Now...!

June 24^th, The Birth of John the Baptist

 Luke 1: 57-80

 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.  On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, ‘No; he is to be called John.’ They said to her, ‘None of your relatives has this name.’ Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, ‘What then will this child become?’ For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.   The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare wrote. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” 

Why the big deal about naming John?  Why did John have to be called ‘John’ and not ‘Zechariah’ as the neighbors assumed he would be called? Why was the name so important that the moment Zechariah confirmed that they would name the baby ‘John’ as God had directed, Zechariah's tongued was loosed and he was able to speak and prophesy?

A clue may be found in the reason why the people were so surprised by this name choice. “None of your relatives has this name!” Before Jesus was even born, God was challenging common assumptions and letting people know that he is not held captive by human traditions, normal expectations or by what people think should happen because “we’ve always done it that way.” The name ‘Zechariah’ means, “God has remembered,” a name that implies looking back at the past. The name ‘John’ means, “God is gracious,” and simply by changing a name, God made the people sit up, take notice and ask, “What? This is something different…this is not what we were expecting!”

"God is gracious." Is it possible that the graciousness of God is deeper, wider and more powerful than we think? Could his graciousness mean that the reign of his Kingdom will turn our expectations upside down and make us look to him in new ways in the present moment rather than back at what has always been? Might graciousness hold the gift of new beginnings within a new covenant? Could graciousness lead us into a different way of perceiving the light or into new opportunities to repent and enter into metanoia (going beyond what is understood)?

After I posted the last reflection (The Wild Kingdom), I received this email from someone who has been going through an extremely difficult time – and when she wrote the email, she wasn’t out of the difficulties yet. She wrote:  “Just read your post on the Kingdom. I'm feeling like I'm living the Kingdom of God in its fullness right now.  Humbled and friggin rocked by it ... in every which way!!”  This person is discovering that God’s graciousness exists powerfully in the present moment in the Kingdom. The present moment in her world at this point is by no means easy, simple or comfortable but it is where she meets her God of graciousness. She will, no doubt, still have moments of feeling bereft and full of grief or weariness but she is learning deeply where the grace is and where new life resides.

In the hymn, “Gather Us In” there is a very powerful line: “Now is the Kingdom, now is the day.” In their astonishment that Zechariah and Elizabeth intended to name the baby, “John”, it was as if God was saying to the people, “Now is my Kingdom. Now is my day. My life now is not what was or what always has been. My Kingdom has come. My Kingdom is here. It is presently in a womb but it is here. Grace has come to live on earth and grace has come to stay.  Grace may feel like a barren desert or it may be a deluge like a river of forgiveness. It may look like birth and it might feel like grief. Sorrow will hold my grace and joy will be grace’s companion. My grace will fill empty casks and my grace will overshadow bread and wine. My grace is as heavy as a cross and as light as a new dawn. Now is when it begins.”

What is in your life right now? What assumptions have you made about your life situations? Are there circumstances that grieve you but you feel like they are frozen into your existence because ‘those things/those people have always been that way’? What are your fears, tensions, frustrations and anxieties about the future? How much of all that is based on experiences of the past that have formed your expectations or on strong ideas of how things should be – but rarely are? Do you have plans, desires or goals that aren’t really yours but have been pushed on you by the expectations and wishes of others? Do you have plans, desires or goals that are deeply yours but have been waylaid by unexpected circumstances or people’s judgments of how they expect things should be?

We are rarely in complete control of external circumstances or of the people in our lives; we are only in control of where we choose to be and who we choose to be there with. We always have the choice of being in the present moment with God – with the grace of new life and new beginnings.

When Elizabeth and Zechariah said, “His name is John,” they unwittingly turned away from all that was and all that had always been and opened the door to metanoia for themselves and for the world. They gave up control and they gave up assumptions of how the future would or should look. They simply trusted their gracious God. When they said, “His name is John,” what they were really saying to themselves, to the people around them and to the world for all time was, “Now is the Kingdom. Now is the day of God's grace.”

Today your Kingdom is here. Today is your day. You no longer need be a speechless Zechariah. You are a John whose very name announces metanoia and new beginnings.

And God's grace is upon you.