NOTES for Luk 1:1-25
The Evangelist intends to lead his account from the beginning. But what event does he place at the beginning of the narrative? Luke chooses not the Nativity of Jesus, not the beginning of His preaching, and not even the preaching of John that preceded it. No, the story begins with a description of the events that came before John's birth, when hardly anyone could have imagined that the proclamation of the New Covenant was drawing near. The beginning matures quietly; it is hidden in the midst of Old Testament everyday life.
The angel tells Zechariah that his wife, no longer young, will become the mother of a great prophet. This had happened more than once in Israel; here there is, as it were, a repetition of what we have read more than once on the pages of the Old Testament. But the new thing that would soon be preached would not contradict the former one; it would be a further disclosure of the old revelation.
Zechariah did not believe the angel, so it is easy to see his muteness only as a punishment for weak faith. But this forced silence is also a path of inner recollection, an opportunity for prayerful concentration. Zechariah is silent about what has been revealed to him, and Elizabeth likewise hides her pregnancy until the appointed time. Both of them needed to carry through solitude what would become the main content of their later lives. The most important events often mature in quiet.