The Visiting Dawn: Nativity of St. John the Baptist

 Homily at the Eucharist on the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, St. Thomas' Church, Bath,
NY: Luke 1:57-80

 You [child] will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, in order to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins through the merciful compassion of our God.  By his compassion also a dawning from on high will visit us, to shine light on those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet onto the path of peace.

           This translation of the second half of Zechariah’s song is from Luke Timothy Johnson’s commentary on Luke (see citation below). It is a more literal translation of the Greek and I find it helpful for a several reasons.

          First of all, his son John’s purpose.  The usual translation is that John is called to prepare the way, singular, which makes us think of Jesus, who in John’s Gospel will call himself the way.  But Zechariah’s vision is bigger:  John will prepare for the ways of God—the purposes of God—to be known through Jesus.  And then he makes a clear statement of these ways of God.

           It’s a three-part progression in the next sentence.  These are the ways of God:  God’s merciful compassion leads to the forgiveness of all the ways humankind falls short, and in the experience of mercifully compassionate forgiveness we know salvation.  Notice God is the actor here, and his action is merciful compassion.

           One might ask if there is any kind of compassion other than merciful.  I think there is a form of compassion that is condescending, bestowed by a superior upon an inferior.  Luke wants us to know this is not among the ways of God.  God’s compassion is extravagant, it overflows into forgiveness, acceptance, and love, that can only be experienced as salvation, liberation.

           Then Zechariah uses the word “compassion” again, just in case we’ve missed the extravagance. Unfortunately translations tend to leave this second “compassion” out as redundant.  That’s unfortunate because the next thing of which Zechariah speaks is directly tied to God’s merciful compassion.  This is what that overflowing compassion looks like:  it looks like the visit of a dawning from on high.

           The experience of forgiveness, salvation, liberation, is like an unexpected dawn, as if you were staring at a bleak horizon that suddenly bursts with color.  The experience of God’s merciful compassion is the transformation of our flat, black and white world into vibrant, textured life.  It is

 To shine light on those sitting in darkness and the shadow of death.

           That’s all of us at one time or another, probably more often than we care to admit.  We need color, we need dawn, we need forgiveness, radical acceptance, to bring light and life.

           And then God’s ways become our ways.

 To guide our feet upon the path of peace.

           Peace is not something we can simply will into being, even in our own inner life, much less in the world around us.  It can only come from the gift of the experience of the merciful compassion of God, the forgiveness, acceptance, that this compassion brings us, such that our darkness is enlightened and our living toward death changed to living in life.

           Zechariah got it.  I hope we get it too.  One last thing:  Zechariah sang this amazing song after being unable to speak for nine months.  We’ll probably need to shut up and listen for a significant amount of time before the dawn can visit us too.

  

Above text from Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, Sacra Pagina series, ed. Daniel J. Harrington (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1991), p. 45.