Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John
I'm driving home from work; it's a hot day, my kids are in the back seat, and we're longing to get home to the cool of our house, to supper, to spending time with each other after not seeing each other all day. At the next stop light, there's a man waving a sign, wanting money or food. The light turns green just in time for me to "safely" keep driving through the light, to not have to worry about him or find coins in the car to give or think about what it might mean to be homeless on a hot day.
I've lived that scene more often than I care to admit. "No!" I think. I want to be someone different, someone who is more Christ-like than that. My desire to be with my family at the end of the day is not wrong - not at all. But it is also not contrary to helping other members of my family - the one I have in Christ, where my brothers and sisters might well be complete strangers to me.
When I reflect on John the Baptist's birth day, I am reminded of myself. Today's gospel (Luke 1:57-66, 80) shows John being born and named by his father. It's a scene that usually happened in households of the day. But this one is different, of course, because John's father Zechariah did not listen to the Angel Gabriel when he announced that he and Elizabeth would have a son.
This old priest was not so unlike Mary: both asked questions of the angel (read the full chapter to see both stories). But the difference is in the details. Zechariah asked Gabriel, "How shall I know this?" He wants proof, he wants evidence, he wants direct confirmation. Mary asks, "How can this be?" Knowledge doesn't figure into it, for her - she knows this will happen, but wants to know how it could happen. Our lesson is that faith in God goes a long way over knowledge. And so Gabriel says that Zechariah will be unable to speak until he gives the baby's name.
I'm a lot more like Zechariah. I'm a theologian who seeks knowledge so much that I wonder if I miss the moments God gives me to see glimpses of the mystery of Jesus. I'm not as accepting of things that aren't knowledge-based (at least to my own satisfaction). But the thing is, I think our culture is rather a lot more like Zechariah too, than it is like Mary. We live in a scientifically-based rational culture. This is not wrong, but it is limiting.
So it is important, on this day, to remember the baby's name, John. It means "God is Gracious". And with that proclamation that God is gracious, written on a tablet, Zechariah recovers his voice. God is gracious. God seeks after even the people who don't get it - time and time again. God seeks after even me, the one who misses God's nudges at the stop light.
God is gracious enough to send us a light that witnesses to Jesus Christ, as we read about in today's other lessons (Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13:22-26). If you've ever wondered how God could have expected that a little baby, born in a backwater province to poor people in the middle of the Roman Empire would have a name "that would be above all names" remember: it didn't just depend on that birth. It depended, too, on people like John the Baptist, who prepared the people - and us today - to recognize that God is gracious enough to send us Christ and to be with us. Today's solemnity is a celebration of grace and faith.
Let us reflect on God's grace in our own lives - and be moved to respond to God with acts of Christian discipleship.
- Jana M. Bennett