The Conception of the Honourable and Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John
Abstention from meat and foods that contain meat.
Galatians 4:22-31; Luke 1:5-25
Read Galatians 4:22-31
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Conception of the Honorable and Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John. The epistle reading is the same one we read two Fridays ago when we remembered Sts. Joachim and Anna the day after the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God. Abraham and Sarah, Joachim and Anna, and Zechariah and Elizabeth were all childless until old age. Each of these couples is also described as being “righteous” whether within Scripture itself or tradition. In today’s Gospel reading, we hear how Zechariah and Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years” (Lk. 1:6-7).
When God told Abram that he would have descendants as numerous as the stars, Abram believed Him, and God “accounted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Although Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous before God, Zechariah did not believe the words of the archangel Gabriel announcing that he and Elizabeth would conceive a son. Since he did not believe the message, he was made “mute and not able to speak until the day these things take place” (Luke 1:20).
Zechariah, the high priest, was struck silent. John the Baptist, the greatest and last of the prophets under the old covenant, who was “filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (Lk. 1:15), was hidden away in that when Elizabeth conceived him, “she hid herself for five months” (Luke 1:24). After Christ had been conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary visited Elizabeth. During their meeting, John’s prophetic ministry began with him leaping in Elizabeth’s womb at the presence of Jesus in Mary’s womb. The silence of the high priest, the absence of the prophet, and the illegitimate kingship of King Herod in those days (since he himself was outside the tribe of Judah) shows that Jesus Himself has come to fulfill these roles perfectly as High Priest, Prophet, and King.
St. Paul tells the Galatians that they (and by extension, we) “are children of promise” (Gal. 4:28). Isaac was promised to Abram, and Abram believed God’s promise. God fulfilled that promise and multiplied Abram’s descendants through Isaac. By baptism, we are made into adopted children of God and are likewise children of promise. We are children of God by faith. The births of Isaac, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist were all miraculous. All of their mothers had been barren before conceiving in their old age in fulfilment of God’s plan of salvation. God’s ways are mysterious to us, but His plans have a purpose.