Isaiah 11:1-5; Romans 12:9-16; St Luke 1:39-45(46-56)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Christmas hymns in July? No, it’s not the half-birthday of Jesus. Rather, with overflowing joy, the Church of God in Christ Jesus, today celebrates the Feast of the Visitation of our Lord.
St Luke’s Gospel, that ordered account of the life and ministry of our Lord according to the very eye-witness testimony of key disciples, records for us in the first chapter the visit of St Mary to her kinswoman, St Elizabeth. The joyful meeting of these two miraculously expectant mothers - St Elizabeth in her sixth month with the Baptizer, the Forerunner of the Messiah, St Mary herself newly with Child, only but a few days - this is not the visitation to which we refer and gives thanks this day. This is the first meeting of St John the Baptist and the Lord whom he was to serve.
St Mary, having just received the astounding good news from the Archangel Gabriel, sets out over hill and dale to the home of her cousin St Elizabeth. In a journey reminiscent of the Ark of the Covenant when it was returned to Jerusalem by King David from Obededom’s house after he had received back it from the Philistines, St Mary, bearing in her womb the embryonic presence of YHWH Sabaoth, bounds over the hills of Judea to bring blessing to the house of Zechariah the priest and his wife.
From within the house, Elizabeth hears the greeting of her kinswoman and yet another miracle happens: the child within her εσκιρτησεν, skips, for joy! The pre-born Forerunner faithfully acknowledges the presence of the Greater One, though He is only centimeters in size and possibly not has not even implanted into the uterus of His Virgin Mother. Even so, He is already, from the moment of conception, like all pre-born babies, fully Man.
Elizabeth is herself filled with the Spirit and speaks, greeting St Mary nearly in song, Blessed are you among women and blessed is the Fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?
It was a fearful secret St Mary had been carrying; not yet known to St Joseph, her bethroned, nor to any other, but only to herself. But she realizes from the look of astonishment on Elizabeth’s face that she, too, was in the know. God has let Elizabeth in on the great mystery of the ages: her kinswoman, St Mary, is the Theotokos, the Mother of God. For this, the unwed Virgin Mother is blessed. She has found favor with God.
Perhaps giving a furtive glance over at her husband, Zechariah, sitting silently in the corner - silent since he had doubted the words of Gabriel - her her next words seem aimed at him: And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. You can almost see Zechariah laughing silently in agreement. Yep, he hadn’t believed it. Yet here it is: his aged barren wife, pregnant, gospelling (not gossiping) with her unwed, teenage, pregnant Virgin cousin. A visit for the ages.
Zechariah and Elizabeth received St Mary, the first Christian woman, in genuine love and hospitality, contributing to her needs and she to theirs. For the Blessed Virgin, blessed among all women, the Bearer of God, spent the next three months doing housework and helping prepare the layette for St John. In her faithful humility, the Mother of our Lord did not consider herself above her vocation of wife and mother, cousin and friend. They rejoiced with her even as she herself rejoiced.
For the young St May herself melts into a song of praise that is reminiscent of Hannah’s hymn in 1 Samuel 2, portions of which you sang in the Introit this morning. My heart exults in the Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in Your salvation. Quite interesting to note: the Hebrew word of ‘salvation’ is yeshua. Jesus. When you read or hear the word ‘salvation’ in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and Canticles, you ought to hear Jesus. Such as the song of Moses: The Lord is my strength and my song and He has become my salvation; my yeshua, my Jesus. For He will save His people from their sins.
St Mary recognizes, in faith, this connection and fulfillment when she sings: My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. She calls her unborn Son, only days from conception by the Holy Spirit, her Savior. St Luke is the only evangelist to use this noun of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only one. He heard it from the Song of St Mary.
We call her song her Magnificat, from the first words of the song in Latin. In it she praises God for His kind regard of her, a lowly handmaiden and servant of the Lord. She praises His upside-down way of working where He fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich empty away, lifts up the lowly and tumbles the mighty from their thrones. Above all, she rejoices in how the fruit of her womb, the Child whose heart now beats beneath her own, is the very fulfillment of God’s great promise to Abraham about the Seed who would come to bring blessing to all. “In all of this,” Luther says, “we regard not her humility but God’s regard to be praised.”
For He stoops down, taking up flesh, receiving His humanity from His poor Virgin Mother, in order to raise the poor and lowly from the dust. In mercy the Mighty One stretches out His arm and in a strength made perfect in weakness, allows His hands to be pierced and bleed for you. But first He must grow His arms and feet and body.
This you confess when you, along with all the Church, when you sing St Mary’s Son in Vespers or Evening Prayer, or even this morning. You confess that you are poor and lowly, undeserving of the Lord’s loving kindness and mercy. That you are not a virgin, pure and chaste, but have given yourself over to the depravity of sin and are soiled with it in thought, word, and deed.
But in faith you believe that He who has done great things for Israel, has come forth as a Branch from Jesse’s stump, bearing righteous fruit. He judges you not by what you see, but by what He has done and by what you believe and hold fast. For He has marked you with His holy Name in your baptismal birth. He has toppled the mighty rulers of sin and death and the devil from the throne of your heart and has set Himself alone there. He fills you, hungry and thirsty for righteousness with the good things of His wholesome Word of forgiveness, with His Body and Blood.
He does not send you empty away, but makes you rich in the eternal riches of His heavenly kingdom, so that you might overflow in love and honor and hospitality and prayer. He has remembered His mercy and in remembering He saves you in love so that you may stay with Him forever and at the last return to your eternal home, together with God the Father in the fellowship + of the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory now and unto the ages. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Christmas hymns in July? No, it’s not the half-birthday of Jesus. Rather, with overflowing joy, the Church of God in Christ Jesus, today celebrates the Feast of the Visitation of our Lord.
St Luke’s Gospel, that ordered account of the life and ministry of our Lord according to the very eye-witness testimony of key disciples, records for us in the first chapter the visit of St Mary to her kinswoman, St Elizabeth. The joyful meeting of these two miraculously expectant mothers - St Elizabeth in her sixth month with the Baptizer, the Forerunner of the Messiah, St Mary herself newly with Child, only but a few days - this is not the visitation to which we refer and gives thanks this day. This is the first meeting of St John the Baptist and the Lord whom he was to serve.
St Mary, having just received the astounding good news from the Archangel Gabriel, sets out over hill and dale to the home of her cousin St Elizabeth. In a journey reminiscent of the Ark of the Covenant when it was returned to Jerusalem by King David from Obededom’s house after he had received back it from the Philistines, St Mary, bearing in her womb the embryonic presence of YHWH Sabaoth, bounds over the hills of Judea to bring blessing to the house of Zechariah the priest and his wife.
From within the house, Elizabeth hears the greeting of her kinswoman and yet another miracle happens: the child within her εσκιρτησεν, skips, for joy! The pre-born Forerunner faithfully acknowledges the presence of the Greater One, though He is only centimeters in size and possibly not has not even implanted into the uterus of His Virgin Mother. Even so, He is already, from the moment of conception, like all pre-born babies, fully Man.
Elizabeth is herself filled with the Spirit and speaks, greeting St Mary nearly in song, Blessed are you among women and blessed is the Fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?
It was a fearful secret St Mary had been carrying; not yet known to St Joseph, her bethroned, nor to any other, but only to herself. But she realizes from the look of astonishment on Elizabeth’s face that she, too, was in the know. God has let Elizabeth in on the great mystery of the ages: her kinswoman, St Mary, is the Theotokos, the Mother of God. For this, the unwed Virgin Mother is blessed. She has found favor with God.
Perhaps giving a furtive glance over at her husband, Zechariah, sitting silently in the corner - silent since he had doubted the words of Gabriel - her her next words seem aimed at him: And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. You can almost see Zechariah laughing silently in agreement. Yep, he hadn’t believed it. Yet here it is: his aged barren wife, pregnant, gospelling (not gossiping) with her unwed, teenage, pregnant Virgin cousin. A visit for the ages.
Zechariah and Elizabeth received St Mary, the first Christian woman, in genuine love and hospitality, contributing to her needs and she to theirs. For the Blessed Virgin, blessed among all women, the Bearer of God, spent the next three months doing housework and helping prepare the layette for St John. In her faithful humility, the Mother of our Lord did not consider herself above her vocation of wife and mother, cousin and friend. They rejoiced with her even as she herself rejoiced.
For the young St May herself melts into a song of praise that is reminiscent of Hannah’s hymn in 1 Samuel 2, portions of which you sang in the Introit this morning. My heart exults in the Lord, my horn is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in Your salvation. Quite interesting to note: the Hebrew word of ‘salvation’ is yeshua. Jesus. When you read or hear the word ‘salvation’ in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms and Canticles, you ought to hear Jesus. Such as the song of Moses: The Lord is my strength and my song and He has become my salvation; my yeshua, my Jesus. For He will save His people from their sins.
St Mary recognizes, in faith, this connection and fulfillment when she sings: My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. She calls her unborn Son, only days from conception by the Holy Spirit, her Savior. St Luke is the only evangelist to use this noun of the Lord Jesus Christ. Only one. He heard it from the Song of St Mary.
We call her song her Magnificat, from the first words of the song in Latin. In it she praises God for His kind regard of her, a lowly handmaiden and servant of the Lord. She praises His upside-down way of working where He fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich empty away, lifts up the lowly and tumbles the mighty from their thrones. Above all, she rejoices in how the fruit of her womb, the Child whose heart now beats beneath her own, is the very fulfillment of God’s great promise to Abraham about the Seed who would come to bring blessing to all. “In all of this,” Luther says, “we regard not her humility but God’s regard to be praised.”
For He stoops down, taking up flesh, receiving His humanity from His poor Virgin Mother, in order to raise the poor and lowly from the dust. In mercy the Mighty One stretches out His arm and in a strength made perfect in weakness, allows His hands to be pierced and bleed for you. But first He must grow His arms and feet and body.
This you confess when you, along with all the Church, when you sing St Mary’s Son in Vespers or Evening Prayer, or even this morning. You confess that you are poor and lowly, undeserving of the Lord’s loving kindness and mercy. That you are not a virgin, pure and chaste, but have given yourself over to the depravity of sin and are soiled with it in thought, word, and deed.
But in faith you believe that He who has done great things for Israel, has come forth as a Branch from Jesse’s stump, bearing righteous fruit. He judges you not by what you see, but by what He has done and by what you believe and hold fast. For He has marked you with His holy Name in your baptismal birth. He has toppled the mighty rulers of sin and death and the devil from the throne of your heart and has set Himself alone there. He fills you, hungry and thirsty for righteousness with the good things of His wholesome Word of forgiveness, with His Body and Blood.
He does not send you empty away, but makes you rich in the eternal riches of His heavenly kingdom, so that you might overflow in love and honor and hospitality and prayer. He has remembered His mercy and in remembering He saves you in love so that you may stay with Him forever and at the last return to your eternal home, together with God the Father in the fellowship + of the Holy Spirit, to whom be glory now and unto the ages. Amen.
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