Word to the Wise
Monday, December 23, 2024 - December 23
[Mal 3:1-4, 23-24 and Luke 1:57-66]Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me; and suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire. Yes, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. [Malachi] "What, then, will this child be?" For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. [Luke]
John the Baptist is still on stage in the drama of Christmas. Although we celebrate the feast of his nativity six months before Christmas (in keeping with the message of the angel Gabriel), he becomes (at least liturgically) the herald of Jesus' birth which we will celebrate in two days! The hymn of thanksgiving proclaimed by John's dad, Zechariah, known traditionally as the "Canticle of Zechariah," makes John's destiny clear to the reader, but we will have to wait till tomorrow to read it.
The early Christian community saw the prophecy of Malachi in today's first scripture as a foretelling of John the Baptist. It is rendered wonderfully in Handel's THE MESSIAH: "The Lord whom ye seek.....But who may abide the day of his coming..." Anticipation and hope are reaching a crescendo for those who enter into the drama of this season. The two babies, cousins, will come together again liturgically in January with the Baptism of the Lord. But, until then, we'll be in the family album of the birth of Jesus, the visits of the shepherds and Magi, the flight into Egypt to avoid Herod's wrath, and the confusion of Jesus' disappearance and discovery in the temple in Jerusalem. Right now, it's baby John and baby Jesus who claim our attention!! AMEN