Today we heard the account of the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist. If we compare this annunciation with that of Jesus, there are some similarities and differences that stand out.
The Initiator: God initiated both encounters. God sent the angel Gabriel as the good news bearer in both annunciations. It was Gabriel that went to both Zechariah and Mary to deliver the message from God. An angel, as we know, is God’s messenger.
The personalities were different. Zechariah was an older married man and was childless. He was a priest and was approached by the angel, his division’s turn of duty, according to the practice for the assigned priestly services in the temple. We were told that Zechariah entered the sanctuary at the hour of the incense offering. Zechariah was chosen by lot to burn incense, a task done twice daily in association with the morning and evening offerings.
Mary, on the other hand, was a young maiden, a virgin teenager, who was betrothed to Joseph. In both Jewish marriage laws and customs, the period of betrothal is sandwiched between the period of engagement and marriage proper. According to the Jewish marriage tradition, at betrothal, a written document is presented by the groom to the bride. Still, the bride remained in her family home until the wedding ceremony a year or so later, when she would move into her husband’s home.
The location: the settings of the two birth announcements is striking. John the Baptist’s announcement occurred in the temple in Jerusalem, while Jesus’s birth announcement was in an obscure village of Nazareth. John’s announcement comes at a fixed hour of a liturgical celebration. Jesus’s announcement was at an unspecified time of the day. Jesus’s announcement involved something greater than John’s announcement.
What was Mary doing when she received the Angel? We were not told. I will only suggest that Mary may have been doing her daily chores.
The Message: The messages were quite different in so many ways:
The angel says to Zechariah: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall name him John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of [the] Lord. He will drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers toward children and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous, to prepare a people fit for the Lord.”
Mary’s message from the angel started with this: “Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you.” “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom, there will be no end.”
Both messages contain the name of the child to be conceived and born, John, and Jesus. The messages also contain the mission of each child.
The reaction of Zechariah and Mary:
Zechariah responded: How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”
Mary’s response was, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”
The Angel’s responses to both Zechariah and Mary:
To Zechariah, the angel says: “I am Gabriel, who stands before God. I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. But now you will be speechless and unable to talk until the day these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time.”
To Mary, the angel says: “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren; for nothing will be impossible for God.”
While we were not told what exactly Zechariah said after the angel rebuked him for his lack of faith in the words of God, we were told that Mary concluded the encounter with her total submission to the will of God. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”
God encounters each one of us in various settings, times, and locations, and with specific or special messages made for each person. May we be ready to say “Yes, Lord.”
Have a wonderful week
