19 December 2017 - listening apprehension

Today's Readings (Audio)

I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. 
But now you will be speechless and unable to talk
until the day these things take place,
because you did not believe my words,
which will be fulfilled at their proper time.

Sometimes we could benefit from an angel making us unable to talk. We are often so eager to fill the silence with noise that we don't give God any time to speak. He tries to convey his plans to us, but we focus so much on our doubts and questions that we do't really allow him to communicate the God news to us.

Imagine if God allowed Zechariah to leave the temple with speech in tact. It is possible that he would repeat his doubts again and again until he didn't really believe anything was going to happen. After all, how could it? There were so many seemingly unalterable reasons. Yet, in the space of silence, Zechariah had time to absorb the words of the angel. He had time to learn to trust. This conspicuous absence of the words to describe him was a witness to those that surrounded him. Words would prove his ability to comprehend, contain, and even control the revelation. But the awe before that about which he could not even speak must be greater.

But when he came out, he was unable to speak to them,
and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. 
He was gesturing to them but remained mute.

Let us learn to give the messengers of God room to speak to us. Let us not fill things so much with our own words that we miss the words of God. The wife of Manoah was listening. She was able to state precisely what she was told when to her husband.

The woman went and told her husband,
"A man of God came to me;
he had the appearance of an angel of God, terrible indeed. 
I did not ask him where he came from, nor did he tell me his name. 
But he said to me,
'You will be with child and will bear a son. 
So take neither wine nor strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. 
For the boy shall be consecrated to God from the womb,
until the day of his death.'"

There was no interjection in the middle to mitigate what happened or to make it conditional or to in any way diminish it. Certainly there would be that temptation. After all, who is she that an angel should appear to her? Who are they that the deliverance of Israel from the Philistines should begin through them? Yet she hears this word correctly. And correctly she is able to proclaim it, full of power.

I will treat of the mighty works of the LORD;
O God, I will tell of your singular justice.
O God, you have taught me from my youth,
and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds.