What, then, am I called to be?

 

One of the more beautiful stories in the Bible to reflect on as we grow closer to our Christmas Day celebration of the Birth of Christ is that of Zechariah, the father of Saint John the Baptist.  God blessed him and Elizabeth with a miraculous pregnancy at an old age after being barren.  The Angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the temple to reveal the glorious event, but Zechariah received it with disbelief.  The result was that he was struck mute until the day of his child’s birth.

Luke’s Gospel [Luke 1:57-66] reveals how Zechariah untied the knot of his disbelief.  He did so by following the command of the angel to name the child “John.”  Traditionally, their first born would be named Zechariah after his father.  But God had picked the name “John” and, therefore, both Zechariah and Elizabeth were given the opportunity to embrace and manifest their faith by accepting the name given to their child by God.

In a sense, we can say that Zechariah “righted his wrong.”  He righted it by making the choice of faith and acting on it.  This is a great witness for all of us because all of us have failed in faith in one way or another.  In the case of Zechariah, God punished him severely, stripping away his ability to speak.  But what we see in this gospel is that this “stripping” of Zechariah’s speech was not done primarily as a punishment, but so that God could manifest His glory through Zechariah’s manifestation of his faith.  People were “amazed” at Zechariah as he fulfilled this act of faith and named his newborn child “John.”  Thus, his suffering was now a manifestation of the glory of God!

It seems that anyone associated with Jesus has some remarkable things happen to him or her.  But these extraordinary things that happen with John shouldn’t blind us to the remarkable things that God has done for us in our lives.  The very fact of our having life is remarkable.  The birth, life, Passion and death, and Resurrection of Jesus for our salvation is a mystery that can never be fully comprehended.  But as we strive this season to enter more deeply into this mystery of God’s love for us, we may ask ourselves, “What, then, am I called to be?”

Perhaps we are called, in the words of the prophet Malachi, to “prepare the way” of the Lord [Malachi 3:1-24].  Perhaps we, like John, are called to help “turn the hearts of parents toward their children, and the hearts of children toward their parents", and the hearts of people toward each other [Luke 1:17].

Before we scoff at this notion of being called for the same mission as John, we would do well to remember what the angel told Mary when he informed her that Elizabeth was pregnant, “nothing will be impossible for God.” [Luke 1:37]