By The Rev. Deacon Virginia Jenkins-Whatley
In the name of the Father,Son and Holy Spirit
A Visitation” (Sermon on Luke 1:39-45)
Our gospel today tells the story of the meeting of
the two moms –the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was the older woman; Mary, the younger.
Elizabeth was in her sixth month; Mary’s pregnancy
had just started. And we’ll get to why neither one
should have been pregnant in a moment. But it was
at this time that Mary goes to visit her older relative
Elizabeth, traveling from her home in Nazareth.
“The Visitation” is the term that is commonly used
when referring to this meeting of these two most
uncommon mothers, Mary and Elizabeth. There is
even a day in the church year set aside for
observing the Visitation. This year it was listed in
the Lectionary on May 31.
But the key to this story is that it is not just a
meeting of the two moms. It is also the first
meeting of the two baby boys they are carrying
inside of them. In particular, it is the baby boy that
Mary is carrying that will make this–both for the
people involved in this story and for us as well–that
will make this “A Blessed Visitation.”
Now there is a back story to each of these
pregnancies. Elizabeth was an older woman, well
beyond her childbearing years. And what’s more,
she had never been able to have children. This was
a great disappointment to Elizabeth and her
husband Zechariah. Zechariah was a priest who
served in the temple in Jerusalem. One day he was
there, in the Holy Place, ministering at the altar of
incense, when all of a sudden an angel appeared. It
was the angel Gabriel, who told Zechariah that he
and his wife Elizabeth were finally going to be able
to have a child. It will be a boy, and they are to
name him John. And the angel said that God would
have a special calling on John’s life: that John would
be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s
womb; that he would be a great prophet like Elijah;
and that John would go before the Lord to prepare
his way. This sounds like Gabriel is saying John will
be the last great prophet immediately before the
coming of the Messiah–which indeed he was. So
after hearing this news, Zechariah goes home,
Elizabeth becomes pregnant, and she is six months
along with baby John when Mary comes for a visit.
The angel Gabriel made another surprise
announcement, this time telling Mary that she also
would be expecting a child she didn’t expect. What
made this pregnancy unusual was that Mary was
not married. Yes, there was a time when that sort of
thing was considered unusual. But what takes it
from the unusual to the unique was that Mary
became pregnant while remaining a virgin. That just
does not happen. And this is the only time it ever
would happen. But it was fitting that it should
happen in this way, for the child Mary would bear
would be totally unique.
The angel Gabriel said many wonderful things about
this boy to be born. He told Mary: “And behold, you
will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you
shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be
called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God
will give to him the throne of his father David, and
he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of
his kingdom there will be no end.” And then Gabriel
added: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called
holy–the Son of God.” Conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary. True God and true man, in
the one person of Christ. This baby Jesus will be the
Son of God come in the flesh. He will be the great
Messiah prophesied so long ago.
Gabriel also told Mary: “And behold, your relative
Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son,
and this is the sixth month with her who was called
barren.” And that is how Mary comes to visit
Elizabeth. They’ve both got these miracle
pregnancies in common.
And so this is where we pick up the story today.
Mary goes to the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth,
she enters the house, and she greets Elizabeth. And
when she does, the sound of her greeting is picked
up by baby John, in the womb, and he does a joyful
little leap! Remember, the angel had said that John
would be filled with the Spirit even in his mother’s
womb. And so when Mary greets Elizabeth, the
Spirit causes John to recognize that Jesus was there,
too.
So John leaps, and Elizabeth too is filled with the
Holy Spirit and starts to get excited. She tells Mary:
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the
fruit of your womb!” Mary, you have been given a
great honor, to bear the Savior of the world. I mean,
I am honored to bear the forerunner of the Lord,
but you get to give birth to the Lord himself! What a
wonderful blessing!
Elizabeth continues: “And why is this granted to me
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
She realizes that she is not worthy of such a
visitation. And at the same time, she realizes that
her Lord is coming to her, bringing great blessing.
Such humble faith is truly the work of the Holy
Spirit.
Do we have the humility and the faith of an
Elizabeth? Yes, I believe we do. We recognize that
we are not worthy to have God grace us with his
presence. We know we are sinners–we confessed
that earlier in the service. We don’t deserve to have
our Lord come to us with his blessing. It is purely by
his grace and his mercy that he does.
As with Elizabeth, the Holy Spirit has worked in our
hearts, through the gospel, so that we trust in Jesus
as our Lord and Savior. We know that the little child
came as our brother, in the flesh, so that he could
do the only job that would save us. He came to do
the Father’s will, to keep God’s law perfectly on our
behalf. Christ came to offer the one perfect sacrifice
that atones for all our sins, to suffer and die a
sinner’s death on the cross, taking the punishment
that the law requires and that we deserve. He came
to be our peace and our life, shown when he rose
victorious over sin and death, granting us blessing
and joy in their place.
Yes, when Jesus enters the house, we get all of
these blessings with him. This is enough to make
someone leap for joy, as Elizabeth tells Mary: “For
behold, when the sound of your greeting came to
my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”
Then Elizabeth has one more word for Mary: “And
blessed is she who believed that there would be a
fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the
Lord.” Faith–that is what we’re seeing here. The
faith that Elizabeth had to know was that this was
no ordinary child Mary was bringing into the world –
-it was the Lord himself. And the faith of Mary in
which she believed the great things the angel had
told her about the son she would bear.
Dear friends, the meeting of the moms is a meeting
of two great women of faith. Both Mary and
Elizabeth stand out as wonderful examples for us.
They believe the Lord’s words, and they receive his
gifts. The Holy Spirit will work such a Mary-and-
Elizabeth faith in us, too.
You see, there’s a whole bunch of miracles that we
see in our text today. The miraculous pregnancies of
both Elizabeth and Mary . The way that they both
believed and rejoiced in the good news of their Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ–that too is a miracle. Any
time anyone is given the gift of faith and joy in the
Lord–that is a miracle of God. It is the work of the
Holy Spirit, working through the Word, working in
our hearts, creating a saving faith and a blessed joy.
And the great thing is, you and I have the same
good news and the same Holy Spirit at work in our
hearts today.
Today we have heard the story of the visitation of
Mary to Elizabeth. It was a meeting of the moms,
yes. But don’t forget those boys! They meet, too,
Jesus and John do. And wherever Mary’s baby boy
goes, he brings blessing with him. Even in the
womb, he brought blessing and joy to the home of
Elizabeth and Zechariah. And Jesus brings blessing
and joy into our homes, too. When we gather with
our family for Christmas–when the Christ of
Christmas is the reason for our merriment–Jesus
brings the joy with him. When we gather here with
our church family, here in God’s house, Christ is
surely present to bless us with his gifts. Christ is
here, visiting us with his grace and favor. And that
makes this a most blessed visitation.
Wishing you all many blessings this Christmas
..AMEN