what is now a long-standing tradition in the Christian Church, namely the “imitation” of the lives of the saints. Admittedly, like all traditions, there are aberrations exaggerations, and even “adorations,” replacing the more orthodox “imitations.” Nonetheless, human beings are presented in Luke’s two-volume work as appropriate models of what Christ looks like and acts like when embodied in a disciple’s life. In this section of Luke, the first two chapters, he presents even Old Testament figures for our emulation and imitation: Zechariah and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary, Simeon and Anna and John the Baptist. True, they are not full-blown Biography of saints, but examples to be followed, nonetheless. In other words, Luke presents both baptized Christians, the twelve apostles, Paul, Stephen, Philip, etc., also with non-baptized Jews like the Baptist, to show how we can see God acting and speaking through others. It is important that we preserve the stories of examples of Christian saints and martyrs because they show God, Christ, acting in situations that Jesus of Nazareth never encountered in his earthly life. They show how extensive and pervasive God’s power is, residing now within believers. This is Luke’s understanding of the meaning of “Church,” the church Christ founded. It is the extension of Christ in the world. Its members now carry Christ with them and into the world to continue, extend and complete what he started long ago, namely, the salvation of the whole world.
During Advent the Church presents John the Baptist as the parallel model to emulate and imitate as the Christian prepares the world and oneself, for the final coming of Christ. The Baptist’s behavior and attitudes are to be reproduced in the present-day Christian. We Christians are never to confuse ourselves with the Messiah and get carried away with an exaggerated sense of our self-importance. We are to point others to the Messiah, not to claim ourselves as the source of salvation, only its conduit. True, we are to be priests to the world, prophets also, and behave as such. But there is only one king, one royal monarch and it is not, not ever, any one of us. We are to be counter-cultural, without being anti-cultural; strong without being arrogant. We are to echo and mirror the Word and the light of God by the way we live. In such ways we imitate John who imitated God.
Besides the temporal cycle Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost the Liturgical Year, the Church has also developed the sanctoral cycle, the celebration of the lives of the saints, especially Mary. These “feasts” sometimes “invade” or “outrank” the temporal cycle and displace them, such as when the feast of John’s birth falls on a Sunday or an important feast does so. While the temporal cycle concentrates on the life of Christ, the sanctoral cycle concentrates on “life in Christ.” It shows how Christ has affected human beings, sanctified them, made them extraordinary, in their ordinary lives and times. This feast would have us concentrate on an aspect of the mystery of Christ that we would otherwise not pay attention to. The Baptist not only stands for Christians preparing for the final coming of Christ but also for those people in our lives who present Christ to us by the example of their lives. God sends people to us, into our lives, without them wearing a badge stating they are sent by him. Their influence is much more covert and subtle. These people can be Christian or non-Christian. They reveal God to us by what they say and do, what they have suffered and how they have suffered it and their unique way of loving us. They are like the Baptist in that they call us, challenge us, to reform ourselves. They have a profound effect on us, an effect we may even fail to bring to consciousness. Even as an infant the Baptist caused people to think of God when they thought of him, to go beyond the person or the circumstances and see what or who, is behind, hidden, about to be born or happen. It was through John, even in his mother’s womb, who caused Zechariah to accept God’s will and it was John in the womb who caused Elizabeth to recognize Christ in Mary’s womb. Infants, children, non-Christians, friends, cousins, ministers, pastors, poets, anyone can be used by God to bring us to God. In so far as they do that they are to us what the Baptist was to his relatives and neighbors and to Christ. In so far as we do that to and for others we are imitating the Baptist in his role as forerunner of Christ. When we see ourselves and others in that light, Christ is not far off.
The births of John and Jesus teach us that God does not always follow the “laws of nature.”
The exceptional name given to John teaches us that God is not bound by human traditions.
The deaf-dumb condition of Zechariah teaches us that finding fault with the word of God has paralyzing effects.
The cure of Zechariah’s disabilities teaches us that obeying God’s word has liberating effects.
Even infants can “speak” to us of God and reveal God to us.
Breaking with Tradition: There are two kinds of “tradition” in the Christian Church. One is related to God’s revelation, that is, Scripture. In this sense of the word even Scripture is tradition, that is, underlined tradition. God reveals himself to humans long before that revelation has been written down and accepted as inspired. Tradition, in this sense, is the sum total of all the behaviors and attitudes that flow from God’s revealed word. However, there is another sense of “tradition.” That is the sum total of practices and attitudes that human beings are so accustomed to that they, erroneously, believe to have been revealed by God as his express will. The mixing, confusing, and equating of these two senses of tradition has caused many problems. We must never break with “tradition” in the sense of the divine will passed on and handed down to us. That is a living “tradition,” inspired by, interpreted by and guided by the Holy Spirit. Frequently, however, human traditions are at odds with divine “tradition,” so much so that it requires a special revelation from God to break with it. In the days of Mary and Elizabeth the people did not speak of biological laws as we do today. They just knew that it was “traditional” for a child to be conceived by sexual union period. It was God who broke with that “tradition” when he brought both John and Jesus into being. In one case, John’s, it was a post-menopausal conception; in the other case, Jesus’, it was a virginal one. We would call both of them “miraculous.” However, the folks back then would not use that term since it comes from Latin, which they did not speak. They would call it a “sign” or even a “mighty deed of God.” Moreover, much of the controversies Jesus had with the Pharisees were over human traditions that were at odds with the teachings of Jesus. Zechariah and Elizabeth, in naming their son “John” were breaking with human tradition, a tradition their relatives and neighbors were equating with “divine tradition.” Their relatives believed they were disobeying God, when, in fact, they were actually obeying God. They were right; the relatives were wrong. There are many people, religious people, who would rather remain “traditional,” in the human sense, than be right, in the divine sense. They will ignore what God has clearly revealed, even distort the divine record of revelation, in order to avoid admitting they were wrong. In effect, they take the position that if a practice or an attitude is old enough, the appropriate age being determined by them, of course, then it automatically, ipso facto, becomes true and right, even if it were not true or right in the first place. Many injustices have been committed against God’s prophets, ancient and modern, in the name of this erroneous and arrogant principle. In the instance before us Zechariah chose being right over being traditional and advanced God’s plan and was cured of his own arrogance and error.
Naming: “Name” is a very important word in Scripture. The “name” of God is a roundabout expression, for God himself. It stands for his character and nature and characteristic way of behaving. To call upon his name is to call upon him, but respectfully. The second commandment is about respecting God, not just respecting his moniker. “Name” is also very important when it comes to naming people. If God reveals a person’s name or changes it, it signifies that person’s character or nature or mission and, at the same time, reveals something of the “name” or character of God himself. Not every name in Scripture is divinely commanded. Sometimes a name merely describes an aspect of a person, like Laban, which means “white” or blonde,” or Esau “red hair.” Sometimes a name expresses the parents joy, like Saul and Samuel, both of which mean “asked for” or their faith, like Elijah, which means “Yahweh is my God.” It is only when God names a person that we have an indication of the person’s character or nature or mission. Not all names in Scripture qualify for this distinction. Amen.
