December 23, 2025, Tuesday
Lectionary #199, Luke 1: 57-66

Scripture
When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. When they came on the eighth day to circumcise the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother said in reply, “No. He will be called John.” But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. Immediately, his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God.

Then fear came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea. All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be? For surely the hand of the Lord was with him.”

Reflection
God needs a trumpet. God chooses to use someone to proclaim his coming. Since when does the Word need other words to speak for him? Why this is so, He only knows. The gospel makes it clear that John was a special messenger. He was born to parents who were too old to have children. He was to be named “after his father Zechariah.” But Elizabeth, his mother, intervened and said, “No, he is to be named John.” His name is the short form of Yah-hannah or the “grace of God.” He was destined to be, in a particular way, the gift of God to the people of Israel. In God’s manner of doing things, gifts can be things, events, or people. What could be a better gift than that of a person?

Jesus chose John to precede him. Luke also makes this clear. The pattern of joy at his birth parallels the joy of the shepherds at the birth of Christ. Every detail is brought into play to make of this birth something extraordinary. Luke is writing between the lines, saying: the coming of Christ on earth will be worth acclaiming and celebrating because he will bring peace and salvation. His will be the most memorable of all births. This one of John is meant to call attention to it, to highlight it.

“Fear descended on all in the neighborhood,” writes Luke because people felt the hand of God in all these events. “Throughout the hill country of Judea these happenings began to be recounted in the last detail.” No one yet knew why this birth was so special. It was one to be remembered, and that is the key to all these details.

John is born in view of the One who is to come after him. Just as “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart,” so did the people of Zechariah’s locality: “All who heard stored these things up in their hearts saying, ‘What will this child be?’ and ‘Was not the hand of God upon him?'”

This is the question that the whole gospel of Luke will answer. This child has come for another. His entire life will be lived in praise of another. Thus, even in his birth, John proclaims the coming of another, his cousin and Savior. Just as Jesus “advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man,” so John himself “grew up and matured in spirit.”

This parallel between the births of John and Jesus is more than a way of getting attention. Our births and our lives in all their details of joy, surprise and pain are meant to speak of the renewed coming of God on earth. The miracle of birth is meant to give praise to God and to herald limitless and enthusiastic optimism for life. As soon as Zechariah obeyed the inspiration to call his son John, “at that moment his mouth was opened and his tongue began to speak in praise of God.”

The impression is purposely left lingering in these verses that everything has been done according to the will of God. If this sounds like hoary spirituality and induces boredom, it is still an anchor conviction expressed as early as the first chapter of a gospel and as early in life as birth. There is nothing in our lives that should not inspire praise ‒ right from the start.

La Salette Invocation
Our Lady of La Salette, reconciler of sinners,
pray without ceasing for us who have recourse to you.