Patrick Comerford
We are drawing near to the end of Advent, yesterday was the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Advent IV) and tomorrow is Christmas Eve.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 1: 57-66 (NRSVA):
57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. 60 But his mother said, ‘No; he is to be called John.’ 61 They said to her, ‘None of your relatives has this name.’ 62 Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. 63 He asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And all of them were amazed. 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65 Fear came over all their neighbours, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. 66 All who heard them pondered them and said, ‘What then will this child become?’ For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.
Today’s Reflection:
In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 1: 57-66), we continue a series of readings before Christmas that draw on the two nativity narratives found in Matthew 1: 1-24 and Luke 1: 5-79.
During the week before Christmas, the great canticle Magnificat at Evensong traditionally has a refrain or antiphon attached to it proclaiming the ascriptions or ‘names’ given to God through the Old Testament. Each name develops into a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah.
O Sapientia, or O Wisdom, is the first of these days, and was marked on Tuesday (17 December). It was followed on Wednesday (18 December) by O Adonai, by O Root of Jesse on Thursday (19 December), O Key of David on Friday (20 December), O Dayspring on Saturday (21 December), O King of the Nations yesterday (22 December), and, finally O Emmanuel today (23 December).
The seven majestic Messianic titles for Christ are based on Biblical prophecies, and they help the Church to recall the variety of the ills of humanity before the coming of the Redeemer as each antiphon in turn pleads with mounting impatience for Christ to save his people.
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Luke 1: 57-66) continues on from the story of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth, with the only Gospel account of the birth, circumcision and naming of Saint John the Baptist.
Zechariah (זְכַרְיָה or Ζαχαρίας), also named in translations as Zacharias, Zachariah and Zachary, the husband of Elizabeth and the father of John the Baptist, is a priest, one of the cohanim descended from the sons of Aaron. Origen suggests that the Zechariah mentioned in Matthew 23:35 as being killed between the temple and the altar may be the father of John the Baptist.
His name means ‘remember Yah’ or ‘remember God’ or ‘God remembers’. There are several Biblical figures with the name, including the Prophet Zachariah in Judah, a martyred son of a high priest, a king who reigned in Judah for six months, and several minor characters.
On the other hand, the Greek name Ἰωάννης (Ioannes) is a rendering of the Hebrew name Yohanan (יוֹחָנָן), a shorter form of the name Yəhôḥānān (יְהוֹחָנָן), which means ‘God is gracious’.
In the Hebrew Bible, Yohanan was the son of King Josiah of Judah (7th century BCE); Yohanan, son of Kareah, was a leader of the army who led the remnant of the population of Judah to Egypt for safety after the Babylonian dismantling of the kingdom in 586 BCE; Yohanan ben Yehoyada is a high priest named in the Book of Nehemiah and was the fourth in the line of high priests after Joshua the High Priest, who returned from the Babylonian captivity with Zerubbabel.
During the Hasmonean or Maccabean period, Yohanan was the father of Matityahu; John Gaddi, oldest of the sons of Mattathias and brother of Judas Maccabeus, was one of the leaders of the revolt of the Maccabees in the 2nd century BCE; John Hyrcanus was a Maccabean leader and Jewish high priest from 134 BCE until his death in 104 BCE; and John Hyrcanus II (1st century BCE) was a member of the Hasmonean dynasty, High Priest, King, and ethnarch of Judea.
So, the name John, in its variant forms, was both a priestly and a royal name, and was associated with the leaders of resistance to occupation and resistance.
In idle moments, I sometimes wonder whether Jesus and John grew up knowing each other.
Did Mary and Joseph regularly visit Zechariah and Elizabeth?
Was Zechariah present as a priest in the Temple at the Presentation, or when the teenage Jesus was lost in the Temple?
Did Jesus and John send birthday greetings to one another?
Did they go to each other’s bar mitzvah?
Did they celebrate and major holidays of Holy Days together … Purim, Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Simchat Torah, Hanukakh … ?
Did they dress up together at Purim?
Did they spin dreidels with each other and play games together at Chanukah? – Incidentally, Christmas Day and the first day of Hanukkah fall on the same day this year, for the first time in 19 years.
Did John the Baptist ever take up his duties and responsibilities as a priest in the Temple before going into the Wilderness?
Was he in the Temple when Jesus visited, healed, taught, debated Caesar’s coins, or overturned the tables of the moneychangers?
Did John offer Jesus the priestly blessing that the cohanim alone impart?
The priestly blessing (Numbers 6: 24-26) that Zechariah and John would have pronounced, with their hands outstretched in the traditional way, is:
May the Lord bless and protect you.
May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you
May the Lord turn his face toward you, and give you peace.
The Priestly Blessing (ברכת כהנים, birkat cohanim), is known in rabbinic literature as raising the hands or rising to the platform because the blessing is given from a raised rostrum.
The Jewish Sages stressed that although the priests are the ones carrying out the blessing, it is not them or the ceremonial practice of raising their hands that results in the blessing, but rather it is God’s desire that his blessing should be symbolised by the hands of the cohanim.
The former Chief Rabbi, the late Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, says the Torah explicitly says that though the cohanim say the words, it is God who sends the blessing: ‘When the cohanim bless the people, they are not doing anything in and of themselves. Instead they are acting as channels through which God’s blessing flows into the world and into our lives.’
He adds, ‘Only love does this. Love means that we are focused not on ourselves but on another. Love is selflessness. And only selflessness allows us to be a channel through which flows a force greater than ourselves, the love that as Dante said, “moves the sun and the other stars”, the love that brings new life into the world.’
Today’s Prayers (Monday 23 December 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Love – Advent’. This theme was introduced yesterday with Reflections by the Revd Lopa Mudra Mistry, Presbyter in the Diocese of Calcutta, the Church of North India (CNI).
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 23 December 2024) invites us to pray:
Father, as we await your coming, may today be filled with peace and free of any distractions that lead our heart away from you.
The Collect:
God our redeemer,
who prepared the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
who chose the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of the promised saviour
: fill us your servants with your grace,
that in all things we may embrace your holy will
and with her rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Eternal God,
as Mary waited for the birth of your Son,
so we wait for his coming in glory;
bring us through the birth pangs of this present age
to see, with her, our great salvation
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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