A reading from the prophet Malachi (3:1-4, 23-24)
‘Look, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me. And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his Temple; yes, the angel of the covenant in whom you delight is on his way, says the Lord Sabaoth. Who can endure the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, like fullers’ alkali. He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver so that they can make the offering to the Lord in righteousness. The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be acceptable to the Lord as in former days, as in the former years.
‘Look, I shall send you the prophet Elijah before the great and awesome Day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and of children to their parents so that I shall not strike the land with a curse of destruction.’
The third chapter of the minor prophet Malachi begins with another reference to ‘my messenger’ (mal’aki), the anonymous prophet to whom the book is attributed. This prophet speaks of the coming of the Lord, described also as ‘the angel (mal’ak) of the covenant’. He will reestablish the covenant by his work of purification. It is the ‘sons of Levi’, the priestly groups, who most of all stand in need of renewal, so that they can once again make their offerings in ‘righteousness’ (tsedaqah), as in the days before the exile. The final two verses are the last verses of the book of Malachi and are likely to be an addition. It speaks about the return of the prophet Elijah ‘before the great and awesome Day of the Lord’. His role is to bring about reconciliation. In this way the ‘curse of destruction’ (herem) will be avoided.
Psalm 25 (24) Once again the Lord intervenes and ‘shows the path to those who stray’.
O Emmanuel,
our king and lawgiver,
hope of the nations and their saviour,
come and save us, Lord our God.
This final ‘O’ antiphon takes up Isaiah 7:14: the child to be born of the ‘young woman’ (‘almah) is to be called ‘God is with us’ (‘immanuel). Isaiah 33:22 proclaims: ‘The Lord is our king, he will save us.’ Zechariah also speaks of the coming ‘king’, ‘righteous’ and ‘victorious’. The Servant of the Lord is made ‘a light to the nations’ and brings salvation to the ends of the earth (Isaiah 49:6).
A reading from the holy gospel according to Luke (1:57-66)
The time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she gave birth to a son; and her neighbours and relations heard that the Lord had lavished his mercy on her, and they shared her joy.
Now it happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up, saying, ‘No, he shall be called John.’ They said to her, ‘But no one in your family has that name,’ and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John.’ And they were all astonished. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed and he began to speak praising God. Fear came over all their neighbours, and the whole affair was talked about throughout the hill country of Judaea. All those who heard of it took it to heart, saying, ‘What then is this child to be?’ And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.
The report of the birth of John is brief, and her ‘neighbours and relations’ acknowledge the great ‘mercy’ (eleos) of God shown to Elizabeth. The eighth day is the day of circumcision and naming, and it is the naming that commands attention. Before being struck dumb Zechariah had been told that the name of the child was to be ‘John’ (Ioannes) (1:13). But now it is his mother who, in the absence of words from his father, maintains that his name is to be ‘John’, despite the fact that ‘no one in your family has that name’. The father writes ‘His name is John’, and his speech returns. The giving of a new name, which means ‘God is merciful’ (yehohanan), is a sign of a new time of forgiveness and hope, and a clear message of mercy from God. It is no surprise that the word ‘mercy’ (eleos) is found twice in each of the two canticles which bracket this story (1:50,54 and 1:72,78). The extraordinary events at the circumcision of John raise the question from all those who ‘took it to heart’ saying ‘What is this child to be?’
What is Luke’s purpose in giving such details about John?
Luke gives far more space to the naming than to the actual birth of John.