Text: Luke 1:39-45
Date: Advent IV + 12/20/09
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI
Who was or were the first to worship the Christ Child? Not the wise men of the Epiphany which could have been as much as months or even years since His birth. Not even the angels or the shepherds of Christmas Eve, nor even Mary or Joseph. It was Mary’s relative Elizabeth when the Incarnate Word had barely, newly come on the scene, becoming incarnate in the womb of His mother Mary. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed in the fruit of your womb.” “And blessed is she who believed that there will be fulfillment for the things spoken to her by the Lord.” That’s liturgical, worship language, that is, the language of praise at the awareness of the real presence of God working and speaking right in front of your eyes. (I mean without that spiritual awareness the liturgy in itself is no worship). It is the language of praise blessing God who has blessed Mary and, thereby, the whole world in sending His only Son; sent not as a mighty warrior or heavenly apparition, but as a human being, the offspring of the woman—Eve and Sarah and Hannah and Ruth and Mary, mother, fair maiden, full of grace, according to “the things spoken by the Lord.”
And let’s say it clearly, boldly and straight out: This text not only supports but mandates the acknowledgment and concern for the sanctity of human life from conception onward as it repeatedly refers to the persons of John (only six months in Elizabeth’s womb) and Jesus (only the smallest human fetus in Mary’s womb), before their birth as “brephos” in Greek or “babies.” They even interact, John’s leaping, literally jumping around happily at the voice of Mary’s greeting. There is no science or medical investigation or manipulation of terminology or language that can change the fact that what is human is human from beginning to end, not from some imagined time of so-called “viability” at the beginning or acceptable “quality of life” near the end. Among other things in our day Christmas stands as an annual call to our nation and others to repent of the murderous practice of legal abortion on demand.
Now, this text summons us to “orthodoxy,” that is, the right worship of the God of all grace and blessing. That right worship is never engaged in from the point of view of paying off God or thinking of obligating Him to do anything for us. It is not the result of our searching for Him or impressing Him with our piety. Right worship begins with God coming to us out of His pure favor, love, mercy and grace. And He comes to us not in the threatening power of His righteous wrath, but in the winsomeness of love. He comes in a way and a form that we can understand, that we can see and hear, touch and taste, hold and believe.
That’s what this Sunday in Advent emphasizes—that the “coming” we will celebrate at Christmas is just that, God coming to us in the surprising, impossible way of a virgin conception and birth. It begins with God. It always begins with God. Not with you! It can’t begin with you! For who and what are you? A sinner from birth, separated from God, or to use the Bible’s terms, spiritually blind, dead and an enemy of God. In ourselves we have no desire or impulse for God but rather that we might hide from Him in the bushes, like Adam and Eve in the beginning. So it must be God’s move first if there is to be any move at all.
So He promised the fearful couple in the Garden of Eden that He would send a Savior; so He came to Abram, of all people, and started the Gospel line of His promise; so He renewed His promise through Isaac and Jacob and Ruth and King David all the way down to King David’s little town of Bethlehem, to his descendants, Mary and Joseph. Mary was obedient and full of faith. Elizabeth too rejoiced in great, joyful faith.
In Mary’s visit to Elizabeth St. Luke means to say something about the presence of God in our world and our lives and about the Church as the place of His presence. He does that, first, by calling our attention to the fact that the Blessed Virgin’s little journey was into the same “hill country” the ark of the covenant traveled under King David hundreds of years before. The point is, as the ark of the covenant was the portable vessel housing the presence of the true God, now Mary is that vessel for Jesus, from the very, very beginning and instant of His conception, the Son of God incarnate.
Ever since then Mary has been an example of faith and a symbol of the Church. It is why we sing her famous, inspired Magnificat as a personal and churchly confession: our souls magnify the Lord, and our spirits rejoice in God our Savior. Like Mary the Church bears in her baptismal womb the second birth of eternal life through water and the spirit of all who are brought there in repentance and faith. Like Mary the Church rejoices over the physical presence of the Savior in His very body and blood given to us Christian to eat and drink sacramentally. Like Mary the Church ponders the mystery of the incarnation and the Gospel of Christ’s birth, life, death and resurrection and believes even in the face of everything that would speak against it.
It is difficult, even wrong to hear and preach only on the story of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth and then to ignore her response, the great canticle, the Magnificat. It is like making preparations for a journey and then staying home, leaving the car in the garage. It is like hearing the Gospel promises of God but not letting that mighty Word have its effect by producing repentance, faith, worship and praise in our souls.
So now we end where we began, with the question whether we will truly worship God this day or through the Christmas celebration or remain only unresponsive bumps on the old Yule log. Let our prayer be that written by Martin Luther in his great Christmas hymn:
Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child,
Make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled,
Within my heart, that it may be
A quiet chamber kept for Thee.
For only then can follow the joyous response:
My heart for very joy doth leap,
My lips no more can silence keep;
I, too, must sing with joyful tongue
That sweetest ancient cradle-song:
Glory to God in highest heaven,
Who unto us His Son hath given!
While angels sing with pious mirth
A glad new year to all the earth.