Two Improbable Pregnancies

 

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 1:39-45                                                         

December 19, 2021

Advent 4C                                                   

Dear 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

women is in the third trimester of her pregnancy even though she’s in her golden years.  And the other woman has just recently begun her pregnancy . . . as a virgin.  Nothing is impossible with God.

          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.

Joy in Sorrow

 

Jesu Juva

Zephaniah 3:14-20                                                        

December 12, 2021

Advent 3C                                                    

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been feeling much Christmas cheer this year.  Our tree and lights have been up for a while now.  I’ve been listening to my Christmas playlist.  I went for a run through the first snowfall of the season on Wednesday morning last week.  I’ve even done a fair share of Christmas shopping already.  But “bah humbug” is what I’m feeling. And I think I’ve figured out why. 

          It seems I’m suffering from Weltschmerz.  It’s a German word.  And those Germans have a precise word for nearly everything, including my malady:  Weltschmerz.  It literally means “world pain,” or “world weariness.”  Weltschmerz is the pessimism which results from comparing the actual state of the world with an ideal state.  When you compare the way things are with the way things should be in a more perfect world, well, you’re often left feeling a little glum.  And that glumness is what the Germans call Weltschmerz.

          I suspect a lot of people deal with this around Christmas.  For each of us there is a real Christmas, which includes a lot of struggles and sorrows.  And then there’s the ideal Christmas, filled with joy and peace and goodwill toward men.  We want the joy without the sorrow.  As if joy was the absence of sorrow.  We sometimes think we can’t celebrate Christmas until we get rid of all the sorrow in our lives—to make room for the joy.  But this isn’t how God would have us prepare for Christmas—getting rid of the sorrow in our lives so that we might have Christmas joy.  So during Advent, on this Sunday especially, God invites us into the Scriptures, to teach us a thing or two about joy. 

          The pink candle on the Advent wreath reminds us that this Third Sunday in Advent is a Sunday of joy.  In the Collect of the Day we pray that Jesus would “lighten the darkness of our hearts.”  Each of today’s readings illustrates joy in a different way.  Consider St. Paul who writes to the Philippians and tells them, Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!  Wonderful encouragement!  Perfect message for your Christmas cards!  That’s how Advent and Christmas should be—joyful! 

          But don’t dare forget the context of those words. Paul writes these words from prison.  Prison, for most people, would not be a place to be talking about joy.  If joy were the absence of sorrow, then there would be no joy in a letter from prison.  But even though Paul’s hands are chained, his heart is free in Christ.  Paul knows that joy isn’t the absence of sorrow.  Joy is found in the presence of the Lord—the Lord who is near us—the Lord who is with us, even in the midst of our sorrow.

          Or consider John the Baptizer, also suffering in prison, awaiting his execution.  He sends his disciples to Jesus with a question:  Are you the one?   But Jesus sends those same disciples right back to John with a song of joy on their lips from the prophet Isaiah: The blind see.  The lame walk. The dead are raised.  And good news is being preached.  If joy were the absence of sorrow, this would be a cruel joke.  While John is on death row, Jesus sends a message of joy!?  But Jesus is teaching us that joy is not the absence of sorrow.

          The same thing is happens in our Old Testament reading from Zephaniah.  Rejoice and exult with all your heart!  There doesn’t seem to be much sorrow in these words.  It seems to be all joy and praise and sunshine.  But these verses are only the concluding verses of Zephaniah’s prophecy.  The preceding portions of Zephaniah sound nothing like this text.  Devastating divine destruction, judgment, and overwhelming horror are the themes of Zephaniah’s prophecy.  Taken as a whole, Zephaniah (like all the rest of Scripture) is a strange mixture of sorrow together with joy.  But the joy is always found in the presence of the Lord who comes to us in the midst of our sorrow.

          Joy . . . together with . . . sorrow.  For the Christian, they actually go hand in hand.  Together, joy and sorrow tell the story of our salvation:   Christmas and crucifixion, sin and grace, death and resurrection, judgment and deliverance, joy and sorrow.

          The beating heart of all our joy is Jesus—Jesus, who bears the Father’s wrath for us—Jesus, who becomes the sacrifice that takes away our sin—Jesus, the presence of God (God with us) in the midst of our sorrow. Jesus’ suffering and death is the key to understanding how joy and suffering can be joined together.  The Son of God in joyful sorrow offers His life for you.  The Father, in sorrowful joy, receives you in grace because of His dying Son.  And when that Son rises from the dead and ascends into heaven and sits at the Father’s right hand, He still bears in His glorified body those wounds from His crucifixion.  And one day we will be privileged to see those wounds.  By those wounds we sinners are healed.  And in those wounds are mingled together terrible sorrow and great joy.

          This Jesus—wounded yet risen, crucified yet alive forevermore—this Jesus comes here to be with you.  The Lord is at hand.  Jesus comes to bring you joy—joy in the midst of sorrow and suffering.  This is what Zephaniah sings about in today’s reading—the presence of God together with His people in the midst of their suffering.  Zephaniah proclaims: The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with singing.

          As Christmas approaches and we prepare to sing “Joy to the world,” it’s important to understand the joy about which we sing.  This joy isn’t happiness, for happiness is just an emotion.  Happiness depends on the circumstances.  Nor is this joy always found in smiling faces.  This joy comes from Jesus—and this joy is always found together with sorrow.  We need to understand that—for ourselves and for those around us whose sorrow is great. 

          In my years as a pastor I’ve learned how difficult it can be for people with great sorrow to come to church.  I can think of parents who have lost a child—husbands and wives who have lost their spouse—good and faithful Christians—who found it difficult to come to church in sorrow.  They feel like they don’t fit in with their sorrow.  They feel like church is place for joy and praise and smiles and happy people; and they just don’t fit in.  We need to be careful as a congregation that we don’t celebrate joy as the absence of sorrow.  We do need to proclaim and show the joy of Jesus—Jesus who comes to us in our sorrow, who comforts us and brings us joy—joy together with sorrow.

          It’s for people like that—for people like us—that Jesus comes among us today.  Every time we gather here, there are joys we celebrate:  the birth of a child, a recovery from illness, a wedding anniversary or a birthday.  And, always, there are sorrows we mourn:  a death, a diagnosis, a loss of employment.  We bring all these joys and sorrows before God in prayer.  But in His Word, God brings us His Son.  In bread and wine, God brings us Jesus Christ.  And Jesus rejoices over you with gladness, and quiets you with His love.  This is the joy of Jesus.  And the joy that He brings—like the wounds He still bears—is a joy that will last forever. 

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

Advent Every Sunday

 

Jesu Juva

Zechariah 9:9                                                                

November 28, 2021

Advent 1C                                  

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          Happy New Year!  Today marks the beginning of a new church year, and a new season in the church year.  We call it “Advent.”  And just let me level with you up front, I love Advent.  It’s my favorite season of the church year.  In fact, I wish it could be Advent every Sunday.  But my attraction to Advent isn’t for any of the obvious reasons.  It’s not because of the beautiful sights, sounds, and smells of Advent.

          If you’re an Advent aficionado like me it means that you’re definitely out-of-sync with the world around us.  Advent may be the first season of the church year; but it’s also the lost season of the church year.  There are no “Advent sales” going on at Bayshore today.  No Advent cards are being mailed out.  No Advent parades or parties that I’m aware of.  In our feel-good consumer culture of instant gratification, we trim the tree and hang the stockings with care before the last bite of Thanksgiving turkey is swallowed.  We’ve decked the halls and roasted our chestnuts and sung “Joy to the World”—and it’s not even December yet!

          Nothing against Christmas, but I say, “Let it be Advent every Sunday,” (or at least for four Sundays).  You see, the word “Advent” means “coming.”  It has to do with the coming of the Christ.  And whenever Christ comes, great things happen.  When Christ comes, lepers are cleansed and the blind are made to see.  Sins are forgiven and the dead are raised to life.

          Advent means “coming.”  And the traditional Gospel reading for this Sunday tells of our Lord’s “coming” into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  The Introit, the Gradual, the hymns of this day all reflect that Palm Sunday theme—the palm branches, the hosannas, the donkey.  “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” the people shouted.  And if that “coming” of Jesus into Jerusalem hadn’t taken place—if Jesus hadn’t come to Jerusalem to be crucified—well, then our Christmases would be no more meaningful than our Columbus Days and our Presidents’ Days.  If that coming of our Lord into His holy city hadn’t taken place, then there would be no Good Friday, no Easter, no reason for us to be here celebrating on this Lord’s Day.

          Advent is all about the coming of the Christ.  He first came into our world as the virgin’s Son—the babe of Bethlehem.  He came into Jerusalem to suffer and die as your substitute under God’s righteous wrath against sin.  And Jesus will come again to judge both the living and the dead.  But as God inspired the prophet Zechariah to preach about the coming of the Christ, He inspired the prophet not to speak in the past tense—nor to speak in the future tense—but the Lord inspired the prophet to speak in the present tense:  Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation.

          The Holy Spirit it seems is a real stickler for verb tenses.  Your king is coming.  That means that the Christ who came at Bethlehem also comes today (present tense) in bread and wine.  It means that the Christ who will come again to judge the living and the dead also comes today (present tense) in water and the Word.  That’s what Advent is all about—the “coming” of Christ to forgive sinners like us.  He breaks into our “present,” to forgive our past, to give us hope and a future.  And so I say, let it be Advent every Sunday.

          Martin Luther was at his best when he preached about the coming Christ.  “[Christ] comes,” wrote Luther.  “He comes.  Without a doubt you do not come to Him and catch Him.  He is too high and far from you.  You will not reach Him by your might . . . and work.  You cannot brag as though you had brought Him to yourself through your service and worthiness.  No, dear man, here lay aside all service and worthiness.  For in your possession is nothing that deserves His coming, but only unworthiness.  What is His is pure grace and mercy” (Luther’s Family Devotions, p.1).

          Luther makes it clear that our text this morning is all Gospel.  Your king is coming to you—not because of who you are or what you’ve done, but despite who you are and what you’ve done.  Or think of it this way:  Our text says, “Your king is coming to you.”  In the United States we might say, “Behold, your president is coming to you.”  But, I ask you, when was the last time your president (any president) came to you?  When was he most recently on your doorstep?  When was the last time Governor Evers came to your house, or when did your congressman last stop by for coffee?

          That just doesn’t happen.  The way it works in this world is that you and I have to go to those who hold the power.  We go to them; they rarely come to us.  We have to ask them, plead with them, write them letters and e-mails.  We have to persuade them to give us what we need.  But not so with your King, Jesus the Christ.  Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation.  Your King comes to you this hour in this place to share with you His power over sin—to bless you with faith and forgiveness and life that lasts forever.  Your King comes to give you what you can’t get from anyone else.

          But all too often we miss it.  All too often we walk into this place acting not as though our King were coming to save us, but as if He were light years away.  By nature we don’t see our need to be here on the Lord’s Day.  By nature we don’t see the depth of our depravity and sin, and our great need for what Jesus gives to us in His Word and sacrament.  If we don’t believe that Christ is coming to meet us here in the Divine Service, then all of this becomes unimportant and unnecessary—no more important than anything else that takes up space on our crowded calendars. But you know better.  You know that your King is coming to you!

          This is why we need Advent.  It’s why we need Advent every Sunday!  Advent has to do with the coming of Jesus.  Whenever the words of Jesus are preached and proclaimed—there is Jesus among His people.  Wherever the body and blood of Jesus are distributed to repentant sinners—there is Jesus giving you the forgiveness He won on the cross.  And whenever the water of holy Baptism is applied, there Jesus comes to cleanse another soul from sin, claiming another child for the Father’s family.

          We’ve got Advent for three more Sundays, it’s true.  But we’ve also got Advent every Sunday because our King is coming every Sunday with the gifts He won for you at the cross:  the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

          Let Christmas come.  (It always does.)  Let Christmas come with all its trees and tinsel and toys.  Let Christmas come with all the good cheer the world can muster.  But don’t forget that the One who first came at Christmas, He comes to you every Sunday in the Divine Service.  It’s no accident that in our Communion liturgy we sing, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.”  We’re singing about Jesus there.  Our liturgy teaches us to get it right (in the present tense).  Our liturgy leads us to see that Advent isn’t just for the next four weeks, but every Sunday.  For every Sunday your King comes to you, bringing you His righteousness and salvation.  Happy Advent! 

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