Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.
-Luke 1:57-66 NRSVUE
Writing the Name
Now that I am working on a diocesan staff, rather than in a parish, I have a new and different rhythm. But I vividly remember the push toward Christmas in the congregation over the past 25 years of ministry. At this point, clergy and lay leaders are spent, with Advent services, with all the parties—in some congregations there are also observations of Guadalupe and Las Posadas. There are year-end financial arrangements to be made, budgets set. Now after all that, leaders are focused on final preparations for the feast we Anglicans do best, that of the Incarnation, the Nativity of our Lord.
How many today are still laboring away on their tablets, like Zechariah, to write the name that will announce the coming of the Christ? Zechariah had been given this name by an Angel of the Lord in the Temple some nine months earlier when he was serving in the temple at the Altar of Incense. He had doubted this word, this promise of the angel, and lost his voice. Yet at the moment of John’s birth, he took a tablet, wrote the name, and found his voice.
For all my colleagues writing their Christmas sermons on your iPads, tablets or laptops, think of Zechariah. You might have a humdinger of a homily ready this year; more likely, you are struggling to find the perfect stories, joke, and/or illustration. Know this—you have only two jobs, and you don’t have to do them perfectly: only trust; and also name the promise. Our job is only that of Zechariah. The rest of the work is God’s. God will enliven the prophetic word to prepare hearts for the Nativity. The Angels will make the announcement, and somewhere in the humblest of places Christ will be born anew; the eternal word will take flesh.
While I think of my dear sermonizing colleagues today, this trusting in and naming of the promise is not only the work of Christmas Eve preachers. It is the year-long, Advent work of the Christian life, the daily visitation as our Advent 4 collect calls it. As we trust and name the promise, as we write it not only on our tablets but in our conscience, as we make room, indeed our own mansion, in which Christ can be born.
What is the name of the promise you are carrying, half doubting and silent in naming? What is the word that seems too good to be true, too late in arriving, too precious and gentile in our dark and conflicted time. Trust this word of promise. Write the name, open your mouth, loose your tongue, and give praise like Zechariah for what God will do—dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.
The Rev’d Canon Stephen Carlsen
Canon for Congregational Vitality
The Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma