Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

Lectionary: 587

Truly you have formed my inmost being;
    you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made;
    wonderful are your works.

Late one evening in Washington DC, almost fifty years ago, having finished complaining about whatever worried me at the time, I found myself lingering alone in the chapel and reciting words from the psalms. By that time I had been reading morning and evening prayer with the friars for several years and, because my brain was still somewhat pliable, I learned by repetition even without trying. I wondered, "What is that psalm I am reciting?" 

It took a while to discover it was Psalm 139. Like many generations of Christian women and men, I was learning to pray from the psalter. 

It's always a pleasure to find 139 in our liturgy. It is used today to remember the Birth of Saint John the Baptist. The infant who had leapt for joy in his mother's womb at the approach of the Savior would certainly have prayed, "You knit me in my mother's womb; I am fearfully, wonderfully made." 

Psalm 139 is a prayer of discovery. The believer first realizes:

LORD, you have probed me, you know me:

you know when I sit and stand;

you understand my thoughts from afar.

They are like the child whose mother has eyes on the back of her head. She knows when trouble is afoot even in the silence. "What are you doing?" she asks the guilty little innocent one. The feeling is not entirely comfortable. And the believer asks of God,

Where can I go from your spirit?
From your presence, where can I flee? 

But the believer soon realizes the omniscience and omnipotence of God pervades the past also and, 

You formed my inmost being;

you knit me in my mother’s womb.

I praise you,

because I am wonderfully made;

wonderful are your works!

My very self you know.

My bones are not hidden from you,

When I was being made in secret,

fashioned in the depths of the earth.

This knowledge is reassuring for the Lord certainly would not regret what he has made so wonderfully. 

The psalmist goes on to discover how alien evil is to God's world and will want to enlist in God's army to fight it. And to beg God to free them from evil:

See if there is a wicked path in me;

lead me along an ancient path

 Saint John the Baptist knew God's mercy from the day he was born and his ancient parents reinforced his assurance as they raised him in the Jewish religion. As we celebrate his Nativity we ask the Lord for the same assurance, and the same willingness to oppose evil within our hearts and in the world which would seduce away from the Lord.