Higher Note Blog

John the Bap­tist shined a light for oth­ers in prepa­ra­tion for Jesus’ birth. Pho­to from St John the Bap­tist, Cron­dall Street, Hox­ton

As we cel­e­brate the birth of Jesus’ cousin, John the Bap­tist, we see Zechariah’s mouth open and his tongue free after he wrote “John” on a tablet when asked what name to give his new born son. Imme­di­ate­ly after Zechariah’s mouth was open, he praised the Lord, bless­ing and giv­ing thanks to God.

Just as Zechari­ah, we too should praise God with bless­ings and thanks­giv­ings when we awake in the morn­ing before any­thing else can exit our mouths. Remem­ber Zechariah’s mouth was sealed when he ques­tioned God’s mes­sen­ger, the Angel Gabriel, who pro­claimed the good news of Elizabeth’s birth of John the Bap­tist. So before neg­a­tive thoughts of that big math test that awaits or the com­mute in the snow enter our minds, we should stop and con­tem­plate Psalm 118:24: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.”

Fur­ther in the Gospel of Luke, Zechari­ah is filled with the Holy Spir­it and begins to proph­e­size about the Lord’s promise of deliv­er­ance to the Jew­ish peo­ple.

“Thus He has shown the mer­cy promised to our ances­tors, and has remem­bered His holy covenant, the oath that He swore to our ances­tor Abra­ham, to grant us that we, being res­cued from the hands of our ene­mies, might serve Him with­out fear in holi­ness and right­eous­ness before Him all of our days.” Luke 1:72–76.

“By the ten­der mer­cy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in dark­ness and in the shad­ow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:78–79.

Like the peo­ple of God in the Old Tes­ta­ment, and through our faith, we too share with the Jew­ish peo­ple the lega­cy of being called, the heirs of God’s promise of sal­va­tion. We believe that this promise was ful­filled in the birth of Jesus. God the Father promis­es to shine a light on our path to guide us in peace.

So when you are in a place of dark­ness, why be anx­ious? God promis­es to watch over us and to grant mer­cy and grace in the time of need.

The Vir­gin Mary accepts the bless­ings Archangel Gabriel reveals to her. Paint­ing by Philippe de Cham­paigne

When the Archangel Gabriel appeared to the Vir­gin Mary, some of the first words from the Archangel were, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

Just as the Vir­gin Mary was a bit per­plexed by Angel Gabriel’s greet­ing, are you per­plexed by what the Lord has in store for your life? Are you afraid of the favor in which God wants to bestow on you? Are you afraid of fail­ure or even suc­cess? What is hold­ing you back from achiev­ing God’s will in your life?

Don’t let those voic­es in your head stop you from God’s graces. “I will nev­er be good enough,” you say. “You don’t know my past.” “I’m not strong enough.”

God has a whole store­house of bless­ings for you just wait­ing to be tapped. “The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abun­dant­ly,” Jesus said. (John 10:10). Don’t let Satan steal what God wants to do in your life.

But we have to do our part. First we have to accept God’s graces into our lives. We don’t have to do any­thing except to open our arms and accept the gift of grace. “If, because of the one man’s tres­pass, death exer­cised domin­ion through that one, much more sure­ly will those who receive the abun­dance of grace and the free gift of right­eous­ness exer­cise domin­ion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” (Rom 5:17) Because of Jesus’ sac­ri­fice, we have right stand­ing with God and an abun­dance of grace. This is a gift; all we have to do is accept it.

And we have to show our faith, because faith with­out action/works is dead. “But some­one will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.  You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shud­der.” (James 2:17–19). It’s time to release our faith, and by putting it in action we release God’s favor.

So what is hold­ing you back? Stop mak­ing excus­es, “For noth­ing will be impos­si­ble with God,” the Angel Gabriel said. (Luke 1:37)

Archangel Gabriel made sure Zechari­ah would not speak defeat by seal­ing his mouth shut until John the Bap­tist was born. Pho­to cour­tesy of Flickr

Death and life are in the pow­er of the tongue.

As we begin the Sea­son of the Glo­ri­ous Birth of Our Lord there is a pow­er­ful les­son about the words we speak in Luke’s Gospel about the vis­it of the Angel Gabriel to the priest Zechari­ah.

The Angel Gabriel pro­claimed good news to Zechari­ah, telling the priest that his prayers had been answered and his wife Eliz­a­beth would give birth to a child. This child, John the Bap­tist, would be filled with the Holy Spir­it even in his mother’s womb and would return many sons of Israel back to God.

But instead of rejoic­ing Zechari­ah doubt­ed, say­ing, “How can this be? I am an old man and my wife is bar­ren.” Because of his doubt, Zechari­ah was made mute until the words spo­ken by the angel were ful­filled.

Words are pow­er­ful and that is the rea­son Zechariah’s mouth was sealed. Instead of telling his fam­i­ly and friends about the glo­ri­ous mir­a­cle about to take place, Zechari­ah would have been say­ing, “This angel came to me, and said Eliz­a­beth would bear a son, but that is impos­si­ble because we are too old.” If Zechari­ah declared those words of doubt he would have missed the mir­a­cle God want­ed to bestow upon him.

How pow­er­ful are words? God made the world by speak­ing words. Jesus tells us that if we have the faith the size of a mus­tard seed, we can move moun­tains by our words. “You are snared by the utter­ance of your lips (words),” pro­claims Proverbs 6:2. St. Paul writes in Eph­esians, “Let no evil come out of your mouths, but only what is use­ful for build­ing up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” (New Revised Stan­dard Ver­sion Catholic Edi­tion)

By speak­ing words of doubt or defeat we stop the mir­a­cles that God wants to place in our lives. We also tear down oth­ers by what comes out of our mouths. So next time you want to speak defeat or gos­sip, remem­ber words are pow­er­ful. Stop, and speak words of belief, vic­to­ry and love, and be pre­pared to see mir­a­cles hap­pen in your life.

I inter­viewed Toby­Mac ear­li­er this week and I’m set to speak to Lecrae in the next hour. Keep you eye on this site at The Den­ver Post Hark Blog for my sto­ry on Toby­Mac and Lecrae as they bring their live show to Red Rocks on Sun­day, May 4.

Some Quotes from Toby­Mac about his tour with Lecrae and Skil­let

“This is my wish list tour. They are two of my favorite live per­form­ers.”

“Music is like a riv­er. … haven’t pulled my canoe out of the water just yet. I know peo­ple who do that, who stay in the music that res­onat­ed with them when they were kids.”