NOTES for Luk 1:57-80

Zechariah pronounces a true hymn to the future Messiah. He expresses hopes that can be placed only in God: that peace will finally come on earth, that God's people will be delivered from their enemies, and that people will receive forgiveness for everything wrong they have done before God...

But here there is not only passive expectation of the triumph of justice and peace. Everyone who becomes a participant in the Message contributes to its fulfillment: Zechariah helps fulfill the prophecy about the last prophet, Mary receives the power of the Spirit in order to give birth to the coming Messiah, and John will have to prepare the people for his coming. What mission rests on us, living two millennia after the Nativity?