“A wee bit spooky”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Friday, June 24, 2022
Luke 1:57-80 (Forward, p. 57) CEV p. 1055
I can well imagine the shock, and the dismay, that their fellow villagers must have felt in terms of the ‘happenings’ in the lives of Elizabeth and Zechariah. First off, he is struck dumb in the course of performing his duties in the Temple in Jerusalem. That alone would have been enough to get tongues wagging, especially considering when and where it happened. And then, having Elizabeth get pregnant in her advanced old age and give birth to a strapping baby boy. Then, to give the boy a strange, unfamiliar name, John, instead of being named after his father, have this choice backed up my Zechariah writing it down on a writing tablet, and see Zechariah finally able to speak again—again, after nine long months. Then, for him to ‘explode’ in song, in the words of the long familiar canticle, the Benedictus, would have been even more astounding, spooky in fact. Clearly the Lord was with him and was at work here. No doubt about it.
No wonder the neighbours wondered what would become of this child.
What this says to me is that God is most surely in charge back then and now as well, and that He is free to change our plans. We don’t know how old Elizabeth and Zechariah were but we can be sure that a newborn was something that they had never imaged, much less planned for prior to this pregnancy. It must have been a real ‘shock to the system’. Nevertheless, God was in this, and used this elderly couple in a very important way. And, with us, regardless of our age or situation, the same can be true, if only we will let Him. God wants to work wonders, to do something special, in each of our lives. It may seem a wee bit spooky, somewhat surprising and unusual, but sometimes that is the way that God sometimes works in our lives. Amen.
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, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins” (verses 76-77).
“The soaring poetry Zechariah speaks following the birth of his son John stands in contrast to the irascible image we have of John as an adult—the one who subsists on locusts and wild honey and doesn’t hold back from calling people a brood of vipers.
“But Zechariah’s prophecy succinctly points to John’s significance in the Christian story as a figure who links the Old Testament and the New. In his book, Stars in a Dark World, Fr. John-Julian describes John as ‘the last of the great prophets of Israel, a profession that becomes redundant in the very presence of the Messiah it announces.
“’What then will this child become?’ those observing John’s birth ask. The child becomes a man whose life’s zenith is to bestow baptism on God, and who then has the holiness and humility to point to and accept his story’s end, saying, ‘He must increase, but I must decrease.’”
MOVING FORWARD: “Close your eyes and imagine a conversation between John the Baptist and Jesus. What are they saying to one another? How do they interact?”