December 19 (Lk.1,5-25): The Listening God

One of the deepest desires of a father is for a son. A son takes the place of his father after his father is gone and so perpetuates his father’s name. A son, therefore, makes secure a father’s memory. The gift of a son immortalizes a father’s being.

Zechariah must have had this desire. It seemed too bad, he had to keep hoping for a son (or a child) for so long, even beyond the time to shelve such hope altogether. He was too old; so was his wife Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin. The sun had already gone down on the possibility for him to have a child. Elizabeth was sterile! In Jewish culture, sterility was seen as a punishment from God for one’s sins. Because her womb did not bear any child for Zechariah, she became a focus of reproach among her neighbors. These people must have been laughing secretly behind Elizabeth’s back. But the hope remained burning. And then, one day, Zechariah was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and offer incense. Suddenly, the angel of the Lord appeared to him and broke to him the good news that would change his and his wife’s life. He was overcome by fear. But the angel told him that there was nothing to be afraid of. In fact, he should rejoice because his prayers had been heard. Elizabeth would conceive a son, and he should name him John. Zechariah was struck with astonishment: “How could this be when I am too old and my wife is just as advanced in age as I am?”

It was quite inconsistent of Zechariah to have displayed unbelief in the words of the angel. His was a questioning stance over the possibility of the good news. All along, he was praying that he be given a child, a son. God heard him. And yet when God sent his angel to deliver the good news, that he was going to have a son, Zechariah hesitated with unbelief. He was not ready to believe that with God everything was possible, that there was no limit to what he could do, including liberating Elizabeth from the shame of barrenness. Because Zechariah showed distrust in the good news, the angel made him dumb until the good news came true.

God is a good God. He knows what brings us down. He perfectly knew that childlessness made Zechariah and Elizabeth insecure. He intended to make them happy, so he answered their prayers. But by his unbelief, Zechariah was blocking God from accomplishing his plan for them. It was as if, although he was praying for a son, he did not really mean it after all.

Many times in our life, we are faced with our own inadequacies – inadequacies that we alone cannot satisfy. We look to God to fill us up. But when God begins to work out his intentions for us, we, like Zechariah, get bewildered, sometimes afraid. For we do not know just how the wisdom of God works. Truly, God’s ways are not man’s ways. The thoughts of God infinitely surpass those of man.

Christmas is the perfect example of God’s wisdom as transcending man’s logic. Man’s mind cannot fully understand why the Son of God had to assume human form to save human beings from sin. He could have taken another way, not such a humbling way, by becoming man. But out of his sheer wisdom, that is both loving and faithful, God willed his Son to be born of a woman in order to dignify once again man, who lost his original dignity to sin.

Christmas is a celebration of the loving and faithful wisdom of God that bends toward man. Let us not be afraid of this God, who is willing to humble himself for our sake because of his infinite love. Let us not be afraid of the fact that sometimes we do not understand his ways of love. Instead, let us rejoice that God both explicitly and incomprehensibly loved us as shown in the event of Bethlehem.