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Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Birth announcements are usually occasions for joy! For example, Matthew and Laticia Smith’s recent announcement of the birth of their baby daughter brought joy to their extended family and to us, their brothers and sisters in Christ. Today, the Fourth Sunday in Advent, is the Sunday of the announcement of Mary’s expecting Jesus’s birth: to Joseph in the first of our three‑year cycle of readings, to Mary in the second year, and to Elizabeth in this the third year. As we heard in today’s Third Reading, Elizabeth’s baby leaps for joy, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, herself announces a few things. Elizabeth’s final statement gives us the theme for the sermon this morning: “Fulfillment of What is Spoken from the Lord”.
The Third Reading tells of what is usually called “The Visitation” of Mary to Elizabeth. The Visitation comes right after the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would conceive in her womb and bear a Son and call His name Jesus. Mary had asked how that would be, since she was a virgin. Gabriel answered that the Holy Spirit would come upon her and that the power of the Most High would overshadow her, and Gabriel told Mary that her relative Elizabeth, called barren by some, was in the sixth month of her pregnancy, for nothing is impossible with God. Mary submitted herself to the Lord, and Gabriel left. Then, as we heard this morning, Mary, having arisen, went with haste to see Elizabeth. (We are not told whether anyone went with Mary, nor how she travelled, nor where exactly she went, nor thus how far Mary had to go, though a distance of 80 to 100 miles is likely, perhaps taking three or four days.)
Once in the hill country of Judah, Mary entered Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. They probably embraced and shared a few customary words. At that precise moment, Elizabeth’s baby (St. John the Baptizer) leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was given a special gift of the Holy Spirit to exclaim with a loud cry the psalm-like words of the second half of today’s Third Reading. (But, before we get to those words, we should note that St. John the Baptizer is not the first unborn child in the Bible to be described with intentions and actions in the womb, so were Rebekah’s twins Esau and Jacob in Genesis chapter 25. And, that the Third Reading uses the same word to refer to a baby in the womb that the Bible uses to refer to babies outside of the womb is a major reason why we know life begins at conception and so strive to defend all such life.) Elizabeth’s inspired words in the Third Reading do a number of things: they bless Mary over other women, they bless Jesus, they confess Elizabeth herself both as less than Mary but also as believer in the lordship of Mary’s child (like Elizabeth’s own child in the womb was a believer), and, finally, Elizabeth’s inspired words state the blessedness of all those who believe there will be a “Fulfillment of What is Spoken from the Lord”.
A news story I read yesterday spoke about the trauma for those who—because some said the Mayan calendar ended Friday—had believed that the world was going to come to an end that day. One possible result from such a failed belief is greater difficulty believing things in the future. For her part, Elizabeth knew what it was like for someone not to believe there would be a “Fulfillment of What is Spoken from the Lord”. You may recall that Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah was made unable to speak when he did not believe the Lord’s words about John’s birth spoken to him through the angel Gabriel. Elizabeth’s words to Mary may contrast Mary’s belief of the messenger’s words with Zechariah’s unbelief. (We probably do not want to read into Elizabeth’s inspired words too much of a dig at her husband, however; if for no other reason, because he was mute, and some wives might appreciate a silent husband.)
Now, none of us are being told by angels that we are going to have what seem like impossible pregnancies (what would be more impossible in some cases, perhaps, than in others). But, God’s Word and messengers nevertheless speak all sorts of other things to us, and we may not always believe there will be a “Fulfillment of What is Spoken from the Lord”. In all likelihood those of us who are here are believers in general, but maybe we do not believe all the specific implications of that general belief. Maybe we disbelieve God’s Word and messengers outright, rejecting something altogether. Or, maybe our disbelief is more subtle, such as misunderstanding what is spoken in such a way as to expect a different kind of fulfillment. By nature, we are unable to believe at all, and that lack of the right relationship with God leads us to commit all sorts of other sins, both against Him and against our fellow human beings. For our sin, we deserve death, now and for eternity. The so-called “doomsday” may not have been Friday, but one is coming—at our own deaths or when the Lord returns, whichever comes first. Escape is not going to be by hiding in an underground bunker or by hitching a ride on a friendly U‑F‑O, but escape is only going to be by turning in sorrow from our sin, believing God forgives our sin, and wanting to do better. When we so repent, then God forgives us. He forgives us whatever our sins are. He forgives us by grace, through faith in Jesus.
As Gabriel told Mary, Mary knew that she did not deserve to be Jesus’s mother but that she was Jesus’s mother because of God’s grace. Elizabeth likewise knew that she did not deserve to have the mother of her Lord come to her. You and I, who repent and believe, know that we do not deserve God’s forgiveness but that He redeems us only on account of Jesus’s holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death. Jesus is not only the fruit of Mary’s womb, but He is also the Son of God, the Lord in human flesh, already in Mary’s womb. For us and for our salvation, He passed through all stages of our existence, also dying on the cross and rising from the dead, for us! As the Second Reading (Hebrews 10:5-10) put it, we have been sanctified (that is, made holy) through His offering Himself once for all. Today’s Collect, drawing on today’s Psalm (80:1-7), calls for the Lord to stir up His power and come and help us by His might, so that the sins that weigh us down may be quickly lifted by His grace and mercy.
Elizabeth blesses Mary over other women, and Mary truly is most-blessed among women, since Mary is the mother of the Lord—every birth of every other believing woman from Eve to Mary is fulfilled in the birth of Mary’s Son. In the Magnificat, Mary’s song recorded in St. Luke’s Gospel account immediately after today’s Third Reading, Mary says all generations will call her blessed, and that can come to our Lutheran ears the wrong way. As St.Luke reports, later in His ministry, Jesus Himself essentially rebuked Mary—one time when she came with other relatives thinking He was out of His mind, and another time, when a woman in the crowd blessed the womb that bore Him. In both cases, Jesus emphasized that true family relationships and true blessedness are based on hearing the Word of God and doing (or keeping) it, just as Elizabeth states the blessedness of all those who believe there will be a “Fulfillment of What is Spoken from the Lord”. True blessedness comes from sharing in the salvation of the Kingdom of God, and we are brought to faith, so that we share in that salvation, by the Holy Spirit’s working through God’s Word in all its forms.
John the Baptizer, Elizabeth, and Zechariah are the only ones St. Luke’s Gospel account says are “filled with the Holy Spirit”. They were so filled for special speech and action. (They certainly had the Holy Spirit in general, both before and after their filling for such special speech and action.) For us to be brought to faith, we only expect the Holy Spirit to come with God’s Word that comes from outside of ourselves, as the Holy Spirit apparently came to Elizabeth in connection with Mary’s spoken greeting and comes through the preaching of God’s Word in our time. We believe there will be a “Fulfillment of What is Spoken from the Lord” by such preaching, as Mary believed what was spoken by Gabriel. Like Mary, we who believe are blessed, and, as in the case of Jesus’s ministry, such blessing comes in other ways, too: through the receiving of adults and children into the kingdom of God by in Holy Baptism (for even babies like St. John can have faith); through words of forgiveness, such as in Holy Absolution; and through our partaking of bread that is Christ’s body and wine that is Christ’s blood in Holy Communion, the meal of the redeemed community, the Church.
In some sense Mary represents the Church, and that has to do with more than an interesting series of parallels between Mary’s journey to the hill country of Judah and the movement of the Ark of the Covenant there on its way to Jerusalem in the Old Testament. Mary represents the Church because, as with the Ark, the Lord is present in her womb as a temporary and portable vessel. Everything that happens in today’s Third Reading is essentially a response to the Lord’s presence in Mary. Mary would be just another pious woman if she had not been chosen to bear the Lord, and the Church would not be the Church without the presence of the Lord. When Mary gives birth to Jesus in Bethlehem, as prophesied in today’s First Reading (Micah 5:2-5a), He comes forth as a Ruler and Shepherd in the strength of the Lord to bring peace.
Such presence of the Lord in the Church (and so in our lives) brings not only peace but brings also joy. When the sound of Mary’s greeting came to Elizabeth’s ears, the baby in her womb, leaped for joy, she said, but that joy is not just any joy. The kind of joy for which Elizabeth says the baby leaped is the joy of the worshipping community that celebrates and praises God for His salvation. The worshipping community confesses the fulfillment of God’s salvation and rejoices in it.
I mentioned at the beginning that birth announcements are usually occasions for joy. Of course, not everyone rejoices at word of an expected child, and not everyone will know the joy of being parents (the joy of being an uncle or aunt and the joy of mentoring or being friends with someone of a possible child’s age ultimately are not the same joy). Of course, after Jesus’s birth the need for being married and having children has changed somewhat: we no longer need descendants for the Savior to be born because He has already been born, and our true joy (or blessedness) ultimately comes in that “Fulfillment of What is Spoken from the Lord”. All of the implications of that fulfillment, the promises spoken to you from the Lord will also be fulfilled, on His timetable and in the way He knows best. Whatever earthly joy we imagine we want pales in comparison to the heavenly joy that already is ours in Him.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +