16 My Monologues with the Venerable Zechariah & Elizabeth (Lk 1)

16 My Monologues with

Venerable Zechariah and Elizabeth(Lk 1)

Dear Venerable Zechariah and Elizabeth,

Nice to read about you and to know you both as a righteous and blameless couple from the first pages of the Gospel Narratives of Luke.

Though blameless and without any blemish, you both were a Childless Couple which was considered a Curse by your Jewish Community.

The blameless ones are considered as cursed, very ironical, indeed!

Despite this lifelong disappointment, you both continued to walk in the presence of the Lord which is very remarkable as well as edifying indeed! 

Both of you had a noble ancestral priestly lineage and an impeccable past, isn't  so?

Venerable Zechariah, you are introduced in the gospel as the priest in active attendance and on duty to offer Incense in the Temple which was once an year coveted honor and duty for   any priest of your time, right?

Dear Venerable Zechariah and Elizabeth, 

though both of you were found blameless before your God, your childless condition was inexplicable riddle for both of you.

The common folks considered it to be a sort of a divine displeasure.

The ordinary Jewish believers were inclined to interpret the childlessness and attribute it to the couple's culpability and blameworthiness, especially that of the female spouse!

Dear Venerable Zechariah and Elizabeth,

from the day, you became husband and wife to each other, like any other young couple, 

You too must have had plans and dreams:

to have children,

to bring them forth into this world, and

to bring them up in your ancestral faith, and

to see them grow up to be mature adults,right?

You had been:

eagerly waiting,

persistently praying, and

fervently hoping,

to become parents, right?

Yet, both of you passed through days, months, and years without any sign of having a son or a daughter! Seemingly, it had been an endless and agonizing wait for you!

Despite the fact:

You both belong to the noble lineage of Aaronic Priesthood and

both of you were righteous before God.

You must have felt saddened and confused with the fate of being a Childless Couple, right?

Venerable Zechariah,

You longed to have a progeny to continue your family line into the future generations and of perpetuating the priesthood of Aaronic origin.

Venerable Elizabeth,

You must have desperately wanted to erase shame of being barren, right?

Yes, both of you must have constantly been aware of  the shame and had been painfully living through it.

Yes, indeed, it was very dehumanizing in the eyes of your dear and near ones and was a deep disappointment for yourselves!

Yet, both of you kept on walking in all the statutes and commandments and continued praying, wishing, wanting, and  dreaming to a have child, preferably male child, right?

Gradually, yet steadily the grim fact of your advancing age began to sink in the stark reality of the human impossibility for you to have children.They say you were already ninety two years old!

Thus, right in front of your own eyes, your legitimate and the long cherished dream of becoming parents began to fade away, isn't so?  Wasn't it very painfully disappointing?

At times you might have wondered whether your dream would wither away and your dream would remain for ever just a pipe dream.

Yet you had a glimmer of hope as Abraham, the Father of the Jewish race was a Hundred  year old when he had Isaac born to him, right?

Low and behold! out of the blue, the Angel Gabriel appeared to you as you were in the Temple offering Incense!

As it is narrated, you were terrified and so, you were consoled by the Angel calming you,

"Fear not!"

Venerable Zechariah,

You were not only startled but also were shocked by the appearance of the Angel, Gabriel, weren't you?  

So, you were reassured by the Angel Gabriel not to fear.

Initially, you might have thought of the popular and superstitious belief among you about the appearance of an angel to a priest on temple duty was meant to punish the priest on account of some of his shortcomings in the ritualistic performance, right?

But your fear was unfounded as the Angel  Gabriel hadn't come to punish you but to present you with the good news of you fathering a son for whom you had been praying and waiting for all along!

Venerable Zechariah, though you loved to believe the promising words of the Angel, it was real hard for you, as you were well aware of the 'age factor' of you and of your wife, Elizabeth. So as to reconfirm,  you asked for a sign and you got it, right away, didn’t, you?

You were to remain dumb and mute until your baby is born and be circumcised.

In a sense, the temporary nature of  the  punishment was also a pointer, a pointer to the imminent joyful arrival of your son and the welcome departure of your seemingly unending wait.

Wasn't it a sweet joy for you to have gone through the punishment for nine plus months?

Dear Venerable Zechariah and Elizabeth,

Help me to imagine the variety of emotions you both went through ever since the Angel Gabriel broke the joyful news to you.

Immense must have been the gratitude gushing out of  your heart and the gratefulness felt towards your God, right?

You must have felt sorry:

for the guilt feelings you might have had,

for having doubted, the goodness of your God,

for having nursed the feelings of anger,

for getting disappointed and dejected,

for having had disparaging feelings about

your own worthlessness and what not...

Venerable Zechariah and Elizabeth,

It was a time, when both of you might have had a lot to talk to each other, share together, and plan together as the New life was being fashioned in the womb of Elizabeth, right?

And when you needed and wanted most to talk to each other and to share your thoughts, you were tongue-tied, right, Zechariah?

Yet the feelings of joy you both felt, when your dear and near ones came to congratulate you, must have been beyond expression, right?

Venerable  Elizabeth, 

it must have been unbelievable for you when you felt in your body the initial signs of pregnancy, right?

It must have made you to laugh through your tears and giggle through your fears, just like a teenage girl! 

You began to feel the beauty of mothering a new life, didn’t You?

Yet you were very cautious with the new life being shaped within you and waited for full five months in seclusion.

You waited, almost, to the end of the Second Trimester, before you ever ventured out and made it known to the outside world!  

Venerable Elizabeth, 

taking into consideration your "age factor" you wanted to make it real sure that no such untoward incident like any natural abortion should ever occur due to any undue exertion or excitement from your part, right?  

So you went into rest-filled seclusion.

Venerable Elizabeth, 

you were, very careful indeed and made sure that nothing untoward happened to harm New Life within you.

You are just great, Oh, Venerable Elizabeth! 

You make a real caring Mom!

Remember,

Venerable Elizabeth, 

the day when you had the unexpected visit from the young and expectant Mary of Nazareth?   

The New budding Life within you was bubbling with ever fresh energy. 

As you most aptly said,

"the baby in my womb leaped for joy."

It must have been a very unique and memorable Meet between the Two of you!

Both of you were expecting Moms due to very special Divine Intervention.

Yet, in your case:

It was the end of a long period of shame and of despair, right?

But in the case of the young Mary from Nazareth:  

It was the beginning of misunderstanding and shame and end of a normal dreams of a betrothed young spouse to be!

For both of you, life would never be the same!

Venerable Elizabeth, 

you were old and were at the fag end of your life,

While the young Mary from Nazareth was young and about to begin her married life!

It was, in a way, a Meeting of the End of an Old Epoch and Beginning of a New Epoch!

It was a Meet between the two Expectant  Mothers:

One was onto her Third Trimester and

the other was into her First Trimester!

It was the Meeting of Two Moms:

Representing the Two Testaments:

 The Old and The New

No wonder, the Meet lasted for Three Months! 

Venerable Elizabeth, 

while you were sure to have shared your life long frustrations and end of reproach from the Community, the young Mary from Nazareth might have shared her fear and anxiety about her future, right?

It was all so succinctly summed up in the  "Magnificat" , the ever perennial and poignant yet a very personal, poetic praise and prayer of the young and expecting Mary of Nazareth.

Though it flowed from the heart of Mary, she must have done it on your behalf as well, don't you think so, Venerable Elizabeth?

Venerable Zechariah, as you wrote name of your son on the tablet, a new and ever vibrant power let loose the bondage of suffocating silence and your "mouth was opened " , your "tongue was loosed."

Venerable Zechariah, The Holy Spirit did siphon out your sincere convictions and faith-filled sentiments of joy and praise that was welling up in your heart.

And thus came bursting forth the "Benedictus."

Venerable Zechariah and Elizabeth,

Wasn't this the happiest moment in your life? 

while looking into the eyes of your infant son,

while reflecting on the Divine Designs for him,

while thanking the Lord for the Miracle Baby,
your faces must have beamed with joy, right?

But as they say, these happiest times didn't  last long!  
Foreboding sings, clouds of cruel calamity began to gather on the horizon.

King Herod with his horrendously hideous edict wanted every male child under two years of age to be beheaded! Joseph and Mary along with their Child were guided to get away.

Venerable Zechariah, 

as the stories go around, instead of fleeing you sent your son, John along with his mother Elizabeth into hiding. You kept them far away from cruel clutches of King Herod. And you succeed in doing so.

But you stayed back around the Temple Precincts to exercise your priestly ministry.

Though everything seemed safe and secure with your arrangements, all on a sudden, the soldiers of Herod caught up with you and forced you to divulge the whereabouts of your son. But you did resist every attempt and every form of force and stayed defiant until the soldiers diced you into pieces in the Temple Area.

The gospel continue to mention of Zechariah the priest being murdered between the Altar and the Temple.

Oh, Venerable Zechariah, you sacrificed your life and saved your son from the swords of the Herodian soldiers! 

But some Thirty three years later an equally evil son of Herod had the head of your son on a platter!

Oh, Venerable  Zechariah, 

as the soldiers were about to slice your head, it was quite probably that you valiantly and joyfully kept singing your "Benedictus!"

At least I love to believe so!

Venerable  Elizabeth, finally you had to live the life of Widowed Mother, a very old mother with a Two year or so old son. 

Your unflinching faith in the Lord and in His Divine Providence, 

the powerful and loving memories of your saintly priest-husband and 

the love for your baby son kept you going.... 

for the rest of your life, right?

Venerable  Zechariah and Elizabeth,  

How i wish to be steadfast in my faith especially when things look bleak in my life, when my hopes seem to dash,

when my strength feels fading and

when old age seem to creep into my "earthen vessel !"

Me too want sing my, "Benedictus."

May your memories keep on inspiring me!

Jesus, my God and  my Lord,

You know very well that I don't have the life long Perseverance and enduring Patience of your Grand Uncle Zechariah and Aunt Elizabeth

When I look back into my life, unlike Zechariah, I have failed to persevere and stand firm in my adversities. 

All that I want, Lord, 

is to have the humility 

to accept my failures and 

the courage to begin every day anew and 

keep singing my, 

"Benedictus."

Jesus, my Lord and my God, 
I want spend some time in silence in your presence..

"Speak Lord"....
Speak to me..

Amen

JoAchen

Friday, November 7, 2014

PS.

These Reflections are neither pure scientific exegetical interpretations nor highly theological explanations. 
They are my devotional meditations mainly meant for my personal renewal and spiritual growth. 
Dear Reader, 
as I keep holding you in my daily prayers, 
I request you to include me too in yours. 
Thank you.

For Previous Reflections of My Monologues,

www.my-monologoues.blogspot.com

Facebook  link:

My Monologues

Dear Recipient, 
if you don't  want receive

My Monologues  via email, just send a note and your email id shall be deleted  from the mailing list.