December 19, 2021 - Advent Week 4

 

Mary and Elizabeth


 

Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you and many will rejoice because of his birth. Luke 1: 13-14.

 

Advent represents the church season of preparation and of waiting

 

Today’s gospel tells the story of a devout elderly couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth. As faithful Jews they had long been waiting for the promised Messiah. On a more personal level they had also been waiting many years for a child of their own. It is only when this had become humanly impossible that God sent the angel Gabriel to tell Zechariah that Elizabeth would become pregnant with a male child who would be called John. Not only would the child John bring profound joy and blessing to Elizabeth and Zechariah but he would also grow into the prophet who would be filled with the Holy Spirit, and who would be greatly used by God to make his people fully ready for their coming Messiah.

 

Of course, we know that the deeply religious Zechariah responded to Gabriel in disbelief and that he was silenced until eight days after the birth of John. As for Elizabeth, she welcomed the news of her pregnancy with joy and thanksgiving. After secluding herself for many months Elizabeth received a very special visitor, her cousin Mary. During their joyous reunion Elizabeth’s child stirred within her and she herself was  filled with the Holy Spirit. Three months later, at the time of John’s birth, Zechariah wrote on a stone tablet: “His name is John.” In that moment his power of speech was suddenly restored and he began to give thanks to God.

 

Zechariah and Elizabeth had to learn to wait, not only for the coming Messiah but also for their own beloved son John. The nine months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy must have been particularly long ones for the elderly mother, as well as for the silenced and subdued father. However the end of their waiting brought great joy and celebration, as did the miraculous birth of Jesus several months later.

 

Today we wait and we prepare our hearts and minds for the time when we will celebrate the birth of Jesus and his coming to live amongst us. Our waiting will also culminate in profound joy, thanksgiving and celebration.

 

This chorus from Handel’s Messiah echoes the words with which, much later, John as a thirty-year-old would point his disciples to Jesus the Messiah. Handel’s choice of a minor key reflects the fact that John’s words herald Jesus first and foremost as the sacrificial Lamb of God who will suffer for the sins of the world.

 

- Tim and Patricia Pope

 

 


 

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