By Fr. George Dorbarakis
1. Saint Zechariah, whose feast we celebrate today, is a Hebrew name meaning “he who remembers the Lord.” He is distinct from the Prophet Zechariah who belongs to the group of the twelve so-called Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. He too is characterized as a prophet because he truly possessed the prophetic gift, and the matters concerning him are recorded by the Evangelist Luke, who relates that during the period of his priestly service in the Temple, as a priest, he received a vision of the Archangel Gabriel, who announced to him beforehand the birth of his son John, despite all the logical obstacles: his own old age, and the old age and barrenness of his wife Elizabeth. Because of his disbelief, the archangel “punished” him with muteness, which was removed with the birth of John, an event that led Zechariah to hymns and glorifications, as well as to a prophecy concerning his child. His end was martyric, as is also noted in the New Testament: namely, his countrymen killed him, according to their well-known custom, between the Temple and the altar.
2. The Prophet Zechariah, despite the association of his memory with his disbelief in what the Archangel Gabriel announced to him, is especially honored by our Church, always in connection with his most eminent son, John the Forerunner. The Hymnographer of his service, moreover, sees him adorned with a triple crown: the crown of a faithful priest of God, of an excellent martyr, and of a glorious prophet: “faithful among priests and excellent among martyrs, and a glorious prophet… adorned with a triple crown.” Yet what the majority bring to mind is, as we said, his questioning of the heavenly vision, which Saint John Chrysostom says resulted in his deafness and muteness, because it revealed that he placed his own reason before the omnipotence of the word of God. Is it possible, the Holy Father even asks, for there to be any rational objection to Him whose word establishes and creates the universe?
And yet! If we were to judge the response of Saint Zechariah according to the criteria of our later saints, especially the Hesychast Fathers and Teachers, we ought to praise him. For precisely because he did not hasten to accept the vision, the appearance. Our saints, that is, basing themselves both on the word of God and on their own experience, teach us that our first response to such phenomena, should they occur, ought to be caution, and perhaps even questioning. And this is because it is not only God who can reveal Himself through His angel or in some other way, but also the wicked devil. Indeed, it is usually the devil who attacks a person in this particular manner; for this reason, caution is ultimately regarded before we can say it is from God. We remember the words of a holy ascetic of Mount Athos, who said that of the approximately three hundred visions he experienced as a monk, only three were from God. Praise, therefore, would be the proper response on our part to the questioning of Saint Zechariah. And the Gospel text itself does not seem to be negative toward something of this kind. The “punishment” of the Prophet rather functions simply as a form of instruction, and for this reason, as soon as the child John is born, the Saint’s tongue is also released.
The service of the day, however, gives us another interpretation of Zechariah’s deafness and muteness, placing it within the framework of his prophetic gift: his deafness prophesies the silence of the Old Testament, which brings its work to completion with the appearance of the light of God’s grace, indicated by the birth of John. “O, what a wondrous miracle! The silence of the Old [Testament] and the manifestation of the New, Zechariah’s deafness most clearly prophesies. For, having fallen silent at the fulfillment of the Law, he revealed the light of grace.” This is a symbolic elevation of the Prophet’s muteness, which moves us because it shows us with what broad vision our Church approaches the events of the Divine Economy and how much the Spirit of God guides her toward their proper understanding. And beyond this: the very service itself — that is, once again seeing these events through divine illumination — directs us toward something that has immediate relevance to our own life. “Your prophet, O Master,” the holy hymnographer points out, “faithfully ministered to You in the rational types, and was deemed worthy, in knowledge, to behold the truth” [of grace]. That is: Your prophet, Lord, faithfully ministered according to the rational types of the Old Testament; therefore he was deemed worthy also to behold with full knowledge the truth of grace, through the coming of Christ. In other words, when we too persist, remaining steadfast and faithful in those things that, even in their outward form, we are able to fulfill from the law of God — our prayer, our attendance at church, our study of the word of God, our almsgiving — we will see the grace of God become active and sweeten our heart. A period of spiritual dryness, then, when it does not become an occasion for us to turn away from the word of God, usually brings afterward the rich dew of God’s presence.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
