Notes on Today’s Reading
Once rendered mute on account of his doubt, the father of John is now the prophet who proclaims the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. His is a song of Advent, as we wait for the light that has already come and is still yet to come.
Before the angel Gabriel, an official emissary of God (see Daniel 8:16), appeared to Mary, he came to Zechariah, and, as the multiple allusions to Hebrew Bible persons and event show, repeats the promises God first made to Abraham. Elizabeth and Zechariah’s advanced age at John’s conception is a clear parallel between these blessed parents and Sarah and Abraham (1:7 and 18), as is the shame of Elizabeth’s “barrenness” (1:25; see Genesis 16:4).
On this third Sunday of Advent, Zechariah’s song is very much ours. We see the faint light on the horizon, and we await the full, dazzling light of God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. We find ourselves now in-between, standing in that moment of the already and the not-yet. The light has dawned but doesn’t seem yet to have reached the deepest darknesses inside and around us.