Shut Up And Believe The Good News, Zechariah

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2024

Today’s Gospel just leaps out at us in the congregation if we haven’t any Old Testament background or have failed to read the earlier part of Luke’s Gospel. Zechariah and Elizabeth, up in the hill country of Judea, are childless, elderly members of a priestly clan. We need to remember that the Jewish priesthood in the first century, and for a few generations before that, was a political post. The family of priests founded by Aaron, Moses’ brother, had died out years before Christ. Moreover, the Ark of the Covenant had disappeared centuries earlier at the time of the Babylonian exile, so the high priest-politician praying in the Holy of Holies had lost much of his credibility. But prayers continued, led by the tribe of Levi.

Zechariah has won the rite to offer incense in the Temple at evening prayer. As he did this, the angel Gabriel, last seen in the Book of Daniel, appears. Angelic appearances aren’t “woke,” mealy-mouthed events. In the roofless Temple, the imposing divine messenger was WAY taller than Zechariah, who showed fear. Gabriel told Z not to be afraid. His prayer has been heard by God. Childless Elizabeth will bear a son, to be named Johachanon (John), who will be a prophet in the manner of Elijah, and he will “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” In other words, their son would kick-start the conversion of the Jews to right living and right worship.

Zechariah, who probably graduated in the bottom half of his seminary class, laments, “How can I know (believe) this? I’m an old man and my wife is an old woman.” The angel answers (probably drawing himself up another five or ten meters in height), “I AM GABRIEL, and I bring good news. But you didn’t believe the gospel, so you’ll get to shut your mouth until the prophecy comes true.” We don’t know what Elizabeth thought of this newly silent husband, but, like her elderly ancestress Sarah, wife of Abraham, she did get pregnant and bear a son, just as God promised. Zechariah was muted until John was born and about to be circumcised. He then wrote “His name is John” and his tongue was released. He then belted out a berekah, a song of blessing that we still chant at Morning Prayer every day.

Mary’s visitation (the second mystery of the Joyful ones) is placed right in the middle of this drama. She was probably present for John’s birth and naming. In today’s Gospel, she, recently made pregnant by God with God the Son, comes to a very pregnant Elizabeth to declare her willingness to help her old cousin in her last trimester. Elizabeth feels John kick her (moms, you know how that feels) just as Mary’s greeting fills the house. She blesses Mary and then echoes an exclamation first used by King David when the Ark of the Covenant is brought to his capital: “And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Mary is thus declared the New Ark of the Covenant, one of the titles given her in the Church Fathers. Mary’s prayer is the Magnificat, which we recite at Evensong daily. Mary will stay for about three months and return to Nazareth to complete her marriage rite to Joseph and prepare for another trip to Bethlehem and Christ's birth.

The feast of Christmas is coming this week. If you have children, you don’t need that reminder. But let’s use the next couple of days to intensely prepare. Jesus comes multiple times in our lives. The author of Hebrews tells us that He came to do the will of God, His Father. His first coming in the first century was such a hinge of history that we date time from His life story. He comes to us personally when we take Him into our hearts, when we allow Him to change us more perfectly into His image, rightly worshiping God and serving our neighbor. Those comings were quiet encounters, most probably. He will come to us when we breathe our last breath, or when the Father tells the angels to blow their horns for the glorious return. For those comings, we need to prepare every day.