Reflection for December 19
Today's gospel passage is nested in a literary configuring which itself tells a story: the first two chapters, alone among the pages of Luke, recall a genre specific to early Judaism, known as a Haggadic Midrash. The priest Zechariah is wed to a woman of the tribe of Aaron; she, also, is of priestly stock. As such, Zechariah receives the annunciation of a child in grandeur, before the altar of incense.
Disbelieving the message, Zechariah is struck mute. The office of singing God's mercy is transferred to Elizabeth, the daughter of Aaron, who is to be the first human person to proclaim in words the presence of the Lord. (Her child John, priestly by lineage, will manifest the Messiah, as the lame leaping up.) In all of this, we see the ancient heritage of God's people embraced and cherished, and yet the transition into a new future of worship in spirit and in truth – Gabriel himself flies from the Temple liturgy to the humility of Nazareth.
Today's first reading speaks of a married couple of the tribe of Dan, whom the patriarch Jacob prophesied would achieve justice for his people (Gen. 49). They also are barren, promised a son to bring deliverance to Israel. Taken together, these parallel episodes foreshadow the One who fulfills the beautiful, mysterious title found first in the prophet Isaiah, and today in both the gospel verse and the O Antiphon of Vespers: the Root of Jesse's stem.
The Hebrew word nezer means shoot, or root, as it were. It suggests the Semitic religious calling, the Nazirite, like Samson in the first reading. It is also at the heart of the inscription over the Cross: Jesus of Nazareth (ho Nazorãios), King of the Jews. In God's Kingdom, the barren abyss of death is overcome; the wood of the Cross is the blossoming branch of an eternal Spring.
V.J. Tarantino