The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary – July 2, 2022

Introit—1 Samuel 2:1-2, ant. Luke 1:46b-47; Isaiah 11:1-5; Song of Songs 2:8-14

St. Luke 1:39-56

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Visitation refers to that occasion after the Angel Gabriel has revealed the conception of St. John the Baptist to Zacharias and Elizabeth and after the same archangel came to both Mary and Joseph, revealing Mary was to be the mother of God, when Mary traveled to visit her relative Elizabeth. The reason for this journey is not given by God. Some speculate that it has to do with protecting the Blessed Virgin from the contempt of her neighbors and safeguarding the reputation of pious Joseph. By Mary leaving Nazareth for three months, it was less likely the Holy Family would receive severe criticism. When she returned, it may have been easier for the public to assume the conception of Mary’s Son occurred after her marriage to Joseph.

This speculation may be true. It may be false. Either way, it isn’t very helpful. What we know is that the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her relative Elizabeth was the occasion both for St. John to leap in his mother’s womb and for the Blessed Virgin to sing the Magnificat.

There are two important lessons for us today: First, that we are unworthy of the least of God or man’s attention, let alone mercy; and Second, that we rejoice at the coming of our Lord.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth out of absolutely nothing.[1] Everything that was made was made through the Word of God according to the Will of God.[2] When God called Abraham and gave him the promise of countless generations, blessings without number, and a land in which to dwell forever, God was again building a people for Himself where there had been nothing. One of the commands given to Abraham was to leave his father’s house. No longer was Abraham to identify himself as of the lineage of Terah, but of the lineage of God. A new generation had begun.

The Prophet Isaiah speaks in this way in our reading today. “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”[3] It would be more accurately rendered the “stump” of Jesse. The Davidic line was all but dead. The family tree of Jesse, the father of David, was cut down. It was little more than a dried-up stump, devoid of hope. From this dead thing, Life sprung forth. A new Rod, a Branch full of life will spring forth and endure forever. This Rod is Christ, who is born of the Virgin Mary, herself a descendant of David.

But Mary was not worthy. She belonged to the stump of Jesse. She was poor, despised, and lowly. If tradition holds true that she was quite young when she bore the Christ child and Joseph was quite old, then it is likely the marriage was arranged for financial gain by her parents and to ensure she could be supported by her established husband. There was nothing remarkable about the Blessed Virgin. She daily went about her chores. She attended the synagogue and heard the Word of God. She belonged to the faithful remnant of Israel but even this was not particularly remarkable.

We see from the history of God’s actions that He chooses that which is lowly, despised, poor, and nothing. God brings up the downtrodden, frees the prisoner, and satisfies the hungry. He also casts down the mighty, binds the strong, and sends the rich empty away. The Blessed Virgin gives thanks that God has had mercy upon her and descended to her in her low estate.

Do not, for one moment, assume that you are something great. If you do, then God is not for you. Or the most you can expect from God is to be cast down into the pit. We are poor, miserable sinners. You are a poor, miserable sinner. You are nothing of importance to God or man. Even if you have achieved great things in this world, there is always someone smarter, faster, better, and more accomplished. If you are the greatest in the world, then know that there are thousands who seek your downfall because man loves to watch the mighty fall.

If you have achieved great things in this world, even the greatness of raising a child, holding a steady job, or attending to the gathering of the church, give thanks that these things do not make you precious in the sight of the Lord. Give thanks because if even simple tasks made you precious in the sight of the Lord, then your salvation would depend on consistently achieving them. One misstep and you would be lost.

Instead, give thanks that there is nothing within you worth the love of God because this means that He has regarded your low estate. This means that you are poor, lowly, and despised, precisely the type of person for whom God became man. Magnify the Lord because He looks upon you in love, not because of what you have done or have failed to do, but because of what He has done. He has called you by name to join Him on Mount Zion. God fills with you good things, His very Body and Blood.

If you have the riches of Abraham, the poetry of David, or the wisdom of Solomon, these things are trinkets before God. They are gifts of God, bestowed upon you for the praise of Him. When the Blessed Virgin hears the words of the Angel Gabriel, she rejoices that her Lord has condescended to be with her. Jesus Christ is also with you, this day and every day.

In the Song of Solomon, the church proclaims, “The voice of my Beloved! Behold, He comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.”[4] The Bridegroom calls to the Church out of great love and from a great distance. Before we see our Lord, we hear His voice. Before the Virgin conceived, she heard the Word of the Lord from the lips of Gabriel. Before John baptized his Lord, he leaped in the womb at the sound of Mary’s voice. Thus at the sound of the Word of our God, our ears perk up and our excitement heightens. The church rejoices to see and know her Lord, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!”

And before we can move a muscle; before the church can take any action of her own, Christ leaps down from Mount Zion, from the side of the Father, to join His beloved bride on the plain. He descends lower than the heavenly beings that He might join us in our flesh. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked, but my God would rather be born of a lowly virgin than institute an earthly kingdom by force of man.[5]

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] Genesis 1:1.

[2] St. John 1:1-3.

[3] Isaiah 11:1.

[4] Song of Songs 2:8. The following draws from Bernard of Clairvaux, “Sermon 53,” On the Song of Songs, Vol 3, translated by Kilian Walsh and Irene M. Edmonds (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979), 58-67.

[5] Psalm 84:10; St. Luke 1:42; St. Matthew 4:8-9; Acts 1:4-8.

The Nativity of St. John the Baptist

 The Nativity of St. John the Baptist – June 24, 2022

Introit – St. Luke 1:68, 76-79; Isaiah 40:1-5; Acts 13:13-26

St. Luke 1:57-80

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

         Who has set thy glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings

hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies,

         That thou mightiest still the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,

         The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

What is man, that thou art mindful of him?

         And the son of man, that thou visitest him?

For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,

         And hast crowned him with glory and honour.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;

         Thou hast put all things under hi feet:

All sheep and oxen,

         Yea, and the beasts of the field;

The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea,

         And whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! (Psalm 8, KJV)

Today we rejoice that God has seen fit to deliver our nation from the tyranny of a supposed right to kill children in the womb. It is by divine providence, that is, the foreknowledge and working of God in the world, that this decision by the Supreme Court was handed down on the same day as the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. Today is a day of great rejoicing.

Tomorrow, our rejoicing will be slightly tempered. Tomorrow, we ought to remember that while this decision removes a national mandate allowing the murder of children, it does not prevent the murder of children. This decision allows states to decide how and when they will allow mothers to ask doctors to kill their babies. I give thanks to God that there will be states protecting children, especially the state of Missouri. Our Attorney General certified the overturning of Roe vs. Wade this morning, meaning all abortions not absolutely medically necessary, are illegal in our state. Yet I still mourn the children sacrificed on the altars of pleasure, self-importance, and pride because they were conceived in a state unwilling to protect them.

But today, our rejoicing is great. We rejoice for out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, God has ordained strength in the face of His enemies. We especially rejoice for that one who is the greatest among men born of women. St. John the Baptist is the forerunner of Christ, who was called by God before his birth to announce the coming of the Savior.

Next Saturday, we celebrate the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that day when the Virgin Mary visits her relative, Elizabeth, and the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps at the sound of Mary’s voice. St. John, who was himself around six months gestation, hears the sound of Mary’s voice, knows the presence of the Christ, and leaps for joy. Like a calf leaping forth from his stall, St. John rejoices at the presence of His Lord because it means salvation has come to man in the flesh of Jesus.[1]

There is a plethora of details surrounding the birth of St. John, each pointing to Christ, and more than could be understood in one evening. Tonight, we will focus on how and why he came to be named “John.” It was a surprise to everyone when Zacharias came out from offering the evening burning of incense and sacrifice and was silent. It was his duty to pronounce the benediction over the people. Having offered sacrifice to God, it was Zacharias’s duty to place the name of God on His people.

But his lips were sealed. Zacharias’s lips were sealed for a lack of faith. He did not believe God was able to give his aged and barren wife a son, let alone that this son would be the forerunner of the Christ.

The sealing of Zacharias’s lips is a mirror of the duty given to his son. John would be the voice crying in the wilderness. He would be the forerunner of the Christ through the preaching of God’s Word, especially that word of repentance.

Only on the day of John’s birth and only at the occasion of the gathered crowds who would not believe Elizabeth’s claim that the child was to be named John, were Zacharias’s lips unsealed. He wrote the name “John” and simultaneously spoke aloud. The voice of Zacharias was heard for the first time in ninth months. While his lips were sealed before he could bless the people, they were loosed for him to say, “His name is John.”

The name “John” means “gracious” or “benevolent.” The high priest at the time of the building of Solomon’s Temple was also named “Johanan.”[2] It is fitting that as the building of the spiritual temple of the Kingdom of God was being carried out by the heavenly Solomon, namely Jesus Christ, a man named John would serve as a priest carrying out a ministry greater than any of the Old Testament in preparing the hearts of man to receive their Lord.[3] [4]

It was the solemn duty of St. John to prepare the hearts of man by plowing the hearts inflated by pride and sin until they were plane, and raising up those who were sunk deep in the valley of despair. Through a baptism of repentance, St. John prepared the way of the Lord.

When we say that the ministry of John was a ministry of repentance, we mean the term “repentance” broadly, as including both the Law and the Gospel. John proclaimed the coming of the Messiah to fulfill the oath God swore to Abraham, the mercy promised to our fathers of old, and the holiness and righteousness of God who would deliver mankind from the hand of our enemies—sin death, and the devil.[5]

Then came the day when his own cousin, Jesus of Nazareth, came to John to be baptized. St. John knew Him to be the Christ, the promised Savior, and at first declined because of his unworthiness. Yet Christ proclaimed it was necessary that He be baptized by John so that they might fulfill all righteousness. Thus, Christ was baptized in the Jordan River, sanctifying all waters to be a washing of rebirth and regeneration.

Jesus declared that John would participate in the fulfilling of all righteousness. This was not because St. John had distinguished himself by ascetic living or devotion to God. John himself confessed that he was not worthy to tie the sandal strap of the Christ, let alone participate in the filling of righteousness. Yet it is the gracious Lord who brings John into the fulfillment of righteousness.

In your holy baptism, Christ also invites you to participate in the fulfilling of all righteousness. You are not then expected to do this on your own. You are still unworthy to tie the sandal of God in yourself. But you are also no longer alone. You are the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the habitation of the Lord, Himself. The Son of God was made lower than the angels when He took on your flesh and He has now washed you in His blood. The Father looks upon you and sees His beloved children. In this state, it is a loving and gracious act of the Almighty God to invite you to participate in His loving works by serving your neighbor and showing love to God.

Your participation does not make you holy. It is a consequence of your holiness, just as John baptizing Christ in the Jordan did not grant John salvation—it was the consequence of what God declared concerning John before his birth. John would go before the Lord to prepare his ways, by preaching repentance and the knowledge of salvation to the people of God.

On this holy day, we celebrate the birth of the forerunner of Christ at the same time that we celebrate an act of our government to protect the lives of thousands of children. It is by divine providence that the day we celebrate the one who leapt in the womb at the presence of his Lord, we also celebrate the striking down of Roe vs. Wade. We celebrate John the forerunner and the preservation of the lives of children because God Himself was born a child at Bethlehem. The Son of God took on your flesh, was born of a virgin, that by bearing your sins into the death of the cross, He would redeem your flesh. Jesus ascended into heaven still bearing the flesh of man so that all mankind, from the smallest child in the womb, to the eldest among us, would be guided into the way of peace.

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

Let us now rise and sing together the Te Deum, as found in hymn #941, glorifying God for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.

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[1] Malachi 4:2.

[2] 1 Chronicles 6:10.

[3] Johann Gerhard, Postille: Exegesis and Explanation of Sunday and Main Festival Gospels; Part Three: Apostle and Other Festival Days, translated by Elmer M. Hohle, edited by Heidi D. Sias (Fort Wayne, IN: Lutheran Legacy, 2012), 67.

[4] 2 Corinthians 3:6-9.

[5] St. Luke 1:68-79. The Benedictus.