“Spooked”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Thursday, December 23, 2021
Luke 1:57-66 (Forward, p. 55) CEV p. 1055
Us mortals have a way of being spooked or ill at ease when approached by the supernatural, or, by anything totally out of the ordinary. Today’s narrative of the birth of John the Baptist certainly gives a number of examples of this.
First off, there was the birth itself, coming as it did, to a couple that was well advanced in years. They had never been able to have children and Elizabeth was considered barren. So, the pregnancy and ensuring birth came as a surprise to both friends and neighbours. This alone would have caused a certain uneasiness, but there was more to come.
Then there came the circumcism and the naming of the child. Those present were all hept on naming him Zechariah, after his father, but Elizabeth demurred. “No”, she said, “his name is John.” Surprised at the choice of such a non-family name they motioned to Zechariah to get his thoughts on the matter. Taking a writing tablet, he concurred with his wife and wrote “His name is John.” How utterly unusual, and unnatural. No wonder the people were astounded, amazed, even spooked, by it all.
And then, to top it all off, to spook them even more, Zechariah, after the long nine-month hiatus of not being able to talk, broke into speech and into an amazing hymn of praise to God.
But then, why should this have surprised them—or us? God can certainly work in the mundane, in the ordinary, but He can also work outside and beyond them as well. Ordinary matters like a pregnancy and birth, or the naming of a child, are fully within His orbit, but so too are an unexpected convergence of events. Actually, God’s presence and God’s activity are all around us, if only we had the eyes to see and the willingness to look. I’m constantly amazed at how this truth was evidenced in the Christmas story. Did not anyone else see or hear the angelic chorus? Or was no one else aware of the very pregnant Mary or of the strange couple that ‘occupied’ the stable for a time? Or no one else notice the bright star that guided the Magi? Surely all these things were in plain view to someone else at least, but did they take notice of them—much less see them as signs of God’s hand and presence? That, I would say is our task, this Christmastime and always. To see God at work and not be spooked by it. Amen.
Forward notes: “All who heard them pondered them and said, ‘What then will this child become?’ For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him” (verse 66).
“Weekly, one of my sons will ask the other what he wants to be when he grows up. Last week, my older son declared that he wanted to be an astronaut-engineer-zookeeper, a career combination that completely makes sense in his mind. My younger son took a different sort of approach and declared that he wanted to be retired. “So, are you going to work before retiring?’ I asked him, overhearing their conversation. ‘Nope, I just want to be retired.’
“Their imaginations are the stuff miracles are made of, and I can’t help but think about Luke 1, when a tiny baby later known as John the Baptist came onto the scene. Surely his parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah, must have known that something special would become of him. After all, it’s not every day that an angel of the Lord visits a self-described ‘very old’ couple and promises them a son.
“From the beginning, they believed greatness for their son, for God’s hand was so evidently on John from the very beginning. I doubt it’s any different for you and for me, and for our own self-described children-of-God selves.”
Moving Forward: “Say a prayer for the children in your life.”
