Sermon: Feast of the Visitation – 2023

2 July 2023

Text: Luke 1:39-56

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

While the world gets itself twisted into knots trying to define what it means to be human, and while our increasingly aggressive antichristian culture pits one group against another – including the born against those in the womb – we see a beautiful biblical illustration of not only what it means to be human, but how beautiful God’s created order is.

And what’s more, it is not only God’s creation of humanity that is on display in this Visitation, but also His redemption of us, motivated by love, in His saving us from our ugliness and sin and our violation of His created order. 

God hatched a plan to rescue us from the Serpent right under his nose.  And we see what happens when God takes flesh, when the Word invades the world.  And what we see is pure divine goodness and mercy, pure holy love that the world can only hate.  But in spite of the devil’s rage and the world’s mockery – the rescue goes from the womb of Mary to the tomb of the garden – and Jesus will emerge alive from both as the Savior: completely God and completely man.

The Visitation begins with family.  For Mary and Elizabeth are cousins.  And both are pregnant.  Mary is in unchartered territory, bearing a Son that is hers, but is not her husband’s – but at the same time, a child not conceived in sin, and in fact, not conceived by a man.  He is truly “the Seed of the Woman” that God promised to send to smash the Serpent’s head – a promise made right after the fall in the Garden of Eden.

This prophecy has been repeated again and again, and was handed over generation by generation for thousands of years: given from the patriarchs to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, taken into Egyptian slavery, brought out in freedom by Moses, and held in trust by kings Saul, David, and Solomon, and the others.  This promise survived the destruction of Israel, the deportation of Judah, and was proclaimed by prophets all along, throughout every age, “from generation to generation.”

And while many lived their lives unaware that this promise was indeed coming to fruition, it is being fulfilled in the fruit of Mary’s womb in the person of Jesus, whose name means “God saves.” 

At this glorious Visitation, Mary greets Elizabeth, and the son in Elizabeth’s own womb, a boy whose name will be John, leaps for joy at the coming of his divine cousin.  These two boys, cousins to one another, will bring the promise into reality.  For John will be the final prophet to announce the Savior’s coming, and will baptize Him.  And Jesus will reclaim the world by saving humanity.  And He will do so by dying on the cross, by offering His very blood as a ransom, and then by rising from the grave, conquering death and Satan, once and for all.

There is no force on earth that can stop this divine plan from going forward.  The attempts to murder the child Jesus will fail.  The arrest and execution of John the Baptist will not stop the preaching of the Word.  And the passion and death of Jesus will play right into the plan itself.  The resurrection of Jesus cannot be prevented by the representative of Caesar himself, nor by armed guards, nor by the priests and council and Pharisees and scribes and all the domestic enemies of Jesus.

These two babies in the womb are more powerful than the Roman Empire itself, and even today, the Gospel is more mighty than all the world’s sophisticated weaponry.  The Word of God is still a threat to the powers that be, and we see them still trying in vain to silence it. 

But the Holy Spirit has been sent by the Father and the Son.  The Spirit caused Elizabeth to confess: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”  And she continued in the Spirit: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

We see a confession of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s faith, and that her faith is in God’s promise.  For the all of God’s promises are fulfilled and brought to fruition in Mary’s womb.  And the Holy Spirit makes John leap for joy and Elizabeth confess.  The Holy Spirit also causes St. Mary to respond, with her soul magnifying the Lord.

We continue to sing Mary’s Song, the Magnificat, for it is a confession of Jesus and of the fulfillment of God’s promise in Jesus, and it is both Mary’s words and the Holy Spirit’s words. 

Blessed Mary confesses her Son as her “God and Savior.”  For the very name “Jesus” – which Mary was told to name this miraculous Child – means “God Saves.”  For God Himself, having taken on flesh, has dropped behind enemy lines, beginning this operation so small as not to be visible to the naked eye.  The Savior comes in humility, encased in the body of an impoverished girl who will be shamed and chased out of her own country by death threats.  But the boy Jesus will grow – both in stature, and as an unstoppable threat to the malicious devil, the hateful world, and our own sinful nature.

For “His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation.”  The promise of the destruction of the devil is also a promise of mercy to us – and this promise was carried “from generation to generation,” and now, dear friends, so has the proclamation of His victory: “from generation to generation,” right down to this very moment.

But let us not forget that it isn’t only a “message” that we hear today, dear friends.  For the Gospel is not merely Good News “about” Jesus.  For Jesus is here: visiting us physically, in the flesh.  He is present – though unseen – just as He was when John leaped in his mother’s womb.  Jesus is veiled behind bread and wine, but just as He was present with Mary and Elizabeth and John on that day of Visitation, He is present here on this Lord’s Day of Visitation.  Our souls also magnify the Lord, and we too rejoice in God our Savior!

We who hunger and thirst for righteousness are “filled… with good things.”  Mary’s little Lamb feeds us with His very sacrificial flesh, and has satisfied our thirst by giving us His saving blood as the gift of wine to drink.  He is veiled, but present.  He is unseen, but His work is manifest.  He sends the unbelievers – rich in worldly wealth, but poor in what really matters – “empty away.”

Dear friends, Jesus “has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy.”  You are Israel, and God does not forget you.  He remembers His promise.  And Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise.  The Holy Spirit makes your heart leap for joy, and causes you to magnify the Lord and rejoice in your Savior – who is none other than God Himself – though the world thinks very little of children in the womb, and gives no thought to bread and wine that we confess to be divine: a Visitation of God invading our world to save us.

Let us join St. John’s joy and rejoice in God’s Visitation.  Let us sing with Sts. Mary and Elizabeth.  And let us remember the Lord’s mercy shown to us in our God and Savior.  Let us celebrate their Visitation, and ours.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.