Her neighbors and relatives heard
that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her,
and they rejoiced with her.
The Lord had great mercy upon Elizabeth. Her neighbors and relatives rejoiced that she who was barren had given birth to a son. Already the joy which Elizabeth and Mary experienced together was beginning to spread out inexorably in circle after concentric circle. Yet the relatives did not yet know the full reason they had to be joyous. People had realized that Zechariah "had seen a vision in the sanctuary" but the relatives and friends who were with them at the birth of this child must not have known the details. They proposed the name Zechariah after his father, as opposed to the name given by the angel. What they proposed as a response to this joy was a repetition of what had gone before, another cycle of the natural, quotidian existence with which they were familiar.
they were going to call him Zechariah after his father,
but his mother said in reply,
“No. He will be called John.”
Elizabeth, by contrast, was clearly informed about the vision Zechariah received. And given the miraculous results in her very person she was not going to be the one to disagree with Gabriel about the name of the child. If God wanted to speak something new and unexpected through her and her family she would cooperate with that initiative. But the neighbors and relatives grew a bit desperate. They didn't want to upset the status quo over much. This birth was unusual, to be sure, but if they could only control the name of the child they may have felt as though they could tame the miracle. Perhaps intuitively they understood that John was to be anything but tame and an unconscious fear of holiness gave rise to their agitated reaction.
But they answered her,
“There is no one among your relatives who has this name.”
So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called.
Did they actually need to make signs? After all, Zechariah's punishment was only to be speechless. But they may have been too preoccupied with their own ideas to even correctly understand his condition. They may have had a hard time accepting the supernatural basis for the speechless condition of Zechariah, even if they had heard that it came about because of a vision. If they were that ignorant of what was happening in with him it helped explained why they didn't realize that Elizabeth's idea for a name came to her through Zechariah from the angel himself. They weren't going to get a different answer by asking Zechariah instead.
He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”
and all were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
and he spoke blessing God.
Zechariah gave voice to his doubts and lost his ability to speak. But in the stillness and space created by a lack of words of his own he found the room God's word was meant to have in him. And this space led to belief, which, when professed, opened his mouth and freed his tongue. His mouth was closed by doubt, but opened to speak blessing God.
We should learn to avoid giving our negative thoughts and doubts power over us by repeating them like mantras. We should instead fill our hearts with faith and our speech with praise. Even when we don't understand what God is doing or what he desires of us we can be careful with the words we choose as Mary was. Perhaps it was because she always appeared ready to reflect on God's word in her heart that she never needed to be forced into silence. She was afraid, but her faith did not waver. Let us learn, then, to speak, as much as possible, in agreement with the word of God.
Then fear came upon all their neighbors,
and all these matters were discussed
throughout the hill country of Judea.
All who heard these things took them to heart, saying,
“What, then, will this child be?
For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”
It seems the neighbors ultimately couldn't tame or contain the destiny of John the Baptist. He was not to be merely another round of business as usual, nor yet just a picturesque child and heir to the family. He was rather another round of something quite different, utterly untamed, and vastly more important.
Lo, I will send you
Elijah, the prophet,
Before the day of the LORD comes,
the great and terrible day
Whenever the Lord draws near, as he does to us this Christmas, he does so as a refiner's fire, purifying those to whom he draws near. This means that we are meant to use the preparations he provides to make ourselves ready, to dispose our hearts to receive this purification. The infant Jesus can cleanse our hearts of attachment to sin and disproportionate attachment to the things of this world. But grace is received according to the mode of the receiver. We are not good at opening ourselves to grace, but if we cooperate with what God is doing (even if it is sometimes as frightening as the birth of John) he himself will make us ready.
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