Friday in the Fourth Week of Advent, December 23, 2022

Luke 1, 57-66

When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” 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. 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. 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.”

The Virgin Mary departed from her relative Elizabeth’s town after staying with her for three months.  During this time, she would have managed the household and directed the servants for Elizabeth, which she certainly would not have been able to do herself at that point.  But there were limits on what Mary could do, as she herself was by now three months pregnant.  Traveling on the open road would have become difficult for her and even a little dangerous.  Yet she could not wait any longer to return to Nazareth, where her family, and Joseph must have been anxious for her.  Elizabeth doubtlessly persuaded Mary to go despite her desire to continue serving her, and it is possible that Joseph arrived to help her make the trip.  Losing the company of Mary and her unborn Child would have been hard for Elizabeth, but by the time Mary left, Elizabeth was ready to give birth.

It is not clear if Elizabeth had made her pregnancy known to her friends and neighbors after the Virgin Mary came to her.  Mary herself learned of it only through the revelation of the Angel Gabriel.  Yet it is hard to imagine that Zechariah’s fellow priests did not ask about her or that the servants had not talked to other servants.  The pregnancy might have been hidden for the first six months, especially since no one would have thought of it, but probably not for the last three.  Mary’s arrival might have been put down by observers as due to some infirmity Elizabeth was suffering (she was already an older woman), but by the time she gave birth, the whole town must have known, and surely the people there would have heard the labor cries.  

At the end of those cries, there was a baby.  Like all new babies, a sign of innocence and hope, but this one more than any other that had yet been born.  The mysterious circumstances around his conception, both Zechariah’s loss of hearing and speech in the Temple as well as the age of the parents, hung over it.  In addition, Elizabeth’s behavior after the conception aroused curiosity and concern.  The signs of some heavenly action seemed everywhere, but no one could say definitely what they meant.  The mystery and the strange behavior came to a head when Elizabeth insisted that the child be named John at the time of his circumcision, against the wishes of her well-meaning relatives.  Zechariah made this decision firm by writing on a clay tablet that the child’s name was John.  The crowd was astounded because, deaf and mute, Zechariah should not have been able to understand what everyone was arguing over.  His action silenced the crowd, and with that he began to speak for the first time in nine months.  Inspired by the Holy Spirit, with deep emotion, he explained what it all meant.

“What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”  Zechariah told the people assembled for John’s circumcision that his son would “be called the prophet of the Most High, for [he] will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins” (Luke 1, 76).  No father had ever spoken of his newborn son in this way.  He would “go before the Lord” to “prepare” his way invoking Malachi 3, 1; and that he would do this by preaching repentance, invoking Malachi 3, 24.  The people understood these verses very specifically as pertaining to the arrival of the Prophet Elijah, who would precede the Messiah.  But the fact that, all the signs aside, the birth seemed very much like any other birth in the obscure little town town where they lived.  When Elijah did come, he would come down from heaven, just as the Messiah would.  This was their thinking, though nothing in the Scriptures told them this.  And so, while they still wondered about what had happened, they went on with their lives.

We, to whom Christ has come in baptism and to whom he continues to come st Holy Mass, must not live as though this had not happened and was continuing to happen, but through virtuous lives we should proclaim that the Lord came, continues to come, and will come again.