they were going to call him Zechariah after his father
Our tendency is try to force reality into conformity with patterns that we understand. Elizabeth was miraculously able to give birth to a child. Yet in spite, or perhaps because of the miraculous nature of the birth, her friends, who really did want to rejoice with her, nevertheless tried to name him, to limit him, to conform him to be merely what his father had been. Yet what the world needed was something more than Zechariah, a voice made silent because of unbelief. The world needed a messenger.
“No. He will be called John.”
The child would not be named on the basis of what the mother or the father contributed naturally to his conception. Rather, his name meant "the grace of God", signifying the most significant aspect of his coming to be, that he was not simply a son, but a gift from God.
But they answered her,
“There is no one among your relatives who has this name.”
The crowds will always do this. They will limit the possibilities for the future on the basis of past experience. Even though every financial advertisement advises that "past performance does not necessarily predict future results" it is still difficult for us to do otherwise. Without that sense of control we tend to fear the future as utterly unknown and unpredictable, an alien world to which we have no map.
He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”
and all were amazed.
For us, as followers of the Lord, we do not face the future alone. We face it together with the one who holds all things in his hands, who can see clearly from here unto the end of history. When we recognize this fact we become less desperate to predict the future. We are more able to embrace the creative potential before us with good humor.
History is merely a list of surprises,' I said. 'It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down.- Kurt Vonnegut
Facing the future fearlessly is only possible when our lives our rooted in and centered around the grace of God. Our doubts are a hindrance that can keep us tied to old and unfruitful patterns, silent and unable anything new and vital. We can learn, like Zechariah, to step back from patterns of the past, to inhabit silence when we feel unable to bring our own meaning, and within that silence to find and embrace the offer of grace.
“John is his name,”
Our tongues are not yet as free to speak blessing God as God himself desires them to be. We are still constrained by so many self-limiting beliefs based on our past, beliefs centered on us and our own human limitations. As we approach Christmas we are invited to embrace moments of silence so that God himself can reveal his grace to us. Then we will not be speaking on our own, not merely expressing our own clever ideas, but rather speaking as we were meant to speak, in freedom, blessing God.
We read that grace and truth came truly and definitively in the person of Jesus Christ (see John 1:17). That grace was already reaching back through history in the person of John, transforming the voice of prophecy which had seemingly fallen silent in Israel, into a voice that could now be understood as pointing toward the coming of Jesus himself. Human doubt was met and overcome by the offer of divine grace. What happened in that grand sense is now something Jesus himself desires to do in us. He wants to refine and purify us just as he did Zechariah.
For he is like the refiner’s fire,
or like the fuller’s lye.
He will sit refining and purifying silver,
and he will purify the sons of Levi,
Refining them like gold or like silver
that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.
A time of silence is a small price to pay for a life of praise.
Rightly also, from that moment was his tongue loosed, for that which unbelief had bound, faith set free. Let us then also believe, in order that our tongue, which has been bound by the chains of unbelief, may be loosed- Saint Ambrose
No comments:
Post a Comment