Today, we celebrate a
baby’s birth – a common enough event in ordinary human life, but something of a
rarity in the Church’s calendar, which typically celebrates saints on the day
of their death. Only three special people – Jesus himself, Mary his mother, and
St. John the Baptist, whom the Gospel describes as filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb – only
those three get to have their actual birthdays acknowledged in the Church’s
calendar.
Today’s celebration
transports us in spirit into an Old Testament atmosphere of pious, devout
senior citizens in sterile marriages, whose youth is symbolically restored by
the great gift of fertility. In the world of the Bible, few fats could be worse
than not having any children. Quite unlike the myself and my generation only mentality so emblematic of our own
time, fertility and the future it made possible were seen as the greatest of
gifts, a great grace, a true blessing. This blessing was now belatedly being granted to
Zechariah and Elizabeth, but it was not granted to them simply for their own
satisfaction. Hence, the Gospel story recounts a whole series of special events
surrounding, first, the conception, and, then, the birth, circumcision, and naming
of their son. These circumstances served Zechariah and Elizabeth and their
family and friends as visible signs, so to speak, of their son’s special status
and mission, indicating the purpose of this miraculous event in God’s great
plan for the whole human race.
Zechariah and Elizabeth’s
family and friends, when they heard that
the Lord had shown his great mercy toward them, naturally rejoiced with them. At first, however, they
still had their own pre-conceived understanding of what they were celebrating,
as reflected in what they thought the newborn’s name should be. But they – and,
through them, we – must be made to see that this miracle entailed much more
than the Lord’s mercy to one couple, to one family, Hence, the physical miracle
of John’s birth was augmented by even further signs dramatically highlighting
his fuller significance.
In the world of the
Bible, naming someone was an act of authority. In the case of a newborn, it
signified the father’s recognition of his child. But, as the angel had foretold
to Zechariah, many would rejoice at
this boy’s birth. He would belong not just to his parents but to the special
mission God had made him for. Hence, his name would have to be special – a name
chosen by God himself and announced by an angel. Because Zechariah and
Elizabeth’s friends and family were people of faith, they recognized in this a
sign that God really was still present and active in the world. So, unable to
keep the good news to themselves, they immediately anticipated John’s own
special mission by spreading the word throughout
the hill country of Judea.
Today’s feast focuses on
the birth of John the Baptist. The familiar details of his preaching and
baptizing we will hear about again, as we do every year, in Advent. That career
was actually quite brief – cut short by his arrest and eventual execution. John’s
martyrdom is recalled in the Church’s calendar in August, but it seems
appropriate today, during this current two-week “Fortnight for Freedom,” to recall both the fact and the circumstances
of John’s imprisonment and execution by King Herod Antipas. Luke’s Gospel
suggests that King Herod himself had actually admired John. It says Herod liked
to listen to him, but also that he was very much perplexed (Mark 6:20). The
source of Herod’s perplexity seems to have been the challenging part of John’s
preaching, - for John had defiantly
challenged Herod regarding the king’s marriage to his brother’s wife – which
violated Jewish religious law regarding marriage (Mark 6:18). Just as John had pointed
ahead to Jesus in life, his death also pointed ahead to Jesus’ own death at the
hands of Roman political authority – and beyond that to the many martyrs whose
heroic witness to their faith and to the moral law would put them at odds with
political power. Indeed, the liturgical calendar this week commemorates several
important early martyrs: on June 30. the First Martyrs of Rome, executed in
A.D. 64, in the persecution begun by the Emperor Nero; on June 28, St.
Irenaeus, an outstanding bishop and theologian, martyred around the year 202;
and on June 29, the great Apostles Peter and Paul.
John’s birth, which we
celebrate with such solemnity today, continued the process that began with the
promise God long ago made to Abraham, then renewed over and over to his
descendants, and finally fulfilled in Jesus, whose own birth we will celebrate
just six months from now. Jesus’ birth is celebrated in the week of the winter
solstice, when the days are short, and the nights long and dark, when the
ancient world celebrated the birth of the sun and the imminent prospect of
increased light and longer days. But the birth of John is celebrated in the
week of the summer solstice, when the days are long and the sun is bright, but
after which the days will quickly start to get shorter. Today heralds the hope
that the dry desert summer will soon yield to the autumn rains and the
life-giving wetness of winter – nature’s way, perhaps, of symbolizing the
effect in every spiritually dry and sterile soul of the coming of Christ whose
mission it was first John’s – and is now ours – to announce to the world.
Homily for the Nativity of St. John the Baptist,
Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, June 24, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment