“A sudden outburst”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Luke 1: 67-80 (Forward, p. 56) CEV p. 1056
I can hardly imagine what it was like. For nine long, tedious, excruciating months Zechariah had been unable to speak, and finally, at this epic point in time, when his input was needed in terms of his son’s name, his voice breaks forth, like the waters penned up behind a dam. And what ‘comes out’—other than to say his ‘two bits’ about his son’s name—is an incredible song of praise. No wonder his neighbours were astounded, amazed. They had never seen anything like it. It is no surprise then, that they wondered what this child would grow up to be. Most assuredly, they thought, ‘the Lord was with him.’
And indeed, the Song of Zechariah, the Benedictus, echoes this sentiment. It begins with more general praises, speaking of how God has honoured His promises to Abraham and come to save His people. And somehow he knows that this promised Saviour will be from the house of David, but then he was most assuredly around, and listening in, when Mary had come to visit Elizabeth some time previously—and so he would have known!
But there was more to his song than just that. Inspired by the Holy Spirit and informed by what the angel Gabriel had told him earlier, he was able to enunciate what his son’s mission would be, namely, to be someone who’d prepare the way for the Lord, to get everything ready for Him.
And so, as John grew up—there is no further mention of either Zachariah or Elizabeth, which is rather natural, given their extreme ages—God’s Spirit gave Him great power. He lives in the desert—a time of preparation, no doubt--until the time when he was sent to the people of Israel. But what a kick-start, what a beginning, with Zachariah’s encounter with the angel, and with this sudden outburst of praise: wow!
But what should we take from this? Most assuredly, we should heed John’s words, his call to repentance and faith. Most assuredly, we should ensure that there is a place for the Messiah, Jesus, in our hearts and lives and get rid of all that would hinder this.
But then, I also wonder: can we, you and I, also be like John the Baptist—in preparing the way for Jesus, in portraying Him by word and deed in such a way as to attract others to Him, such that they’d want to know Him. I wonder if this not something that we can do.
Forward notes: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways” (verse 76).
“Yes! One word. Three letters. One syllable. A world transformed. Mary said yes to God. She said yes to the possibilities of what could be, to injustices being made right, and to the poor and the outcasts being brought to the center. She said yes to a dream that God can and will transform our world with a simple yes.
“When was the last time you said yes? It might seem like an odd question to ask on Christmas Eve, but in the Child of Bethlehem, we hear, see, and experience God’s own yes to us in love. We are continually invited by God, over and over and over again, to change and transform this world in love, and it all began with a peasant girl in a backwater town three doors down from Nowhereville.
“May we continue in our own time to say yes to God. Yes to hope, yes to justice, yes to love. And may we join with Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, angels, and all the people of God and joyfully proclaim, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to those whom God favors.’”
Moving Forward: “What will you say yes to today?”
A concluding note: Somehow today’s author has mixed up Mary’s ‘yes’, which is so very significant and obvious, with the more muted and less apparent ‘yes’ of Elizabeth and Zachariah, which was no less needed than Mary’s. And likewise needed are our yes’s.