What, then will this child be?

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. The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.

As I meditated on this reading today, three themes kept running through my mind:

“Fear came upon all their neighbors”. We don’t like to think about it, but we are all sinners. We tend to put our sins on the “back burners” of our minds until we are reminded by some event (great or small) that God is truly among us and knows our thoughts and actions. Then we become “fearful” that He will punish us. Our emphasis should be more on sorrow that we’ve offended him, and making a firm purpose of amendment to avoid sin, rather than fear of eternal punishment.

“All these matters were discussed”. I imagine most of the discussion was in the form of gossip. I can hear it now; “Did you hear about Zechariah and Elizabeth?” “They called their son ‘John’! There has never been a ‘John’ in the house of Zechariah! Who do they think they are?” As Dennis Miller says, “I don’t want to go on a rant here, but…..” Gossip is the main thoroughfare of scandal. We would do well not to participate. ‘Nuff said.

“What, then will this child be?” Of course we know the story of John. What I got to thinking about this part of the reading though, is the universality of the question. Every parent has the same question when a child is born. We all want the best for our children, and we truly believe they can be anything they want to be. The trouble comes when we don’t support them by giving them the proper tools and education so they can become “strong in spirit”. Every child—no, every human being—has a purpose: to love and serve God with all our heart mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is the degree to which we fulfill that purpose that is important and essential to our eternal happiness with Jesus in Heaven.