My favorite part of all the parts of the Christmas stories in the bible...
These two couldn't have been any different if they had tried. Though related by marriage, you’d think that Mary and Zechariah have little use for each other.
Zechariah, the priest, is an important man in the political and religious life of his people.
Mary is “poor relation,” a simple, back water cousin who’s enchanted with Zechariah’s wife and the trappings of the big city, who celebrates her cousin’s good fortune and tolerates the “airs” Zechariah seems to emit everywhere he goes.
It seems as if Mary and Zechariah are night and day, oil and water, fire and ice.
She’s poor; he’s wealthy.
She’s so very young; he’s very old (“getting on in years” is Luke’s gentle way of talking about it).
She’s an insignificant, undervalued girl (females weren’t on top of many social heaps there and then); he’s a high-profile, public arena guy who, at least in his own mind and the minds of his close friends, is quite indispensable.
They’re as different as different could be – still, in the story that Luke tells, they are there when the curtain comes up on the drama of the incarnation of God’s love in time in the person of God’s long Promised One.
Look at how differently they respond to the messages that come to them from God. Prominent, religious, important Zechariah hesitates, stumbles, argues, cajoles – he doubts and questions the wisdom and the purpose of God, to say nothing of his uneasiness, fear, and sense of impropriety at the notion that he and his long-barren Elizabeth could be parents at the same time they are approaching their dotage. Never mind the great things Gabriel says their new boy has in store. Never mind the mind and will of God that transcends history and moves in ways too marvelous for our minds to always comprehend. Never mind that for Elizabeth, at least in cultural terms, a child will be a blessing, for barren women are even less valued than young virginal ones in those ridiculous times. Never mind how anyone else would benefit from this great gift of a son. All that matters to Zechariah is that his life of importance and comfort will be disrupted. Old Zechariah just doesn’t think it’s fair that he’s going to be burdened with this gift of God’s Providence. “How shall I know this?” he demands of his messenger, who then strikes Zechariah dumb, as if to say, “if a priest (of all people) can’t be open to the message of God for all people, then maybe he ought not speak!” Unless Zechariah can come to grips with the reality of God’s goodness, God’s graciousness, Zechariah will never utter another word. So here’s old Zechariah, too caught up with himself and his importance and his comfort and the way things are and been able to believe that God is ready with a song of good news of great joy for all the people. Poor, ancient, dumb-struck holy man Zechariah, condemned to silence for his inability and unwillingness to see past what has always been.
Later, same chapter, same angel, pretty similar message, different recipient. Gabriel tells Mary she’s pregnant, and after a brief moment of confusion because this announced pregnancy doesn’t happen the way pregnancies happen, Mary does not resist the angel’s message; instead of fighting it, she simply offers her self : “Here am I, the servant of the Lord: let it be with me according to your word.” Mary, with nothing to tie her down, no conflicting investments of money, time, or prestige, responds in way that seems unimaginable for an unwed mother in her time and place.
A glorious thing happens when Mary offers her self, and the baby in Elizabeth’s womb jumps for joy – Mary sings a song. (Get it? Recalcitrant, resistive, stubborn Zechariah is struck dumb – open, welcoming, embracing Mary sings.) In the face of what most would call a bleak condition, in the apparent poverty of her life, in the hustled, harried confusion of her recent past, Mary embraces God’s gift and sings a song of praise. In the midst of all that seems to be wrong with life and with the world, Mary sings a song praising God for what will happen to her. Mary sings a new song of good news of great joy, and Zechariah sits dumb-struck in the temple.
Without a whole lot of reflection at first blush, if asked who we were most like, Mary or Zechariah, we would likely say “Mary” because that is who we would rather be – open and receptive to the good news, ready to embrace how God’s working among us and to leap and sing for joy. But I think that you and I know that you and I are mostly more like Zechariah, dumb-struck at the risky, blind leaps of faith to which God calls us every day of our lives. And that’s too bad, because there is so much we miss, sitting alone in the dark, dumb struck.
But this part of the story doesn't end there. The time comes for Zechariah’s son to be born, and he is. On the 8th day of his little life, when the rite of circumcision is to be performed and child is to be named, people in Zechariah’s family get all exercised because Elizabeth doesn’t want to use the old family name. She insists that her son be given a new name – like when Sarah, the old barren wife of father Abraham named her son “laughter (“Yitzak,” “Isaac”) because she had laughed at the prospect of giving birth at her advanced age. Or like with Hannah, the old, barren woman who gave birth to the first great prophet, named her son “listen to God” (“Shem uel” , “Samuel”) because listening to God is a prophet’s primary job. Elizabeth, the old, barren woman who gives them this gift of a son, insists that her boy be named “God is gracious” (“John”). The argument rages until somehow Zechariah gets someone to hand him a writing tablet, on which, from his silence, his nine-month exile from the realm of talking, Zechariah affirms what God wanted him to affirm from the beginning. He scribbles “His name is ‘John,’” following orders to be sure, but also as if to say “the son born to me in my old age is a gracious gift from a gracious God.”
And then another marvelous thing happens; at that moment, Zechariah’s tongue is freed, and that first thing that comes out of his mouth is (you guessed it!) a song reminiscent of the song of Elizabeth’s young cousin. Mary sings the Magnificat, and Zechariah sings a Benedictus. So the one who took the blind lead of faith and the one who was frightened speechless of the jump both begin the story by singing songs of good news of great joy for all the people.
