Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.
This week our Gospel passages come rom chapter one of Luke’s account. Luke emphasizes the continuity of Jesus with the history of ancient Israel. He places the beginnings of his Gospel in the temple with the priest Zechariah. He references the conception and birth stories of important Old Testament people. He mentions Gabriel, who is first mentioned in the writing of Daniel.
People thousands of years ago had an understanding of conception and pregnancy quite different from ours. While we see conception and birth as the interplay of sperm and egg, the ancients thought of it as the plant produced by the male as buried in the female like seeds planted in gardens. For them, infertility was a disgrace for women; for us, infertility is something that can be attributed to the man or the woman.
Zechariah and Elizabeth were old, aged, very much like Abraham and Sarah. The parents of Samson heard from an angel how to raise their son as a Nazirite, one especially consecrated to God by garments worn and diet kept. Elkanah and Hannah were the parents of Samuel the great prophet who anointed kings for Israel. The prophet Daniel uses the angel Gabriel to give important explanations to visions Daniel was having. Luke told the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth in such as was as to link John the Baptist as a bridge between the Old Testament and Jesus.
Annunciation scenes in the Bible usually follow this outline: a heaven visitor comes and announces God’s message; to the response of fear, the angels says not to fear; an abjection or doubt, such as old age or being unmarried, is mentioned and clarified; the challenge is accepted and the divine messenger departs. Both the annunciation scene in this passage and that in the annunciation to Mary that follows this story follow the same outline.
Perhaps our calling in life has followed the same outline. God seems to be calling us to some special work, like raising a family or doing some career. We may have hesitated, had some doubts or wanted some clarifications. We had the issues resolved and finally accepted the challenge.
Let us be as Luke, and interpret our encounters with God and life, as extending the mystery of God and salvation through us to others. We are, like our ancestors of old with their children, lled into the mystery of God’s love through Christ, born of Mary and Joseph.