“The Word of God Comes to John; the Word of God Comes to You” Mount Olive Lutheran Church Season of Advent Sermon December 22, 2024 – Luke 1:39–56

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday December 22nd 2024: Season of Advent / Luke 1:39–56 “The Word of God Comes to John; the Word of God Comes to You” 

In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “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? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

And Mary said,

         “My soul magnifies the Lord,

         and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

         for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant.

                 For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

         for He who is mighty has done great things for me,

                 and holy is His name.

         And His mercy is for those who fear Him

                 from generation to generation.

         He has shown strength with His arm;

                 He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;

         He has brought down the mighty from their thrones

                 and exalted those of humble estate;

         He has filled the hungry with good things,

                 and the rich He has sent away empty.

         He has helped His servant Israel,

                 in remembrance of His mercy,

         as He spoke to our fathers,

                 to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

         And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends two weeks ago we heard how “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the Word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness,”[1] and last week we heard how the Word of God came to this same John the Baptiser while John was locked up in his prison cell, when Jesus sent these words of encouragement back with John’s disciples, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by Me,”[2] today we have another example of the Word of God coming to this John but this doesn’t happen behind bars while his head faces the chopping block and it doesn’t come as John squares off with a brood of vipers on the banks of the River Jordan, no today it comes to him while he is in his mother Elizabeth’s womb, before he has even been given the name John.

In our Gospel we hear how Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “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? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.” Dear ones remember what Saint Paul teaches, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”[3] Did the infant John, this dear little baby in his mother’s womb, leap for joy without faith in the one who came to him? No, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” And so when the Virgin Mary came to her Cousin Elizabeth’s home the Word of God made flesh yet in the Virgin’s womb came to John there and what can we take from this?

Clever scientist have discovered that babies in their mothers’ wombs can in fact hear sounds from the outside world, years ago it was a fad for a while to play the music of the composer Mozart for such babies in the hopes that some of Mozart’s genius would rub off on their little brains during their formation in the womb. So for the modern sciences this part of the account might be the easiest part to believe, if joy and faith where the kind of things you could measure and catalogue scientifically. The fact that Elizabeth, who was barren, in her old age no less, was pregnant with John at all and worse that Mary a virgin was pregnant are beyond the faculties of the unenlightened mind to understand. These two women should not have been pregnant at all as far as the World is concerned and yet here we are the fruit of their fateful meeting and faithfulness, which we remember this day.

For many of you the Word of God would have come to you while you were still in your mother’s womb, when she read aloud the Scriptures in her devotions, as she sung to you, “hymns and spiritual songs,”[4] as she gathered together with her fellow Christians in church to hear God’s Word read and preached to her, as she partook in Holy Communion, as the liturgy and the music of the church wrapped around her and you, even as you were yet tucked away in her womb, your beating heart tied with a tether to hers.

With John the baptiser Saint Luke in his Gospel provides us with an example of a life of faith established in the womb: even before John breathed his first breath the fruits of faith were at work in him. Let this be an encouragement to families, to mothers and fathers, Saint James teaches, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you,”[5] while in pregnancy, and in infancy when they are still not able to speak, as little toddles and as young children they are still listening and hearing and growing in what they hear. The Word of God comes to the baby and the child just as much as the Word of God comes to you. This is as true today as it was then.   

As the Psalmist addresses the Lord God and writes in Psalm 139: 

        I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

        Wonderful are Your works;

               my soul knows it very well.

        My frame was not hidden from You,

        when I was being made in secret,

               intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

        Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

        in Your book were written, every one of them,

               the days that were formed for me,

               when as yet there was none of them.”[6]

And when the Psalmist writes “when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth,” this is a nod to the Book of Genesis where Moses records how “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”[7] In the Wisdom of Solomon from the Book of Ecclesiastes we hear another one of these little nods when Solomon writes, “the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”[8] Every Child from the moment of conception belongs to God, He is the one who makes each and every one of us, who makes promises to us in His Holy Word, and as Saint Peter teaches, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance,”[9] which is that all would turn to Him and away from Sin and the World and the Devil; that each child would have life and not death and opportunity to be born and grown in the One true faith, which is the Christian faith.

John’s father Zechariah filled with the Holy Spirit prophesied of his son on the day of his birth singing, “you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God.”[10] And it is in the tender mercy of our God that He sent forth Jesus conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, the one Mary sang of when she said, “He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.” The Word of God had done these things, for Elizabeth and Mary the Word of God would do these things, the Word of God will continue to do these things even in our lifetime until He comes to us again in His Second Advent on The Last Day.

Until That Day do not discount the Word of God when He comes to you. Your Lord Jesus may appear lowly and humble as He comes in stern words of warning and tender words of comfort, as He comes with the bread and wine of Holy Communion — when you’ve been prepared to receive it. The Word of God comes to the young and to the old and to everyone in between and so we are called to protect the lives of all people from conception to life’s last breath, not snuffing out life but cherishing it. Just think we speak the Word of God to the dying, words of comfort right through to the end of this life and they say hearing is the very last thing to go before death. Dear ones Jesus came to save, John came to prepare His way, let us do the same in every way we can. And for every time you’ve devalued life, or discounted the Word of God, remember there is forgiveness in Christ Jesus; He comes to you today with His forgiveness.

Later when Jesus was a grown man He said “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick [do have need]. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”[11] Hear the Word of God, turn from your sin to Him and be made well in your soul. As Saint Peter teaches, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”[12] Old Zechariah and Elizabeth, and their baby John in Elizabeth’s womb all knew this, the Virgin Mary likewise knew this and why? Because, it was revealed to them by the Word of God spoken by Angels, inspired by the Holy Spirit: You have it now in the pages of the Bible and read to you this day, do you hear it? Hold fast to this Word of God and don’t let anyone snatch it from your hands with clever arguments designed to explain away what has been handed down to you. For those who are wandering in the wilderness of doubt or confusion regarding the truth of the Word of God be diligent and continue to speak God’s Word to them, and “in your hearts honor [and magnify] Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”[13] and as you do this the Word of God will come to them as the Word of God comes to you, as the Word of God us all: In Jesus’ name, Amen.     

Let us pray:

Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Luke 3:1–2
[2] Luke 7:22–23
[3] Romans 10:17
[4] Ephesians 5:19
[5] James 4:8
[6] Psalm 139:14–16
[7] Genesis 2:7
[8] Ecclesiastes 12:7
[9] 2 Peter 3:9
[10] Luke 1:76–78
[11] Luke 5:31–32
[12] Acts 4:12
[13] 1 Peter 3:15

Photo Credit: Main Photo of baby from freepik.