Daily Gospel Reflection

A Time of Quiet

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant. Today's gospel is from Luke chapter one, verses 5 through 25. In the days of Herod, king of Judah, there was a priest named Zechariah of the division of Abijah, and he had a wife of the daughter of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. But they had no child because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years. Now, while he was serving as priests before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense, and there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.

But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer is heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will call him John. And you will have great joy and gladness. And many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before God, and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink. And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared."

And Zechariah said to the angel, "How shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years." And the angel answered him, "I am Gabriel who stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their time." And the people were waiting for Zechariah, and they wondered what was taking him so long in the temple. And when he came out, he could not speak to them. And they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he made signs to them and remained dumb. And when his time of service was ended, he went to his home. After these days, his wife, Elizabeth, conceived. And for five months, she hid herself saying, "Thus the Lord has done to me in these days when he looked on me to take away my reproach among men."

What jumps out at you today? I think the thing that struck me was the Angel Gabriel appears to Zachariah, says, "This good thing's going to happen." Zachariah's like, "Ah, I don't know. I'm old. My wife's pretty old." And then the angel says, "Okay, you're not going to be able to speak until these things happen, until the child is born." Does it feel like a punishment? Was the angel punishing Zechariah? I don't know. Maybe it was a punishment, but maybe it was just a spiritual exercise. Maybe Zechariah needed this time of quiet in order to fully participate in the life of John the Baptist. Maybe Zechariah was having trouble being inward and introspective and taking time in quiet. But God said, "I'm going to help Zachariah out a little bit here. I'll make him dumb, unable to speak until his son is born."

And the interesting thing is that silence, well, it automatically teaches us to listen better. Silence is a place, it's a place of peace, it's a source of peace. And silence is a place of wisdom. We can learn more in an hour of silence than we can in a year from books. Do we need to listen more? Do we need to quiet ourselves? Zechariah was involuntarily quieted. Maybe we need to voluntarily take on a silence so that we can have an inner calm and inner peace and inner focus to carry out the mission God has for us in our lives. Have a great day. Remember, don't just be yourself. Be the very best-version-of-yourself, all that God created you to be.