How the mighty fall! Minutes before writing this, I was listening to Esther Rantzen on the radio, relating in her warm and friendly tones how, now that she has Stage 4 cancer, she has joined Dignitas and believes fully in the compassionate freedom of being able to end her own life. Rantzen, the social conscience of Britain, voice of the voiceless and champion of the weak, stands now for death. But what has this to do with Zechariah?
Everything. Zechariah is a priest, chosen from among men in the things that pertain to God, as St Paul says in the letter to the Hebrews. At the appointed time, he enters the inner sanctuary of the temple and there performs the ceremony of the offering of incense. His is a ministry of mercy and compassion, interceding for the people. Then, while interceding before the divine presence while the people watch on from outside, Zechariah gives way to his scepticism in the face of God. Zechariah, mediator with God and the most privileged of men, stands now for unbelief.
But, isn't Zechariah the model of reason and good sense (like Rantzen)? Do not humanity and compassion underpin all his difficulties as he faces his angelic visitor? What after all are his objections?
'How can I be sure of this?' he says - an admirably humble response, not wishing to trust in himself... 'I am an old man and my wife is getting on in years' - which seems to show how very prudent Zechariah really was, knowing his limitations and those of his spouse... Are we sure this is not so?
The modern response to what happens next is easy to imagine. How cruel, it would say, does Gabriel then become? Refusing to have mercy on Zechariah's just fear and ignoring Zechariah's humble admission of weakness, Gabriel brings down a punishment like some appallingly cruel Greek deity. How callous is God who places such burdens on Zechariah when he surely cannot carry them? Such, I imagine, is the compassionate commentary.
But Zechariah's uncertainty does not bespeak humility; it bespeaks complexity. Zechariah, who is supposed to be worthy of his priesthood, is unfamiliar with the divine, possibly through lack of deep prayer. His response to Gabriel is not a sign that he does not trust himself; it is a sign that he is resistant to seeing things from God's perspective.
Likewise, Zechariah's complaint that he and his wife are too old is the age-old human pretext for not doing what God asks of us. We say we cannot, but we are then usually trying to cross the bridge before we come to it. God will send us what we need in the right moment, and not before.
Before we enter Christmas, these two poles stretch before us, marking out the tension that rends the world asunder. Zechariah, the mighty priest with a ministry of compassion, who stands before God's presence in the temple, is the model of infidelity and unfaithfulness. Mary in all her obscurity, who runs to her cousin Elizabeth with tales of her joy in God, is the model of constancy and acceptance. Only the priesthood of Jesus - a priesthood he receives thanks to the human nature that comes from Mary's flesh - marries priestly dignity and the perfection of goodness. And its advent in the world is now imminent.
No comments:
Post a Comment