NOTES for Luk 1:57-66

Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, was mute for several months before his son's birth. John, however, became the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He met Jesus while still in his mother's womb, and then waited for Him all his life, so that ‘all righteousness’ might be fulfilled through him. John's mother probably waited for his conception even longer than John waited for the Encounter with the One who is not only his cousin, but also his Father and Savior. John could not receive a traditional family name, for with him not only the family line but also the Old Covenant comes to an end. He is the last in the Old Covenant, the first in the New, since he meets the One who will establish the New Covenant. Yet he dies before the Last Supper takes place, before the institution of the Eucharist, the establishment of the New Covenant. In the Bible, a name is a person's essence; John's is entirely new: he is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah said, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord.’

John is an example for the lonely, someone who can show the way to people suffering from separation from others, from being misunderstood, from loneliness. To believe that your cousin is the Messiah is almost impossible. John waited in solitude, preached without knowing whether his prophecies could come true, and had to live in the New Covenant without waiting for its arrival. He prepared the way of the Lord, and those who have lost their way can ask John the Baptist to help them see that way; those who are lonely can ask him to teach us to wait.