The Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 24, 2023

Luke 1, 67-79 

Zechariah his father, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; for he has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David. Through his prophets he promised of old that he would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us. He promised to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant. This was the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to set us free from the hand of our enemies, free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight all the days of our life. You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins. In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

The last week of Advent this year lasts one day.

The last words Zechariah had said before becoming mute were spoken in the Temple to the Angel Gabriel: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (Luke 1, 18).  His words expressed doubt and even disbelief.  He curled himself into a defensive position before the Angel and prepared himself to make a refusal.  This behavior is remarkable in a priest, a son of Aaron, who meditated on the Law and knew well the stories of miraculous conceptions, and so it was fitting that he be struck deaf and dumb: he had stalled before the word of the Lord and so he should not hear it; and he would not give answer to the message of the Lord and so he should lose his ability to speak.  But Gabriel did not strike him deaf and dumb.  Rather, Zechariah incurred the natural consequences of his actions.

But Zechariah did not go back to his home embittered.  He pondered the last words of the Angel to him: “I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God; and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring you this good news. 20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time” (Luke 1, 19-20).  He entered the difficult world of silence in which he struggled to make his slightest needs or thoughts known, and from this experience he realized that he had become a sign.  What had happened to him as a result of his faithlessness had come upon Israel long before.  Since it would not hear the Prophets, it lost its ability to hear.  Since it praised foreign gods, it lost its ability to speak.

Over the months of his silence, he repented.  More than that, he grew eager to fulfill the commandments God had given to him through the Angel.  Over the months he began to understand what his son would mean for Israel.  As he, Zechariah, had become a sign, so his son would be a sign — a sign not of Israel’s lack of faith and of the broken covenant, but a sign of a new dawn, a herald of the new Covenant God would make with man through the Savior he would send.  And after nine months of silence, he was granted the opportunity to act, to repair his disbelief with firm belief in the face of pressure to conform to the old ways.  And after writing, “His name is John” on the wax tablet, and regained his ability to hear and to speak.  And the first words he spoke were the praise of God.  No hesitancy restrains him now, no questions linger.  He speaks of God and his plan for the salvation of his people: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; for he has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David.”  Before he even speaks of his own son, John, he speaks of the coming Messiah, whom he knew now would be born of the Virgin Mary, his wife’s kinswoman who had departed a few days before.  When he does speak of his son, it is to prophesy of his place in God’s plan: “You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.”  A proud father, yet he sees all in the context of the Savior, the son of David, and in all of his canticle, he speaks only a line or two of his son, the servant of the Redeemer.

We do not see Zechariah and Elizabeth in the Gospels after this.  They do not lead outwardly extraordinary lives but carry on quietly with the mission God has given them, that of raising their son to be a holy man.  Not many of us are called to live lives as John the Baptist did, attracting crowds, but we are all called to fulfill the will of God in our lives however humble our lives may be.