Nativity of John the Baptist

"His name is John."  That had to be a shock to the relatives and friends of Zechariah and Elizabeth.  To some maybe these two old people were flaunting tradition.  To others though the events surrounding the conception and birth of John the Baptist were something more along the divine realm.  In Luke's Gospel, Luke uses this marvelous inter-play of call and response.  Luke wants us to understand that God directly intervenes in our lives so as to offer salvation and peace.

We see in the section of Zechariah, that when there is doubt, not just confusion or misunderstanding, God imposes sort of a silent retreat to reflect on the Word of God.  When John is named, Zechariah's tongue is loosened and he begins to speak; praising God and prefacing the life of John the Baptist.  But there is your typical faith journey.  The struggle we all have with the presence of God's love and mercy.

In this other birth narrative God again shows himself as counter-cultural, and beyond the expectation of men and women.  God is born into our lives through a virgin, in a remote village, in the midst of poverty and oppression.  The Son of God is not a powerful warrior king, but a wandering preaching who is mistrusted by the religious authorities and loved by public sinners and outcasts.  So like the folks who are with Zechariah and Elizabeth, we might seem a little confused, if not frightened about our faith and relationship with God.

Ours is a radical faith.  John's preaching and ministry calls for nothing less than metanoia.  That is turning our lives around.  John's birth challenges us to own and live our faith.  I am apt to recall a parish far away, long, long ago, whereas when asked about he most important part of parish life, replied that it was their annual dinner.  Try as I might to get them to say, 'the Mass,' 'the sacraments,' or 'our prayer together,' they kept going back to the dinner.  You see, it raised a lot of money for the parish.  "The main thing, is to keep the main thing, the main thing, Christ and him crucified."  I always forget where that is from, but is a reminder that our faith is about the cross, the Kingdom of God, and a relationship with God.

Especially at this juncture, we can be nothing less than faithful disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We are called to have the ability to proclaim with Zechariah, the name of the Lord, Blessed.  We cannot give up on being faithful because it is not going our way.  God goes beyond our expectations of bringing us salvation and peace and we are happy about that.