+WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE THAT I AM? St John the Baptist, 2023
These words from the Acts of the Apostles are from John the Baptist as he is completing his course, coming to the close of his life. His disciples are wondering if he is the long awaited Messiah and he assures them that he is not, but that there is one coming after him whose sandals he is unworthy to unfasten. Celebrating the birth of John the Baptist helps us all to prepare the way for the long awaited one, helps us to have an inner disposition that allows the Lord Jesus to draw ever nearer to each of our lives.
We live in a world of immense change due to technology, social unrest, war, climate warming, poverty, the migration of millions of people. We just heard of how Isaiah, and later John the Baptist, were called from their mothers’ wombs. If any of us gathered here, were to reflect carefully, he or she would realize this calling has ever been present in our lives. Even if not born into a Christian or Catholic family, God has touched our lives at a critical moment, left us with a lasting sense of being chosen, being a part of a people that is God’s very own.
As monks, every day we sing the Bendictus, Zachariah’s song of thanksgiving. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel who has visited his people and raised up for us a mighty Savior.” Our Savior leaves indelible marks on our lives. No kind word, no act of real love, act of real kindness can ever be forgotten by the one who gave rise to it in the depths of our hearts as long as we are willing to acknowledge the source, acknowledge the God who has visited each of us.
We too at times, like Isaiah, feel that we have toiled in vain, that our strength has been spent especially as we grow older and yet in faith we know that our “recompense is with our God.” This is certainly what Elizabeth and her husband Zachariah must have felt when both, beyond the age for doing so, were told they would bear a son and that he was to be called John. This event has an ongoing message for our own time.
We are constantly being brought into that awareness of how fragile we are, of how our human efforts fall short of God’s divine plan. We have our schedules, our agendas but then our lives take a turn we never expected. Certainly this took place with the Titan sub this past week, that was visiting the ruins of the Titanic.
We are faced with an unfolding different than planned, we are faced with an horizon wider than our own. We can retreat, hide behind our familiar ways of seeing and doing things or move into a fresh vision of the world around us. Growth in any of our lives depends on our ability to expand our consciousness, a willingness to enter into a divine view of what is really going on.
When we do, we are like Zachariah unable to speak writing on a tablet: “John is this name,” and all were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God.” Our limited grasp of what is taking place is freed and we know that the hand of the Lord is guiding us into the fullness of life and love.
Only with the eyes of faith, hope and love do we begin to fully grasp what is unfolding all day long and at this altar. It is all summarized in the Holy Eucharist we celebrate. Here we are given, under the appearance of bread and wine, the very Body and Blood of our glorified Savior. Here we are made sharers in God’s very own divine life. Here are fulfilled those beautiful words of Zachariah, the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high breaking upon us.
(Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66, 80)