God is Gracious 

December 23, Thursday

FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT

 

 

         Indeed, “God is gracious.” This is the meaning of the name John. We are told today about the birth of the forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist. We remember the coming of the Savior and how a special messenger of God had to prepare the hearts of people for the coming of the Savior. But our Savior, Jesus, came long ago. How much are we living as people who are saved? How much do we enter into God’s plan to save our world? How much do we prepare Jesus’ coming into the hearts of people today?

 

First Reading: Malachi 3:1-4,23-24

“Look! I’m sending my messenger on ahead to clear the way for me. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Leader you’ve been looking for will enter his Temple—yes, the Messenger of the Covenant, the one you’ve been waiting for. Look! He’s on his way!” A Message from the mouth of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

But who will be able to stand up to that coming? Who can survive his appearance?

He’ll be like white-hot fire from the smelter’s furnace. He’ll be like the strongest lye soap at the laundry. He’ll take his place as a refiner of silver, as a cleanser of dirty clothes. He’ll scrub the Levite priests clean, refine them like gold and silver, until they’re fit for God, fit to present offerings of righteousness. Then, and only then, will Judah and Jerusalem be fit and pleasing to God, as they used to be in the years long ago.

 

Gospel: Luke 1:57-66

When Elizabeth was full-term in her pregnancy, she bore a son. Her  and relatives, seeing that God had overwhelmed her with mercy, celebrated with her.

On the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child and were calling him Zachariah after his father. But his mother intervened: “No. He is to be called John.”

“But,” they said, “no one in your family is named that.” They used sign language to ask Zachariah what he wanted him named.

Asking for a tablet, Zachariah wrote, “His name is to be John.” That took everyone by surprise. Surprise followed surprise—Zachariah’s mouth was now open, his tongue loose, and he was talking, praising God!

A deep, reverential fear settled over the neighborhood, and in all that Judean hill country people talked about nothing else. Everyone who heard about it took it to heart, wondering, “What will become of this child? Clearly, God has his hand in this.”

 

Prayer

Lord, our God,
in this time of waiting,
you must still be waiting for us,
how we respond to the coming of your Son Jesus
in our hearts and in our world.
Make us people of hope,
not people of the past,
but men and women,
the young and the children too,
who want to see Jesus, our Savior,
alive and active among us.
We ask you this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

What have you become?

God will not rest until he fulfils every one of his promises. Zachariah’s unusual encounter with God was an answer to his prayers to God for years. John’s birth was a sign of mercy that God showed to his people as Zachariah and Elizabeth experienced the extraordinary intervention of God. In the birth of John, meaning God is gracious, God’s graciousness begins to enter into this world and to visit the humanity in need of salvation.

John lived true to his name and prepared a people to encounter the graciousness of God. Each of us is invited to play our part in the restoration of our families, strengthen our relationships, and remove barriers to peace and reconciliation and thus facilitate the gracious visit of the Lord into our midst.

The encounter of Zachariah with God’s presence gives us a precious lesson. There is a time to be silent and a time to speak. Zechariah was struck dumb contemplating in silence the mystery the angel Gabriel had told him. It was time now to break the silence and to speak, revealing the name God spoke to him in secret: John.

Zachariah’s family and friends gathered around him, ask a question: “What will this child become?” We know what did that child become. When God has given us life, he placed his life into us with a purpose and indeed, God’s hand is at work in us. It would be worthwhile to go into silence like Zachariah to reflect “What will this child become?” What will I do with this life that God has placed into my hands?

In our life too, there are times when we need to be silent pondering in our heart in quiet contemplation what the Lord had shared with us letting our unbelief turn into belief. There comes a time, however, when the silence needs to be broken and we must speak, to proclaim what we have been treasuring in our heart. When Zechariah regained his speech his first words were in praise of God. “Silence is all we need to sing his praise!” Let us be silent before the great manifestation of God’s love in Jesus’ birth.

 

Video available on YouTube : What have you become?