“Lift up your heads and see; your redemption is near at hand.”
There are two images of joy in today’s Gospel. The first is the joy of childbirth, the joy of new life, but joy that is all the more profound because Elizabeth thought it was impossible due to her age. If we have ever met a mother who thought the gift of life was not going to be possible, but then receives the news that she has been blessed with a young one, we can approach the joy of Elizabeth and her neighbors that is captured by our gospel writer. Like with Mary, Elizabeth’s joy is understood to be a sign of God’s mercy upon her.
The second image of joy is that of Zachariah. We must remember that Zachariah has been unable to speak for the duration of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. He has spent nine months in longing for the gift of his voice back, and in quiet mediation upon God’s word and actions in his own life, letting the angelic visit to him sink ever more deeply into his heart. In these nine months, Zachariah has had time to ponder over the gift God had offered him and his wife and through them to God’s people. The baby receives the fruit of Zachariah and Elizabeth’s joy. The name John means “God has been gracious.” John, by his name, captures the joy of these parents, a joy that recognizes that their joy is, like Mary’s, a mirror of God’s and a fruit of their relationship with him and rooted in God’s fidelity and the gift of his salvation.
Let us take Elizabeth and Zachariah as our models today, drawing into silence and mediation upon how God has acted in our life. What is something we ought to name today in the spirit of John, something that we can point to and say, “God has been gracious to us in this way.” Others may want us to and name this aspect of our life by another name, but we know it is a gift of God and deserves to be called as such. Let us pray to see and to name where God has been gracious to us this season.