Jesu Juva
St. Luke 1:39-45
December 19, 2021
Advent 4CDear saints of our Savior~
Things are different this Sunday. On this final Sunday of Advent, we shift away from the sound and fury of John the Baptizer to a softer and gentler scene. Today we have the amazing meeting of two women in a little town in the Judean countryside. Both women are expectant mothers. But consider this: one of the
The Angel Gabriel had told Mary the news about her elderly relative, Elizabeth—after informing Mary that she herself would conceive the Son of God by the Holy Spirit. Mary’s head must have been spinning. Joseph was likely scratching his head at the news. And, you can be sure, the local gossip mill was grinding away. Sometimes it’s just best to get out of town for a while and take up with relatives who will understand. And if anyone would understand, it was Elizabeth—about to deliver her son John. They form quite an amazing picture, these two women—a pregnant virgin and an expectant mother old enough to be a great-grandmother.
Nothing is impossible with God. God doesn’t take the easy way or the expected way. His ways are definitely not our ways. And sometimes God’s way is simply bizarre. We need to remember that when things take an unpredictable turn in our own lives. What may seem random and bizarre to us is simply God’s gracious plan—a plan devised in love for us.
Things get even more amazing between these two women as soon as Mary walks in the door. At the sound of Mary’s voice, John leaps for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. Not just the usual kick but a leap of prophetic joy. John was already preaching in utero! This demolishes the fiction that you aren’t fully human until you’re born, as though human life in the womb is something less than human. John is leaping with joy at the sound of the voice of His Lord’s mother. Don’t be sucked in by the rhetoric of those who would deny full humanity to the unborn. John will kick and leap in protest against that.
And let’s be done finally with the notion that unborn children have no relationship with the Word, or that newborns and infants have no relationship with God. John kicks against all who would deny faith to infants or deny them baptism into the death of Jesus, their Savior.
John is preaching, prophesying, pointing to Jesus already even before he’s born. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is barely conceived, and yet John rejoices over Him. Mary is barely “showing” at this point, and yet the holy child she carries is fully Lord and Savior even now. These two mamas and their two babies tell us everything we need to know about the sanctity of life in the womb. Let there be no doubt that life—real life—begins at conception. Those whose business it is to end such life will be answerable to God.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth blesses Mary: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! Those of you who are familiar with Roman Catholic piety will immediately recognize those words as part of the “Hail Mary.” But even Lutherans can gladly confess this part of the “Hail Mary,” for Mary is surely blessed. Mary herself sings, “From this day all generations will call me blessed.” It’s the second part of the “Hail Mary” that we can’t agree with, namely, the “pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death” part. At the hour of your death, the one you want praying for you and interceding for you is Jesus—not His mother, no matter how honored and how blessed she might be.
Notice that Elizabeth doesn’t worship Mary or ask Mary for a blessing. No, Elizabeth blesses Mary. Why should Elizabeth bless Mary? Because Mary succeeded where our first mother, Eve, failed. Back in the beginning, Eve heard the devil’s temptations and she was deceived. But Mary heard the Word of God from the angel, and she believed, and she conceived. Mary’s Child would crush the head of Satan. Her child would take away the curse of sin by becoming a curse for us. Her child would destroy death by dying and rising.
Things get even more amazing when Elizabeth calls Mary “the mother of my Lord.” Why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? That sentence alone ought to cause your heart to skip a beat and the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up. It took Christianity nearly four centuries to carefully sort out what Elizabeth simply blurts out here with Spirit-filled joy. This cousin of hers—a young woman, probably a teenager—she is the mother of the Lord.
This takes us right to the heart of the mystery of Christmas—a great and mighty wonder! The Lord of the universe . . . has a mommy! The Word became flesh and dwelt among us—in diapers. The infinite Son of God takes up residence in the finite flesh of a virgin’s womb. The fullness of the deity dwells among us bodily. When speaking of Jesus, God is man and man is God. And Mary is rightly called the Mother of God—the one who bore God in her womb.
Hypothetically speaking, Jesus could have appeared suddenly out of nowhere, as a fully grown man. God can dwell among us in any way He chooses. But if God had done it that way, then people might wonder: Is He truly, fully, human, or does He just appear to be that way? And if you start to question His humanity, then that leads you to question whether He’s truly your substitute—your stand-in—the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes your place. If Jesus hadn’t had a human mother—if the incarnation hadn’t started out as an embryo in a mother’s womb, we would always be left to wonder. If he had just plopped into the world as a thirty-year-old man He would have side-stepped many of the difficult and painful parts of being human—the trauma of childbirth, the helplessness of infancy, the bumps and bruises of toddlerhood, the awkwardness of adolescence. He wouldn’t have known what it’s like to wear diapers, and to submit obediently to a mother and father.
It had to be this way—God’s way—so that Jesus could literally be the Savior of all humanity. We don’t have a Savior who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted just like us—yet without sin. His humanity runs the gamut from a cluster of cells in a mother’s womb to the dying breath of a man on a cross. Literally, from the womb to the tomb, Jesus became fully human. God is man and man is God—in Jesus.
But the most amazing thing of all in today’s Gospel is the reason why Mary is so blessed. Elizabeth blessed Mary. Why? Because of her faith. Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Mary believed the Word of God spoken to her by the angel Gabriel. She believed that God would do what He promised no matter how unlikely or how unreasonable or how improbable or unprecedented it seemed. A virgin giving birth? God becoming man? Mary likely didn’t understand it all. She likely had a few concerns. But Mary is blessed because Mary believed. Mary is blessed because of her faith.
And in the same way, you are blessed—because you believe. You believe the Words and promises of God. God has plans and promises for your life too. And you are blessed for believing and trusting that God will brings those plans and promises to fulfillment in you. Oh sure, you’ve got your moments. You have doubts and questions and sins that so easily and so often entangle you and trip you up. Luther was fond of saying that where the Gospel is, there, also, is the cross. There is great and profound truth in that—something that we may not want to hear in this joyful season. Where Christ is, there will always be the cross. Blessing and suffering go together. Mary is blessed, yet she must bear the cross of being a virgin mother with all the scandal and doubt that this entails. You too are blessed—a baptized child of God; yet you bear the cross of living in the light of Christ in a world that prefers darkness and death. Blessing and suffering are always joined together as one for those with faith in Jesus.
But at the end of the day, you together with Mary, can only say “Amen.” “Let it be to me according to you word.” God tells you that in this Son, Jesus Christ, you have life. You have forgiveness. You have peace. You have a place of honor in the eternal kingdom of God; and you can’t help yourself but say together with Mary, “Yes. Amen. I believe it.”
Mary is not our mother, as some say. Mary is our sister—an honored and unique sister who was mother to the Son of God. For that we bless her on this Fourth Sunday in Advent. She is a wonderful reminder that with God nothing is impossible. An elderly couple becomes first-time parents. A young woman conceives in her virginity. Sinners are justified. Heaven is opened. With God nothing is impossible.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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