A Homework Sigh

I was sitting on the couch, stumbling through the commentary on Luke 1:5-25, and sighing. "That sounds like a homework sigh," my mother said. In some ways, it was. The beginning of Luke is as elusive to me as my assigned readings of Plato or the Qur'an. In college, you never understand one hundred percent of the reading for a class. You are lucky if you understand seventy-five percent. Or maybe I'm just stupid. 
Anyway, I'm sighing about the attention Luke pays to John the Baptist. Christmas is coming! Who gives a flying fish about John? The Son of God is about to be born! It really annoys me when I don't understand something in the Bible. How dare God put something in the Bible I can't figure out? Why don't pastors preach on John the Baptist? I can only remember hearing one sermon on this text, and it was preached by a pastor I don't like very much whom I'm trying to forget. I want to contact every pastor I like and demand a sermon on JBap (as my commentary calls him, rather like a rapper or university president, a la "T-Pain").
Maybe God will help me puzzle through this. If anybody has any ideas on interpreting JBap in Luke, let me know. I'm going to tentatively try now. 
Luke carefully connects Zechariah, JBap's father, to OT history-- he and his wife are "descended from Aaron" and there are echoes and even a few verbatim quotes from OT stories of barren couples receiving children from God. The OT and NT are inseparably intertwined, one story of God and his people, and every instance of God's faithfulness to an individual is really part of a much bigger story. Our rugged American individualism is, in most cases, sin. 
Old Zech and his wife are "upright" in God's sight, even though they don't have a child. The classic theodicy that our troubles are punishment for sin, although certainly sometimes true, fails in this case. It's also important to remember that  God intervenes in their old age, although they probably had been hoping, praying, trying for a baby for a long time. I think God rarely solves our problems the second we ask. In my cynical moments I say it's because God enjoys watching us beg for mercy, but I think in reality there's deeper, disciplinary value to waiting on God, even if God didn't cause the trouble in the first place. 
Anyway, the day Luke introduces us to Zech is a very lucky day. He drew lots and got to burn the afternoon incense, a sacred honor a priest usually received only once in his lifetime. (Again, note how the righteous sage got this honor late in life.) Why does the angel come now, in the Temple? I firmly believe we can encounter God everywhere, not just in the sanctuary. So does Luke; Gabriel comes to Mary at her house. But I've had some special moments with God in empty sanctuaries, so I guess I can see why. 
Brown connects this episode with Gabriel's appearance to the prophet Daniel in Daniel 9-10. He talks about "the seventy weeks of years" and "the desolating sacrilege" in the Temple-- eschatological signs. Because of some linguistic parallels, the fact that Gabriel is specifically mentioned, and the appearance happens in the temple suggests that the seventy weeks of years is in some sense, over. The years of suffering Israel spent waiting for redemption are over, in a way, because JBap, the forerunner of Jesus, is coming. Of course, Christians believe in the "not yet" of eschatology too, as we await Jesus' Second Coming and the birth of the new creation. But a new era of salvation history has come! 
I'm trying to understand JBap's vocation. He's called to be the Elijah (Malachi 3:1) that makes people ready for Jesus. But isn't that the vocation of any pastor/prophet/chaplain/counselor? Or am I egotistically comparing my probable vocation with that of the greatest among those born of women (Luke 7:28)? I pray that if I am a pastor, I will bring lost "sons of Israel to the Lord their God" and "make ready for the Lord a prepared people."
I guess the best I can say is that JBap highlights that God doesn't just dump the sacred in our laps. He prepares us for himself, and the best we can hope for is to be the JBap to others around us, whether they are encountering Jesus for the first time or ten millionth time. Maybe that's why Luke is starting with JBap, and Matthew with the slightly boring genealogy. We need to prepare, we need Lent before Easter, Advent before Christmas, time for our hard, confused hearts to melt before our fiery God. Maybe JBap prepares us for Jesus in Luke's narrative in subtle ways I can't quite grasp. Maybe I need to acknowledge and even celebrate the many ways God stands beyond my understanding.
Zechariah responds with skepticism-- "But how am I to know?" Apparently he hasn't been so impertinent as to lose his chance to father the second Elijah. But he is made deaf and mute. And after Elizabeth conceives her son, she withdraws from  society for five months. Solitude, as long as it has spiritual purpose and a definite end, is healthy. (Unending isolation obviously is not.) But maybe when we encounter the mystery of God, sometimes the proper response is to have some special God-and-me time. I require a lot of solitude, and if I'm particularly cranky, you may want to ask me how much quality alone time I have gotten lately. Zech and Lizzy remind me it's okay to claim that solitude when I need it, and not spend it on Tumblr and Facebook, but on my knees and in my journal and Bible. 
My reflections seem a bit lame. They definitely can't constitute a sermon. If you have any ideas for improvement, please tell me. Now I'm going to go have a snack so my head quits spinning.