Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent
(Judges 13:2-7; 24-25a; Luke 1:5-25)
Today’s readings signal Advent’s immediate preparation for
Christmas. The gospel, taken from Luke, shows how the evangelist deliberately
and descriptively develops his account. The
author compares the events of Jesus’ birth with happenings in the story of
Israel. Jesus is, after all, the
fulfilment of God’s plan for the world whose origins are described in the
Hebrew Scriptures.
However, the gospel does not even mention Jesus. It focuses, rather, on the birth of John, Jesus’
forerunner. John’s conception mirrors
those of three pious couples of the Old Testament. Like Abraham and Sarah, John’s parents,
Zechariah and Elizabeth, are well beyond the normal child-bearing age. Like Manoah’s wife, the mother of Samson in
today’s first reading, Elizabeth was said to be barren. Finally, as the prophet-priest Samuel’s
parents, Elkanah and Hannah, receive word of Hannah’s foreordained conception
at the sanctuary and go home to conceive, so Zechariah hears of his son in the
sanctuary of the Temple and goes home to conceive him.
We should not try to tell the story of Jesus with reference
to the Story of Israel. It is true that
Jesus’ redeems each of us of our sins.
However, he came amidst a people of faith and left in his wake an
expanded people of faith. Without the
context of community we would not even hear the story. Indeed, it is in community that Jesus reaches
us individually, at least in the normal order of things.
