That we are raised up by the falls of the saints, and grounded by the trembling of the saints, the hesitation of the priest Zechariah has today taught us: who, since he does not believe God's promises but scrutinizes them, and perceives the divine works not by faith but investigates them by human reason, pays for the guilt of unbelief by a long condemnation of silence. He had heard from the angel: 'Your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth shall bear you a son.' He then answered: 'Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days' (Luke 1).
Had he not, in as great a measure as he had lost the hope of posterity through long old age, been taught by the long experience of life that God has nothing impossible? So long-serving a priest had read, the veteran high priest knew, that by law nature, not the Author of nature, can be constrained, and that time can prescribe a limit to man, but cannot to its own Creator. He knew that from the bodies of Abraham and Sarah, deadened by extreme old age and removed by a most notorious barrenness from the name of father and mother, Isaac had burst forth unto the whole fecundity of the Israelite offshoot (Genesis 21),
for whom it was not so much a hindrance that nature was lacking, as it was a benefit that he was born by the gift of the Author, not of nature. He had learned that to Rebecca (Genesis 25) and to Hannah (1 Samuel 1), long barren, long destitute of the support of nature, God had given what barrenness had denied. Taught, therefore, by such great examples, what is it that he says: 'Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days'? Brethren, feeble enough before God, feeble enough before the divine powers, is the nature of man, nor does he find himself in the trial such as he esteems himself to be before the trial; and he is ignorant enough of himself before he proves himself in deeds and is tested by examples. He seeks heaven, he seeks the heights, he searches the things above, he moves heaven, he knocks at heaven; but when he has moved heaven, he will not be able to bear the weight of heaven.
Faith longs to climb the summit; it burns to penetrate heaven by its own power; but when it begins to walk the ethereal roads with human steps, and looks down upon its own nature, it does not trust in the past so much as it trembles at the fall. So blessed Peter, when across the waters he imitates a divine gait, and as a new traveler treads a yielding path with hard steps, prays about a slip before he rejoices over the gift given (Matthew 14). So now Zacharias, who long wept that the devil could prevail, that death could reign through the fault of one man; that men are born to labors, to groans, to dangers, wretched though one may still desire them; that their offspring, destined to die, cannot even be obtained; that man must stand amid the battle-lines of sins, be besieged by troops of vices, and be forever shaken and battered by the assault of infirmities;
to see from afar the banners of the virtues, the hope of the law, the freedom of grace, and yet that no one can reach there by his own powers; to will good things and not do them; to hate crimes and not conquer them; that God ought now to have mercy, ought now thus to succor the captives. When therefore this priest struck the ears of God with such continual complaint, with such lamentation, God, to one asking so devoutly and so justly, took from the very seed of His own answer and established a wondrous proof, whereby he might believe that God can give life to the dead and restore salvation to the despairing, if to dead old age He gave offspring, if to despairing barrenness He gave a son, as the gospel word reveals when it says:
who will not, as you do, hear God with the voice, nor bend Him with groans. He will not, as you, need our prayers in order to obtain, but he himself, set within our own rank and upheld by angelic honor, will hold in his hand the God long desired by all yet never known to them, unseen even by the angels themselves; he will embrace Him in his bosom, and now, made visible to the world, deliver Him with happy arms, assign Him with most blessed palms to be beheld by human eyes; he will make God known to all, lead the Lord into the fellowship of lowly servants, mingle the Judge with the guilty, and bear witness that the censor of sinners has taken upon himself the person of the guilty, as though to prove that the sentence of human condemnation shall cease, since He who was to hand the guilty over to punishment is Himself now led along, Himself runs the course of pardon.
That this mystery of boundless loving-kindness may shine forth, Zacharias, your son plunges his own Lord into the baptism of repentance, washes Him for the remission of sins: whereby the Fountain willed to be washed, the All-knowing to receive pardon, the Judge Himself to undergo His own sentence, lest He condemn the guilty, lest He bring vengeance upon sinners; He ascends the cross, tastes death, suffers burial, enters hell, He who willed to be punished so as not to punish, who willed rather to be loved than feared. When Zacharias, brothers, heard this, that by his prayers he had merited so great a mystery, terrified by the very consideration of the matter, troubled by his estimation of the mystery itself, he neither believed he merited so much, nor doubted whether God would descend to such and so great things. Hence it is that he says: How shall I know this?
For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her days. This is to say: Just as human reason does not permit me to have a son, so the eternal majesty of God does not allow these things to be born and to die. To him, disbelieving in a pardonable way, the angel gave only the penalty of a sign, not the penalty of treachery: it is a matter of caution to be slow in believing lowly things about God, slower still in thinking anything insulting of God. The angel added, saying: I am Gabriel. So that from so great a name, and from the merit of so great a minister, the priest might weigh the trustworthiness of the promise and believe its very quality. I am Gabriel, who stand before God, and I am sent to speak to you. While he tells his name, he indicates his merit; when he refers to his standing, he refers to his being sent; he confesses his servitude, lest the prerogative of the name conceal his due obedience.
I am, he says, Gabriel, who stand before God, and I am sent to speak to you and to announce these things to you. Truly great is the Lord, and of His wisdom there is no number (Psalm 146). He heals the sick man by a wound, He strengthens the wavering man by chastisement, He perfects the proof of faith by the very punishment, saying: And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak. So that from yourself, within yourself, you may draw the rule of believing, and by this homely example believe that God can do what He promises: for when He wills, He safely closes the instrument of your voice; and when He wills, He can surely reopen the function of your mouth; and when He wills to make the fertile out of the barren, and when He promises to make the barren out of the fertile, He can; when He wills to bestow the offices of childbearing, and when He wills, He is able to deny the services of nature.
The angel therefore acted so that the priest, instructed by such a proof, might say no more: How shall I know this? He who by the evidence of all creation could prove that God can do all things; and who had read that heaven, earth, sea, and all that is in them came to stand out of nothing, ought to have believed that He can make out of something whatever He wills, and restore to the despairing what He promises; and He who made everything out of what was not, does not labor to make out of what is whatever He wills. And the people were awaiting Zacharias, and they wondered that he delayed in the temple. But Zacharias, coming out, could not speak to them, and they understood that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he kept making signs to them, and remained mute.
The priest goes out, bearing in his mouth the sign of barrenness, carrying in his breast the figure of conception, so that when the mother should bear the son, the son should give voice, and then the father of the word should bring forth the mystery, and the newborn should give pardon to his father before he should wash away the ancient sins of the peoples. And because he who did not believe fell silent, rightly the prophet, because he believed, glories, saying: I believed, therefore I have spoken (Psalm 115). Brothers, faith gives the word, unbelief denies the word. If therefore, brothers, as I said, the fall of the saints lifts us up and the trembling of the blessed steadies us, let us judge that nothing is ever impossible to God, nor let us inquire how He will do what He promises, He for whom to have willed is to have done, for whom to have given is to have promised.
Those who know how to gather gold from the earth, wherever they have sensed a rich vein, there they expend whatever skill, whatever labor there is: and we too, because we know that in holy Zacharias a heavenly treasure lies hidden, let us fix upon him all our discourse and all your hearing, so that a common gain may arise from what has been sought by common labor. There was, it says, in the days of Herod, king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abijah. This we have already said. And his wife was of the daughters of Aaron (Luke 1). Thus the evangelist began, so that in the priest's wife the nobility of the priestly lineage might be shown preserved. They were, it says, both just before God.
Both just, because in both there was one justice. Both just, because their marriage rested not upon mere devotion but upon holiness. Both just, because though unequal in sex, they were held equal in merits. Both just, because as there was in the two one flesh, so there was in the two one spirit. Let married couples imitate them, so that those whom affection joins, virtue may also join. They were, it says, both just before God. Both just before God. And where then is that word: No living person shall be justified in Your sight (Psalm 142)? Before men perhaps one may be thought just, because men, though they know the faults of bodies, are ignorant of the vices of the mind: but before God, to whom the enclosures of the breast lie open, from whom the secrets of thoughts are not hidden, who is held to be innocent and just?
Is there a man who does not sin in heart, does not offend in thought, does not stumble by doubt, does not incur the fall of trembling? Moses doubts (Numbers 20), Aaron goes astray (Exodus 32), Peter denies (Matthew 26), and who is just? And how are both just before God? Before God, but through God. Both just before God. Not by labor, but by grace. Hear the Apostle: Justified freely by His grace (Romans 3). And again: Not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest anyone should glory (Ephesians 2). And again: What do you have that you did not receive? and if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it (1 Corinthians 4)? The evangelist therefore relates, not what he did not have, but what he received;
not what was sought, but what was given. They were, it says, both just before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of God without reproach. He said walking, to show that they had run in the virtues, not stood still; and had walked in the way of justice, not sat down; nor lingered on the road of the commandments, but had reached the fullness of the commandments. Walking in all the commandments and ordinances of God without reproach. Blessed, brothers, are those whom fault does not strike, whom crime does not wound; but more blessed are these whom not even reproach has touched. Without reproach. If their childhood, if their adolescence, if their youth was without reproach, where reproach is total, what was the old age of these? If such the beginning, what the end?
To have climbed the summits of the ordinances, the hills of the commandments, and not to have wavered in anything, is the mark of a singular grace, the emblem of a unique felicity. And they had, it says, no son, because Elizabeth was barren. He did not say, They had no sons, but, They had no son, because he who was to be born of such parents was to be singular. Hear the Lord saying: There has not risen among those born of women a greater than John the Baptist (Matthew 11). Because Elizabeth was barren. Barren in body, but fruitful in virtues; slow to offspring, but not slow to God; not closed to seed, but to the time; not denied a child, but reserved for a mystery. And both, it says, were advanced in their days. They went forward:
thus is described the mystery of an old age that has not yet fallen away in merits, does not fail with age but advances; nor does it feel the losses of the body, since it takes on the increases of virtue. Brothers, holy Elizabeth's childbearing was not taken away but deferred, until there should pass the time of the flesh, the passion of the body, the necessity of marriage, the cause of pleasure, the sense of desire, and all that confounds what is human, weighs down, and burdens the conscience. For over a long time was being cleansed that house of sacrifice, that lodging of holiness, the encampment marked out by Christ the surveyor, the dwelling of the angel, the hall of the Holy Spirit, the temple of God. Do you not know, says the Apostle, that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you (1 Corinthians 3)?
Finally, when all the complaint of the body was quieted and they were made wholly without reproach, at once barrenness flees, old age revives, faith conceives, chastity gives birth, and one is born greater than man, the equal of the angels: the trumpet of heaven, the herald of Christ, the secret of the Father, the messenger of the Son, the standard-bearer of the King on high, the pardon of sinners, the correction of the Jews, the calling of the Gentiles, and, to speak precisely, the clasp of law and grace, which fastened the double robe of the high priest upon the holy father's breast. The evangelist therefore describes the virtues of both parents, so that from such great merits of the parents the dignity of the offspring might be known;
and that he might be proved greater than man, he who at his birth exceeded the law of human nativity. But if he is to go forth, let John now be born, for the nativity of Christ is at hand; let a new morning-star arise, for the radiance of the true Sun already breaks forth; let the herald give voice, for the judge is present; let the trumpet cry out, for the King is coming; and because God is to go forth, let the angel now precede. But because man is not sufficient to relate what is above men, the virtues of the newborn angel, an angel was already speaking. The angel said to Zacharias: Fear not, Zacharias: your prayer has been heard, behold, Elizabeth your wife shall bear you joy; and you shall call his name John; and he shall be to you joy and exultation; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great before the Lord;
and he shall not drink wine and strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb; and he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God; and he himself shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the unbelieving to the prudence of the just, to prepare for the Lord a perfect people. Human speech is idle, the preaching of the commentator falls silent, when the glory of John is set forth by angelic proclamation; virtue resounds, praise is praised; nor is there anything a man may add to him to whom God has bestowed everything. With the Holy Spirit, it says, he shall be filled even from his mother's womb.
You see how John reached heaven before he touched earth, received the divine Spirit before he had the human, took up divine gifts before the members of the body, began to live to God before to himself; nay, he lived to God before God lived to him, according to that word of the Apostle: Yet I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2). In the sixth month of his mother he leaps in the womb, and announces that Christ has come into the Virgin's womb. A fervent messenger, who longed to announce before to live; an impatient captain, who reached the King before he reached the body; he seized weapons before members; he sought the battle-line before the light;
and that he might conquer the world, he lives before nature; he himself, having no inward parts of his own, rouses his mother's inward parts; and because his body was slow, by the spirit alone he fulfills the office of one who evangelizes. What shall I say? John, before he went before Christ, went before himself. One and the same Holy Spirit fills the hearts of the father, the mother, and the son, so that by one instrument of holiness the song of the Lord's nativity may resound. Nor is it any wonder, brothers, that festivity always honors royal births, that a sweet symphony gladdens them. And let us too, brothers, glorify the nativity of Christ with songs and honor it with gifts: for a Christian belies his faith if he does not do what the Magi did (Matthew 2).