The birth of St. John the Baptist

Our gospel reading for this Sunday is about the birth of St. John the Baptist. As we Catholics know by now, John the Baptist was the precursor of the Messiah, the solitary voice in the wilderness, crying out to “Make straight the path of the Lord.” You can read this passage in Luke 1:57-66,80.

“57 When the time arrived for Elizabeth to have her child she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy toward her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 When they came on the eighth day to circumcize the child, they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, 60 but his mother said in reply, “No, he will be called John.”

61 But they answered her, “There is no one among your relatives who has this name.” 62 So they made signs, asking his father what he wished him to be called. 63 He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,” and all were amazed. 64 Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God. Then fears came upon all their neighbors, and all these matters were discussed throughout the hill country of Judea.

All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be?” For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. 80 The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.”

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First of all, let me remind you that this scripture passage was written 2,000 years ago, so when Zechariah asked for a tablet to write on, it wasn’t a Samsung Galaxy note or an Apple iPad. Back in those days when there was no paper, they had tablets to write on, made of soft malleable copper, which one could write and erase and rewrite again.

To understand this scripture passage better, one must back track a little bit and read the earlier verses on Luke 1: 5-25. Since this passage is too long, let me just give you a short brief on this. Zechariah was a priest whose wife Elizabeth was barren and already old. Back in the ancient times, having a child was a great blessing from God, unlike today when children are no longer considered as God’s gift, but a burden.

Then one day, while it was Zechariah’s turn to burn incense inside the Sanctuary, the Angel Gabriel appeared to him to tell him that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son and he shall be named him John. “He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb.”  But Zechariah questioned the Angel Gabriel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advance in years.” The Angel Gabriel told him, “I am Gabriel, who stand before God. I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. But now you will be speechless and unable to talk until the day these things take place, because you did not believe in my words, which will be fulfilled in the proper time.”

Today’s gospel is about that proper time, which has come. First of all, the neighbors of Zechariah noticed that Elizabeth already had a name for her son, which was John. The neighbors questioned the choice since they had no relatives with that name. This gives us an idea of how long the tradition of naming our children after our relatives has been. Like me, I was named after my maternal grandfather.

What the neighbors failed to realize was that Zechariah and Elizabeth already knew that they would bear a son. Today, thanks to ultra sound equipment, parents are able to know whether the child in the womb of the mother is a girl or a boy. When JV, my last child was born in 1988, ultrasound was not yet in Cebu and the only time I knew that he was a boy was when the doctor told me right after he was born… that I had a boy!

No doubt, Zechariah and Elizabeth and later the Blessed Virgin Mary would be the only people in the world until the 1990s to know the sex of the child in their wombs, courtesy of the Angel Gabriel. One thing that our Blessed Virgin Mary had in common with her cousin Elizabeth is that, the child they both bore came from God. While the Angel Gabriel stands before God, he is only God’s messenger who made the glorious announcement, as this was part of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind.

Speaking of God’s gift, if you didn’t know, the name John is actually a short cut for the Hebrew name Yehohanan, which means “Yahweh is gracious or has given favor.” Hence St. John is God’s gift not only to Zechariah and Elizabeth, he is God’s gift to mankind… to herald the coming of the only Begotten Son of God who will come a few months later, whose life will be given in ransom for the sins of the world. For me, the greatest teaching that St. John the Baptist gives to the world is when we finally find our Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts and say to ourselves, “I must decrease, while he must increase.” When you have said this before God, you have surrendered to his will. When your own will no longer exists, the God will truly be with you.

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