A reading of the holy gospel according to Luke. Notice the readings yesterday and the day before were from Saint Matthew, but the same theme is being continued. In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zachariah of the priestly class of Abia. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both were just in the eyes of God, blamelessly following all his commandments and ordinances.
Yet they were childless, for Elizabeth was sterile, and moreover, both of them were advanced in years. Once when it was the turn of Zacharias' class and he was fulfilling his functions as a priest before God, it fell upon Zachariah by lot, according to priestly usage, Lord. The Lord the the Lord. Lord angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah, And standing at the right of the altar of incense. Zechariah was deeply disturbed upon seeing him and overcome with fear.
Then the angel said to Zechariah, do not be frightened. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth shall bear a son whom you shall name John. Joy and gladness will be yours, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord. He will never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb.
Many of the sons of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. God himself will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the rebellious to the wisdom of the just, and also to prepare for the Lord, a people well disposed. After this, Zechariah said to the angel, how am I to know all of this? I am an old man. My wife too is advanced in age and is sterile.
The angel replied, I am Gabriel, who stand in attendance before God. I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now you will be mute, unable to speak until the day when all of these things take place because you have not trusted my words. Yet they will all come true in due season. Now meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zachariah on the outside, wondering at his delay in the temple by the altar of incense.
When Zachariah finally came out, he was unable to speak, and the people realized then that he had seen a vision inside. Zechariah then kept making signs to them, for he remained speechless. Then, when his period of priestly service was over, Zechariah went home. Afterwards, his wife, advanced in years and sterile, conceived a child. She went into seclusion for five months saying, in these days, the lord is acting on my behalf.
He has seen fit to remove my reproach from among men. This is the gospel of the lord. Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
If you'll recall the reading on Monday, that was the long boring series of names which gave us the ancestry ancestry of Jesus through Joseph. And then again yesterday, we had the episode of Joseph's dilemma with Mary, his espoused wife, who was found with child before they came to live together. And then we had the marvelous incident of the dream that Joseph had in which he was told not to be afraid, but to take Mary as his lawful wife, which he did. And that the child in her womb was no ordinary child, but was the product the Holy Spirit. Strong And And we have here is have a with The that.
And remember, the man who wrote this wasn't many years removed from the events. Secondly, the time he wrote this, when it was being spread abroad among the faithful Christians. There were plenty of people who who are either directly connected with these events or were only one generation removed. Keep that in mind. Keep in mind that you're dealing with an oriental attitude attitude of of mind.
Mind, where We're handing handing things things down down by by word-of-mouth word-of-mouth was the ordinary way. They didn't have any IBMs. They didn't have books of research or of records. That is not the way they did things. They kept things in their memory transmitted by word-of-mouth, and that what we call tradition is much more reliable than we give them credit for.
So against that background, you have this incident about John the Baptizer's father. And it is absolutely marvelous that a woman who was known to be sterile, secondly, that was now in advanced age and whose husband was also in advanced age, now conceives a child. You get the drift of this, don't you? Jesus was the son of Mary, the espoused wife of Joseph, conceived through the absolutely miraculous intervention of God through the holy spirit. Next, you have this phenomenon, marvelous indeed, of Joseph's dream when he was torn betwitched the law and being kindly disposed and benevolent to Mary.
And now today, what do you have? Here you have a reinforcement of John the baptizer. This is all leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ. Because John the baptizer is going to be his his voice in the wilderness crying out in preparation for the coming of Jesus, the son of Mary, the son of God. And so what the church is doing is confirming and reaffirming our belief.
She is giving us motives of credibility. She is treating this matter as if it were being presented in a court of law. She's saying, look, look at the evidence. Here is the way this took place. Now I'm well aware, and I'm sure many of you are, about all the controversies over these early texts about our blessed lord, the virgin birth, and his birth, and so on.
I realize that. But leaving aside those details, look at take the overall picture of this thing. It's enormous. It's absolutely persuasive in its immensity. The first reading goes back to the old testament with Samson, the predecessor, the archetype of John the baptizer.
We have been reading day in and day out during Advent the prophecies from the Old Testament about the Messiah. There's no secret about that at all. So that we have been building this thing up like a huge crescendo to come to its birth of Jesus. And yet, is that the climax? Is it?
I think it's the beginning of another another series of mounting events. But what we are definitely heading into now is the nativity of our lord, the anniversary of his birth. And the church is saying, look, give your faith where you have every reason to give it. This is not irrational. This is not merely a matter of sentiment and feeling.
This is hard fact. Hard, grisly fact. Then we will have another incident of the Annunciation, where Mary, the annunciation, is told she's going to be a virgin mother. And she says, how can this be? And the angel says, look, go down and visit your cousin Elizabeth, who is pregnant in her old age.
Do you want motives of credibility? So the church is being very solid and unsentimental in this very emotional and sentimental period. Because faith is not of the emotions and the feelings. It is of my conviction, of my will, of my heart, of my understanding. And we may have good feelings with it, we may have no feelings with it, we may have poor feelings with it.
So feelings are a very poor barometer. And so let us take what the church is offering us. These strong reasons for belief and faith. That when we bend the the knee at the feet of a baby born of a woman, truly human, but truly the product of divine intervention, we can say indeed, my lord and my god. The name of the father and of the son and the holy spirit.
Amen.