The Lord Visits You in the Flesh within His Holy Church

God has created you in His Image and Likeness to live by His grace through faith in His incarnate Son, Christ Jesus, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  And as such, your entire life in body and soul, both now and forever, depends entirely on Him, on His Word and Holy Spirit.

By the same token, your sin at its root is a matter of self-idolatry and selfishness, whereby you make a god out of yourself, you rely upon yourself, and you love and serve yourself above all.  All of your sinful thoughts, words, and actions flow out of that underlying cesspool of self-worship.

And the consequence is that, the more you try to make a life for yourself and to live for yourself, the more you are actually killing yourself.  Your sin is deadly and damnable, not so much because it is “naughty,” but because it turns you away from the only true God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and it cuts you off from Him who is your Life and your Salvation.  When you reject and disobey the Word of God, you reject and spurn the Holy Spirit, the Author and Giver of Life.  And the more you persist in your sin, the more dead you become, and the further removed from Life.

How, then, shall you be saved and live?  How shall you receive and bear the Spirit of God in your fallen and perishing flesh, in your hostile mind and hardened heart?  And how shall you not rather be consumed and destroyed by the holy and righteous Breath of God and the Fire of His Spirit?

The answer, now and ever, is the same as it has always been.  Everything depends entirely on God.  It is not for you to save yourself from sin and death.  Indeed, left to yourself, apart from the Word and Spirit of God, you are at the heart of the problem and your own worst enemy.  But the Lord who loves you, who created you in love, has taken every initiative to save you and redeem you.  He seeks you out and comes to you, heals you from the inside out, and gives you His own Life.

The God and Father of your dear Lord Jesus Christ bestows the Spirit upon you by the preaching of the Gospel.  He calls and brings you to repentance by and with His Word, and He breathes the Spirit into your heart, mind, body, and soul by the forgiving of your sins.  He thereby recreates you in the Image and Likeness of Christ Jesus, and He raises you up from death to Life in His Body.

Just so, as Christ Himself was crucified, put to death, and buried — and God raised Him from the dead — so that He entered into His Glory on your behalf by way of His Cross and Passion — so are you also put to death and raised to newness of life by the Word and Spirit of His Holy Cross.

It seems so utterly foolish to the world, which does not and cannot understand.  The Lord wounds in order to heal.  He kills, and He makes alive.  He speaks His Law to condemn and accuse you, to expose your sin and pierce your heart and soul unto contrition and repentance; and then He speaks His Gospel to save you, to raise you up and bring you to life by faith in His forgiveness.

By this Word and work of God — by this Word and work of repentance — the Lord turns you away from yourself, away from your self-idolatry, and away from your helpless captivity to sin and death, and He brings you to Himself, to the true worship of faith, and to eternal Life with Jesus.

This Way of repentance, faith, and Life with God has been opened to you and to all in Christ Jesus,  your Savior, conceived and born of St. Mary, condemned and crucified under Pontius Pilate, put to death and buried, risen and ascended, now given and poured out for you and for the many.

Make no mistake, the Lord Jesus Christ is not a means to some other end.  He is your Life and your Salvation.  Not abstractly, not intellectually or emotionally, but tangibly and holistically in His own Body of flesh and blood like your own, by the speaking of His Word and the breathing of His Spirit in the Gospel.  It is in Christ Jesus that you know and love His God and Father as your own God and Father, and that you are anointed by the Holy Spirit in your own body, soul, and spirit.

It is to that end that God the Father has given His only-begotten Son; and God the Son has become Flesh of your flesh and Blood of your blood — from the body of His Mother to His own Body on the Cross.  It is in His own Flesh and Bones and Blood and Sinews that He has received both your sin and death and the Spirit of God, so that everything is dealt with and reconciled in His Body.

That combat stupendous which you could never hope to survive (far less to win), He has fought, and He has won for you.  He bears your sins in His Body to bear them away forever; whereas He bears the Spirit in His Body in order to bestow the Spirit upon you.  For He has not been ashamed to become your Brother, in order to save you from your sin and to share His divine Life with you.

Thus, by His Cross and Passion He has atoned for all of your sins and the sins of the whole world.  By His death and burial He has redeemed you from death and the grave.  And in His Resurrection from the dead, you are reconciled to His God and Father and righteous in His sight.  This is the Word of the Gospel that is proclaimed to the ends of the earth and preached to you here and now.

Indeed, by that Gospel He preaches Himself into your ears, into your heart, mind, body, and soul.  And with His forgiveness of sins He pours out the Holy Spirit generously upon you; so that you are a Christian, anointed by God the Father with the Spirit of Christ Jesus, unto Life everlasting.

He does it by the Rod of His mouth and the Breath of His lips, which is how God always works, from the beginning, when He spoke and it was so, even to the close of the age.  It is that Word which God the Father speaks to you by His Son, who has become Flesh and tabernacles with you.

And that is the very thing we commemorate and celebrate with joy and thanksgiving this evening in the Feast of the Visitation of Our Lord.  For He deals with you and His whole Church on earth, to this day and to this place, in much the same way that He dealt with the Blessed Virgin Mary and with St. Elizabeth in this precious Holy Gospel.  The Lord Himself comes to visit you here with His Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood, in order to exalt you by His grace to the glory of His Name.

In fact, there is a beautiful and marvelous parallel between the Visitation of Our Lord and the Feast of Pentecost, such as we will celebrate this coming Sunday.  In both cases, the Lord pours out His Spirit upon His Church by and with and for the proclamation of His Word; and so does the Father give the very Flesh and Blood of His Son to the blessed Mother and to all her beloved children.

St. Mary is a living icon of the Lord’s Church, because she hears the Word of God, is anointed by the Spirit of God, and receives the very Son of God in the Flesh, in much the same way that the same Son of God is received within His Holy Church on earth by the same Word and Holy Spirit.  And that which was conceived in her womb, whereby she became the Mother of God in the Flesh, is now conceived and born for you and for the many in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar, whereby the same Body of the same Lord Jesus Christ is given into your body of flesh and blood.

This is how God works.  This is how He comes to you.  This is how He visits you with His grace, mercy, and peace — in this humble and hidden way.

You cannot see Him, no more than St. Elizabeth could see Him when St. Mary, barely in her first trimester, came to visit her elderly cousin, who had been called barren but now was great with her own child.  But Elizabeth saw Mary and heard her greeting, and by this Word of the servant of God she believed.  Indeed, not only Elizabeth, but the babe in her womb believed.  She and her unborn son rejoiced in the Gospel and gave thanks to God for Mary and with Mary.  And Elizabeth praised God for the Fruit of Mary’s womb, for the Child in her body, whom Elizabeth confessed to be her Lord: “How has it been given to me,” she sang, “that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Do not be jealous of the holy disciples and Apostles, that they got to see Jesus with their own eyes.  They were given no better Jesus than you are given.  Rejoice with St. Mary and St. Elizabeth, that one and the same Lord Jesus Christ — in the same Flesh and Blood — is also here with you and given to you.  He visits you in hiddenness and humbleness within His Holy Church on earth.

Do not be ashamed of the simple Means of Grace by which He visits you.  Do not be scandalized that He comes by and with the Cross and the Fruits of His Cross.  Do not turn up your nose at His sacred Flesh and Blood.  Do not dismiss this Liturgy of the Gospel for its apparent foolishness.  But rejoice that the Lord Himself comes to you within His Church to bless you with His Peace.

The Lord comes to you and deals with you in this way, that you should learn to live as a child of God the Father and as a member of the Bride of Christ.  Loving human fathers rightly teach and discipline and bring up their sons to become faithful husbands and fathers, that they should each learn how to care for a wife and for children, that they should each become a provider who works hard to love and serve his own family and other neighbors in the world.  But God the Father trains you, not only to love and serve and care for others, as you are called and given to do within your own office and station, but He trains you first of all to be and to live as His own dear child, living by grace through faith within His own household and family; and likewise, to be and to live as a member of the Bride of Christ, hearing His Word and receiving the Holy Spirit.

The Lord your God thus catechizes you to live, not by your own works and efforts, as though you were your own god, but by His gracious providence, by the hearing and receiving of His Gifts.

Now, that is not to say that you are not given anything to do.  Christian, you are given things to do.  But do not serve your place and purpose in life as though God needed anything from you, and do not serve as though you were capable of making and preserving any kind of real Life for yourself.  Rather, as you receive the Lord in His meekness and mercy, as He comes to you in such humble and hidden ways within His Church, and as He thus visits you in peace and love, so welcome and receive Him and care for Him in His lowly ones, in the poor, despised, and afflicted, and in your brothers and sisters, who are the brothers and sisters of the same Lord Jesus Christ.  Receive Jesus also in their needs, and serve Him in their needs.  Provide for Him and love Him by providing for and loving His family, as Mary and Elizabeth loved and served each other and their infant sons.

Do unto others as Jesus does for you.  Do so for them, not because they have earned it or deserved it — for they have not, no more than you have.  Do it by the grace of God.  Do it for Jesus’ sake.  And know that, in loving your brother or sister, you are loving the Lord who is your very Life.

And if your whole life is spent in doing so, yet shall you live.  You serve in the confidence of that great Salvation which God has already achieved for you and for all people, which He proclaims to you and gives to you by the Ministry of His Gospel in His Church.  He shall not send you away empty-handed.  He shall not leave you unclothed or naked in the street.  He shall not allow you to go hungry forever.  If you are despised by the world, you are honored and exalted by God in Christ Jesus, your crucified, risen, and ascended Lord.  If you are hated by others, you are loved by God.  If others do not forgive you, nevertheless, God has forgiven you all your sins and trespasses at the cost of His own Body and Life upon the Cross.  If others take your life, yet, God gives you Life.

This is your confidence, peace, and joy.  Receive the Lord Jesus, who is here with you and for you with His Word and Holy Spirit.  Indeed, He is here present in and with His very Flesh and Blood like your own, conceived and born of St. Mary, given and poured out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins, unto the Life everlasting of your body, soul, and spirit in Him.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Lord Himself Visits You in Grace, Mercy, and Peace

Rejoice in the Lord your God.  Give thanks to Him for all His gifts and benefits, and praise His Holy Name.  Sing to Him with peace and joy and gladness all your days.  Glorify and honor Him, worship and adore Him with heart, mind, body, and soul, because He has had mercy upon you.

The Lord your God, the holy and almighty One, here comes to visit and abide with you in love.  As He once dwelt among His people Israel with His grace and His glory — by the way and means of His Tabernacle in the wilderness, and then within His Temple in Jerusalem — in the Ark of the Covenant and upon the Mercy Seat — so does the same Lord, Yahweh Sabaoth, now come to you and tabernacle with you in His own Body of flesh and blood, conceived within the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Word and Spirit of God, in order to be your Savior and your God.

He comes by His Word and with His Holy Spirit, with all His grace and glory, in His true divinity and His true humanity, in both body and soul, hidden within the womb of His Church on earth.  And by His coming and His presence, by His gracious visitation, this house made with human hands is a priestly house, where you are met by God, and sanctified, and given life with Him.

The incarnate Son of God, Christ Jesus, comes to be with you, in order to bring you to His God and Father in and with Himself.  That is the goal and purpose for which He has created and redeemed you, and for which the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies you — and the whole Christian Church on earth — by the Ministry of the Gospel of the same Lord Jesus Christ.

By His mighty arm and outstretched hand He raises you up from poverty and weakness to wealth and strength, from humility and shame to glory and honor, from hunger and fear to contentment and full satisfaction, and from weariness and sorrow to perfect peace and Sabbath rest in Him.

The same Lord Jesus Christ defeats all your enemies and defends you from them.  He rescues you from every evil and brings you out of danger into eternal safety and security within the Kingdom of God.  He does not accuse you and condemn you, but He freely and fully forgives all your sins.  He does not punish or destroy you, as you have deserved, but He delivers you from out of death and raises you up from the dust of the earth in glory.  He recreates you in His Image for newness of life with Him, not only in your soul and spirit, but in your body, also, just like His own.

In Christ Jesus you are anointed and filled with the Holy Spirit, and you are bound to God the Father — as He is bound to you — by an everlasting Covenant, in a divine and holy Communion.

So it is that God, the Father Almighty, has spoken to you by His Son; and in remembrance of this mercy, He acts to do all of these good things for you, and to give you all of these great things in the Body of His Christ, conceived and born of St. Mary.  The One who promises is faithful, and He will do it.  Blessed are you, therefore, when you trust and rely upon His sure and certain Word.

It is by faith in His Word — by the Sound of His Voice — by the preaching of Christ Jesus — and not yet by sight or experience — that you are blessed by the presence of Christ and made brand new in Him.  So it was for St. Mary and St. Elizabeth, and so it is for the whole Church on earth.

You do not yet see the fulfillment with your eyes.  You can’t investigate it with your hands, in such a way the you could prove it.  You rather hear the promise with your ears, and it is by that promise that you live in hope and eager expectation.  With anxious longing you wait for the revealing of the sons of God, when you shall see your dear Lord Jesus face to face, and you shall be like Him.

For now, to be sure, you do not yet feel or experience the Resurrection.  You bear and suffer the Cross, within and without.  Poverty, hunger, weakness, and fear persist in this fallen world, in your own body and life and in your neighbors all around.  There are still tyrants on earth at every level, who rule with an iron fist and deal unjustly with those who languish under their abusive power.  The wicked still prosper, with impunity, while the righteous are persecuted and put to death.

Along with all of that, sin and death are still at work within you, in your mortal flesh and blood, and in your heart and mind, as well.  Your faith and love are not what they should be.  You doubt the Lord your God and the Word He has spoken.  You do not trust His promises, nor do you expect Him to do you any good.  You hurt and neglect the very people you should help and care for.  You are arrogant when you ought to be humble, and you despair when you ought to rejoice in hope.

Even so, do not wallow in self-pity, nor defend yourself in self-righteous pride, but repent, trust Christ, and live.   Do not be afraid of anything, but fear the Lord your God, and have no other gods before Him.  For He is with you.  Behold, He comes to visit you in His justice and righteousness.

Repent of your sins, therefore, and rejoice in His great and free Salvation.  For His coming does not depend on you, nor is it met with any worthiness of your own, but He visits you by grace, and He forgives your sins and gives you His Life according to His tender mercy and compassion.

In all events, He is here with you in this place, and that is most certainly true.

The Holy Triune God remembers His mercy and His faithfulness, and He fulfills His Word, in the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son.  For He has permanently bound Himself to you, already by His conception in the womb of St. Mary.  Flesh of your flesh and blood of your blood, He does not deny or disown you, but He rejoices to call you His own kin, and He defends you.

He is not ashamed to call you His brother or sister, for He has atoned for all your sins, redeemed you from death, and justified you in His Resurrection.  He ever lives to make intercession for you as your merciful High Priest.  He sanctifies your body and soul by His Spirit through the Gospel.

If what you see and feel and experience in the here and now is the Cross and suffering, temptation, sin, and death, remember that He has taken all of that upon Himself and borne it in His own Body on your behalf, proceeding in faith and love, in humility and perfect obedience, even unto death.  Wherefore God, His Father, has raised Him from the dead and highly exalted Him.  And that which He has done for you, accomplished and received on your behalf, is now pledged and given to you.

So it is that His preaching of repentance wounds you, in order to heal you.  His Word and Spirit crucify and bury you, in order to raise you up and make you alive in Him.  He not only exposes and condemns your sins for what they are, but He calls you to faith in His forgiveness of all your sins.  He puts to death the old Adam in you, in order to make of you a brand new man or woman; no less than He made of St. Mary a New Eve, and He Himself became a new and better Adam for us all.

This Lord Jesus Christ — with His mighty arm, with His great things and holy Name — is found here in this place where His Word has directed you.  Arise, and come in a hurry to find Him here within His priestly house.  Receive His gracious hospitality in the Liturgy of His Gospel, in the preaching of His Word and the celebration of His Holy Supper.  And give thanks for your fathers and mothers of faith, who are righteous in Christ Jesus and live in His Love to the glory of God.

The holiness of His Name is thereby demonstrated and bestowed upon you here, as He visits you in His divine grace, tender mercies, and perfect peace.  For those whom He calls and sends to go before His face — like St. John the Baptist, even from his mother’s womb — those men likewise announce the presence of the Lord and rejoice in Him by way of His Gospel; whereby you also, like St. Elizabeth, are filled with the Holy Spirit and rejoice in the Life and Salvation of Jesus.

Hidden here in the womb of His Church, the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God — conceived and born of St. Mary, crucified and risen from the dead — His Body and His Blood are here given and poured out for you to eat and to drink in the remembrance of His mercy.  For so does He fill the hungry with good things, and so does He feed you with these great things, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul in and with Him.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Hidden Under the Cross with Christ

In His tender mercy and great compassion, the Lord your God has come to visit you, in order to be with you always, to save you, and to give you life with Himself forever.

But He does all of this — He comes to you, He visits you, and He is with you — in hidden ways that you cannot see with your eyes.  It is under the Cross, under the weight and burden and pain of the Cross.  And it is by the humble means of grace, which to the naked eye look like nothing.

The water of your Baptism.  The bread and wine of the Holy Communion.  That is all that you can see and taste and feel and smell.  Yet, it is in these means of grace that Christ your Lord, your Savior, comes and gives Himself to you.  He comes to dwell with you, within your mortal flesh.

So it is not so different than it is in the case of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But consider what her case is like.  She has only the Word of God to go on concerning her miraculous Child, conceived in her womb by the Word and Spirit of God.  For nine months she cannot even see Him, though she can surely feel Him growing inside of her, kicking and squirming and stretching about.

Elizabeth cannot see the Child, either, but she does see her young cousin from Nazareth.  Unwed.  Coming to visit her out of the blue.  Even so, Elizabeth believes and trusts the Word of God, for she also, in her great age, after years and years of barrenness, has conceived a child in her womb, with her husband Zacharias, according to the Word and promise of the Lord.

The outward situation looks no different to St. Mary’s other neighbors.  After her joyous visit to Elizabeth, after she witnesses the birth of young John the Baptist, she goes back to Nazareth, to what?  To a fiancé who assumes that she’s been sleeping around with some other guy.  He will not stone her, as the Law would permit, but he will divorce her quietly.  That is his plan.  And though St. Joseph is brought to faith in the Word of God to take St. Mary as his wife, that does not shut up their nosy and gossipy neighbors, the people of Nazareth, who naturally assume the worst.

This is to be her lot.  For bearing the Son of God, St. Mary suffers reproach and worse.  She flees, then, to Egypt after her Son is born.  And where is it that He is born?  In a stable, in a strange little town not her own.  She trudges the distance, at nine months, and gives birth to her Son in a shelter for animals; and then her king seeks to take His life, to kill Him in cold blood.  So she must run away to Egypt with her little family, where she lives in exile for a couple of years.

And when at last the Holy Family is able to return from Egypt, there are then the years of waiting, and wondering, and watching for some sign, for some indication that this Son of hers is everything that God has promised.  There is that incident in Jerusalem when He’s twelve, but that occasion is confusing and distressing in its own right, and as perplexing as it is promising.

When her Son finally does begin to manifest Himself to Israel, then what?  He brings hatred and hostility upon His head.  People turn against Him.  They conspire and plot against Him.  They finally have Him arrested.  They manufacture charges against Him.  They hand Him over to the governor.  They hand Him over to death.  And then there is the cruelest agony of all.  The Mother stands at the foot of the Cross, and she watches her Son, her own dear Son, Jesus, whom she loves, put to death.  She sees her Savior executed as a criminal, suffering and dying before her eyes.

That is what St. Mary sees and experiences.  That is what she feels and perceives with her senses.  Which, for all the world, appears to be a crushing blow, a catastrophic disaster, an utter loss of all her hopes and dreams.  But for all of that, it is not in spite of this Cross, but precisely by the Cross of Christ, that the Lord accomplishes His purposes, His great salvation of the world.

It is likewise by the Cross that God the Lord accomplishes His purposes for you, also.  It is His great reversal of sin and death, whereby the curse becomes the blessing.  Thus are the haughty brought down, the rich are made poor, and the gluttons are sent away empty.  For the Lord kills, in order to make alive.  He humbles, in order to exalt.  He brings low, in order to raise you up.

He does it all, first and foremost, in His own dear Son, conceived and born of St. Mary; for He is crucified for your transgressions in order to be raised for your justification.  And what the Lord your God has thus accomplished by the Cross and Resurrection of His Son, He now works and accomplishes in you, in your heart and mind, body and soul, by the preaching of His Word.

He puts you to death by the letter of the Law, in order to resurrect you to new life by the Spirit through the Gospel.  He exposes your sin and humbles you, in order to bring you to repentance and faith in His forgiveness of your sins, by which you now live in Christ Jesus, both body and soul, sanctified, strengthened, and sustained by His Holy Spirit, as you now sojourn under the Cross.

For now it is only by the Word and Spirit of God.  It is not by sight or sense, nor by any reason or strength of your own.  Indeed, what you experience in your body and life in this world appears to be an utter contradiction of everything that God has said and promised.  He tells you that you are His child.  And yet, your life does not go so well.  He tells you that all of your sins are forgiven.  And yet, you still suffer many of the consequences of your sins in this world.  He tells you that He loves you.  And yet, there are so many times when His apparent absence makes you wonder if He even exists, or if He cares about you at all, or if He is in fact angry with you because of your sins.

What you feel and experience is a curse instead of the blessing.  You feel the sting of the Law, not only in your ears, in your heart, and in your head, but also in your flesh and blood.  But, whereas you hear the Word and promise of the Gospel, you sure don’t otherwise feel it.  Everything just continues as it has before.  You keep on sinning, and you keep on dying, as does everyone else.

But in spite of your experience, in spite of what your reason and all your senses tell you, the truth of the matter is not only made known by the Word of God; it is determined by the Word of God.  Whatever He speaks, that is so.  “Let there be Light,” and there is Light.  So, too, whatever He says to you is true, while the whole wide world is one big liar, and one big lie, apart from His Word.

That is how it is for St. Elizabeth, and for St. Mary, and for their boys.  Blessed are they, who believe the Word that the Lord has spoken.  For every Word He speaks is accomplished, and every one of His promises is fulfilled.  Not only for those saints of old, and for the Son of God, Christ Jesus, but so also for His Church and all her children.  So also for you, and for your children.

Your dear Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Mary’s Son — crucified, risen, and ascended — He is your great High Priest in all things pertaining to God.  He does not look down upon you from afar, but He has drawn near to visit you in peace; He has borne your burdens, and He sympathizes with you in your weaknesses.  He also has become small, and lowly, and weak.  He also, who was rich, has become poor, in order that you would become rich and inherit the Kingdom of God.  He has borne your sins and all of their consequences.  He has become the curse itself upon the Cross.  He has been damned in your stead under the righteous wrath and judgment of God against all sin.

He has been hated by the world and His own people.  He has been forsaken by His friends.  He has been persecuted.  He has been hurt.  He has been falsely accused, unfairly condemned, ridiculed, spit upon, and shamed.  He has been put to death.  He has suffered it all.  And He has been tempted in every way that you are.  But He has remained faithful and innocent, obedient and righteous, even in His death.  And so it is that, despite appearances, His Cross is His great Victory for you.

His Cross has turned the curse inside out.  His death has conquered death and the devil.  By His death He has atoned for all of your sins, so there is nothing left to be held against you.  He has reconciled you to God, in order to give you life with God, even now in the midst of sin and death.

His own bodily Resurrection from the dead is the guarantee of your resurrection and the life everlasting of your body and soul.  And His Body and His Blood are the surety, the down payment, the Foretaste of the Feast to Come.  His Word and Spirit are His Bond.  As He has spoken, He will do.  The One who promises is faithful.  He does not lie to you.  He does all that He has said.

Dear little one of Jesus, do not be lonely and forlorn.  He forgives you all yours sins, and He raises you from death to life.  He feeds you with good things, His Body and His Blood.  He remembers you in mercy, and He remembers all His promises to you by keeping them.  So does He also sustain your faith in His Word by His good Spirit, so that the devil, the world, and your flesh do not get the better of you and drag you down into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice.

This Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, is your Champion.  He is your Savior and Redeemer.  So does He open up your mouth to feed you.  And He opens up your mouth to sing His praise, who has done such great things for you.  Holy is His Name!  And marvelous are all His works.

In the Name + of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Remembrance of His Mercy

We’re all in the same boat, the same predicament.

There may be all the difference in the world between the rich and the poor, the young and the old, the strong and the weak, the well-fed and the hungry; between the mother of ten and the barren widow.  But everyone alike is brought to nothing in the end.  For all alike are sinful and unclean.  There is no one who is righteous, no, not even one.

The grass is always greener on the neighbor’s side of the fence, but the truth is that your grass and his will wither and fade just the same, and all your flowers, too.  You both brought the same thing into this world, and you’ll take the same thing out: Nothing.  Whatever anybody has between the cradle and the grave is by the utter charity of one and the same God.

Protests of unfairness are a lie.  Your neighbor’s sins and failings seem more pronounced to you, more egregious and less excusable than your own, but that’s not really true.  Every sin is damnable.  Neither are his merits or her virtues any more or less than yours, not before God.  You and your neighbor are no different in deserving nothing but punishment.

But the Lord, the one true God, is merciful to you and to all people.  He makes no distinction and shows no partiality, but abounds in riches for all who call on Him.  For whoever calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.  He preaches repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all the world, the Gospel to all of creation.  He sends the Apostles to make disciples of all the nations, to baptize and to catechize in His Name, both Jews and Greeks, slaves and free men, male and female, adults and children.  For in every nation the one who fears the Lord and does what is right is welcome to Him.

But who, then, shall be saved?  For there is no one who does right, no one who is good but God, and no one who calls on the Name of the Lord.

We’re all in the same boat, the same predicament.  And we should all be lost, every one of us, completely and forever: brought low, sent away empty, and slain as the wicked.

Except that God, the Lord, actively remembers us in love.  He has created you for life with Himself, and, not according to your merit, but according to His mercy, it is His good and gracious will to give you that life.  And as it is by the grace and mercy of God, by His tender compassion and loving-kindness, it is for one and all alike, as it is for you.

So it is that the Lord, who loves you, comes to save you from sin and death.  He comes to give you justice: not the justice you deserve, which would destroy you, but the justice of His Atonement, His Redemption, His forgiveness of your sins, His reconciliation, and His peace.  He comes to judge you righteous with His righteousness; not by your works of the Law, but by His grace, by the Word and work of Christ.  He comes to rescue the children of Adam & Eve from death and the grave, and to bring you and all into the Paradise of His New Creation.

In order to do and accomplish all of this — and this is the way and means by which He remembers you and His mercy toward you — He fully empathizes with you by making your predicament His own.  He gets on board the same boat with you, the sinking ship in the midst of the storm, tossed about by wind and wave, in which you and all are going under.  He submits Himself to the flood, to drown and die with you and all, with all your sinful lusts and desires.

He first of all becomes like you: true Man of flesh and blood, conceived and born of the Woman, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The Son of God, of one substance with the Father from all eternity, takes the human nature of this Mother to be His own, so that He is now of one substance with you, with all men and women everywhere.  He has a Body of flesh like yours.  He has blood like yours.

And in His Body He bears all your sins and suffers your death.  He sheds His Blood to make propitiation for you, to establish His Covenant with you.  He takes your weakness and hurt upon Himself, your sickness unto death into His flesh, your illness and disease into His bloodstream.  All the consequences of your sin, all your guilt and shame, your punishment and failure, and all the sins of others against you, He has made His own: to feel all the pain, and to bear all the blame.

He is the One who is abandoned by friends and accused by enemies.  He is the One despised and rejected by men.  He makes Himself poor and lowly, so that you might be exalted and become rich in the Kingdom of God.  He hungers and thirsts, so that you might eat and drink and be filled and satisfied in both body and soul.

As He bears and suffers all of this on your behalf, and as He dies your death in your place, so does He also receive and bear the Holy Spirit on your behalf, in His Body of flesh and blood like yours, in the human nature that He shares with you through His Mom.

By His Incarnation, He makes Himself one with you and all people, your Brother in the flesh.  By His voluntary humiliation, by His Cross and Passion, He makes your predicament His own.  And by His anointing with the Spirit of His God and Father, as the Christ, your Savior, at His Baptism and in His bodily Resurrection from the dead, He brings you out of death into life, raises you up with Himself, and sanctifies your body of flesh and blood with His own divine holiness and glory.

That is what the Son of Mary has accomplished in Himself for you, and that is what He gives you by His grace in the Holy Gospel.

As He came for you then, conceived and born of St. Mary, so does He come to you now in the same flesh and blood.  As He was conceived in her womb by the Word and Spirit of God, so by the same Word and Spirit does He give Himself to you.  And as He visited St. Elizabeth in the womb of His Mother, so does He visit you here in the womb of His Church.

What is more, as St. John the Baptist, while yet a babe unborn within his own mother, announced the coming of the Christ and pointed to Him by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so does the Lord still send His servant before His face, within His Church on earth, to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, to baptize, to prepare the way and point to the Christ.  He does so here and now, so that you may rejoice and sing with Holy Mother Church and all the people of God.

This is the Visitation of the Lord by which you are saved, by which you are raised up, exalted, well-fed, and made rich with the good things of God.  He truly does great things for you.

As St. Mary was a new and better Ark of the Covenant, by whom the Lord came to Judah in the flesh, so does He now come to you with His flesh and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar.  Not only conceived and born of Mary, but crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead and buried, risen from the dead, ever living to intercede for you as your great High Priest at the Right Hand of His Father.

His flesh and blood are the fruits of His Life-giving Cross.  So, too, your Holy Baptism is a sharing in His Cross, and the Gospel is the preaching of His Cross.

The Cross of Christ is the hiddenness of the womb in which He visits you.  It is the humiliation of His life on earth, and the hunger of His righteousness, which is by faith and not by sight.

It is thus by His Cross that He works repentance in you — unto the forgiveness of all your sins, unto faith and life in Him.  He wounds in order to heal.  He kills in order to make alive.  He puts you to death, in order to raise you up with Himself in glory.  He lets you go hungry, in order to feed you with the Bread of His own Body.

And in this way He bestows the Spirit upon you: by the Word of His Cross, the Ministry of His Gospel, within the womb of His Church, and therefore hidden from the eyes of the world in such humility and weakness, sometimes in sorrow and shame.  Though you are suspected and accused, despised and rejected — though you are sinful and unclean, conceived and born in sin, deserving of punishment, death, and damnation — your dying and rising with Christ are a new conception and new birth by His Word and Spirit.  Thus are you a child of God; indeed, a son of God in Christ.

As He has become like you in all respects, save only without sin, so have you become like Him.  You are righteous with His righteousness, and holy with His holiness.  You are faithful with His faithfulness, and, as He first loves you, so do you also love with His own love.  For there is the fulfillment of the Word that He speaks to you.  He forgives you all your sins, and you are forgiven.  He justifies you, and you are just.  He sanctifies you, and so do you live in love, in the Light of the Glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.

Therefore, like the Lord Jesus, who lives in you, and you in Him: Forgive and love your neighbor, and gladly do good to those who sin against you.  Show hospitality, as Elizabeth welcomed Mary into her home, and as Mary surely served and cared for her elderly relative in those final months of her pregnancy at such an advanced age.  Care for your neighbor, too, as the Lord Himself shows hospitality to you in His Church, clothing you with His righteousness in Holy Baptism, feeding you with Himself in the Holy Communion, and caring for your body and soul with His Gospel.

In the love of Christ, by the grace of God, do good to all people, contributing as you are able to the needs of your neighbor.  Do so with empathy and compassion, since you and all are children of Adam.  All of you alike are sinful and subject to death.  But so are all of you alike redeemed and reconciled to God by the Incarnation, Cross, and Resurrection of the Second Adam, Christ Jesus.

To those who do not know the Lord, who do not love and trust in Him, let your gracious love, your gentle kindness, your patience and peace, be His hidden Visitation unto them.  Bear Him in your body, in all your words and actions, and in your song, as dear St. Mary bore Him in her womb and magnified His holy Name with her confession of His Word.

And all the more so, be at peace and do good to those who are your “relatives” in Christ Jesus, your brothers and sisters and cousins in the Lord, whether young or old, married or unmarried, with or without children, orphaned or widowed.  For you are all one Body in Christ.  You are children of one God and Father.  You are anointed by one and the same Holy Spirit.  You are baptized with one Baptism, forgiven alike by one Gospel, fed with one Bread and given to drink from one Chalice at one Lord’s Table.

In Him is the Life and Salvation of His whole Church, the holy Ark of Christendom, in which He visits you in mercy; in which you abide with Him in safety and in peace.

Beloved, we are all in the same Boat, the same Body of Christ, the same Jesus.  And blessed are you, who believe in Him, for His mercy is upon generation after generation of those who fear Him.  So has He spoken, so has He accomplished, and so shall it be done.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Because He Has Shown His Mercy Toward Us

Beloved, rejoice in the Lord.  Give all thanks and praise to Him.  Sing to Him, and bless His holy Name.  Glorify and honor Him; worship and adore; because He has shown His mercy toward us.

The Lord your God, the holy and almighty One, here comes to visit you in peace, to dwell with you in love.  As by the Tabernacle and the Temple in the Old Testament, in the Ark of the Covenant and upon the Mercy Seat, He lived in the midst of His people Israel with His grace and His glory; so now, in His own flesh and blood, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from within the Most Holy Place of her womb, the Lord Himself, Yahweh Sabaoth, has come to be with you.

He comes by His Word, and with His Holy Spirit, with His grace and His glory, in His true divinity and His true humanity, in body and in soul, hidden within the womb of His Church on earth.  And by His coming and His presence, by His gracious visitation, this house made with human hands is now a priestly house, wherein you are met by God, and sanctified, and given life with Him.

The incarnate Son of God, Christ Jesus, comes to be with you, in order to bring you, in and with Himself, to God the Father in heaven.  That is the goal and the purpose for which He has created and redeemed you, and for which the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies you — and the whole Christian Church on earth — by the Gospel of the same Lord Jesus Christ.

By His mighty arm and outstretched hand, He raises you up: from poverty and weakness, to wealth and strength; from humility and shame, to glory and honor; from hunger and fear, to contentment and full satisfaction; from weariness and sorrow, to peace and rest.

He defeats all your enemies, and He defends you from them.  He brings you out of danger into safety and security with God.  He does not accuse and condemn you, but He forgives all your sins.  He does not punish and destroy you, as you deserve, but He delivers you from death and raises you up from the dust of the earth.  He recreates you in His Image for newness of life with Him; not only in your soul and spirit, but in your body, just like His own.

In Christ Jesus, you are anointed and filled with the Holy Spirit, and you are bound to God the Father — as He is bound to you — by an everlasting Covenant, in a divine and holy Communion.

So it is that God, the Father Almighty, has spoken to you by His Son; and in remembrance of this mercy, He acts to do all of these great things for you.  The One who promises is faithful, and He will surely do it.  Blessed are you, who thus believe, that there will be a fulfillment of His Word.

It is by faith in His Word — by the Sound of His Voice — by the preaching of Christ Jesus — and not yet by sight or experience — that you are blessed by the presence of Christ and made brand new in Him.  As it was for St. Mary and St. Elizabeth, and as it is for the whole Church on earth.

You do not yet see the fulfillment with your eyes.  You can’t investigate it with your hands, in such a way as to prove it.  Instead, you hear the promise with your ears, and it is by that promise that you live in hope and eager expectation.  You look forward with anxious longing for the revealing of the sons of God, when you shall see your dear Lord face to face, and you shall be like Him.

For now, to be sure, you do not yet feel or experience the Resurrection, but you bear and suffer the Cross, within and without.  There is still poverty, hunger, weakness, and fear in this world: in your own body and life, and in others round about you.  There are still tyrants on earth, on every level, who rule with an iron fist and deal unjustly with those who languish under their abusive power.  The wicked still prosper, with impunity, while the righteous are persecuted and are put to death.

Not only that, but in yourself, as well, in your mortal flesh and blood, and in your heart and mind, there are still sin and death at work.  Your faith and love are not what they should be.  You doubt the Lord and the Word He has spoken.  You do not trust His promises, nor do you expect Him to do you any good.  You hurt and neglect the very people you should help and be caring for.  You are haughty, when you ought to be humble; and you despair, when you ought to rejoice.

But now, then, do not wallow in self-pity, nor defend yourself in arrogant pride, but repent, trust Christ, and live.   Do not be afraid of anything, but fear the Lord your God, and have no other gods before Him.  For He is with you.  Behold, He comes to visit you in His justice and righteousness.

Repent of your sins, therefore, and rejoice in His Salvation.  For His coming does not depend on you, nor is it met with your own worthiness, but He visits you by grace, and He gives to you His great salvation in accordance with His tender mercy and compassion.

In all events, He is here, and that is most certainly true.

The Holy Triune God remembers His mercy and His faithfulness, and He fulfills His Word, in the flesh and blood of Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son.  For He has permanently bound Himself to you, already by His conception in the womb of St. Mary.  Flesh of your flesh, and blood of your blood, He does not deny you or disown you, but He joys to call you His own kin, and He defends you.

He is not ashamed to call you His brother, or His sister; because He has redeemed you, obtained forgiveness and established righteousness for you, and brought about the New Creation, into which He now calls you and brings you, in His Body of flesh and blood, by His Cross and Resurrection.

If what you see and feel and experience, for now, is the Cross and suffering, sin, death, temptation, sorrow, and the grave, so has He made all of these His own, and borne them in His Body for you; and He has dealt with them, in faith and love, in humility and perfect obedience, even unto death.  Wherefore God, His Father, has raised Him from the dead and highly exalted Him.  And that which He has done for you, accomplished and received on your behalf, is now pledged and given to you.

Thus, His preaching of repentance wounds you, in order to heal you: it crucifies and buries you, in order to raise you up and make you alive; and it calls you to faith in the forgiveness of your sins.  He puts to death the old Adam in you, in order to make of you a new man, or a new woman; no less than He made of St. Mary a New Eve, and He Himself became a new and better Adam for us all.

This Lord Jesus Christ, with His mighty arm, with His great things and His holy Name, is found here in this place, where His Word has directed you.  Arise, and come in a hurry to find Him here in His priestly house, in His gracious hospitality: in the Ministry of His Word and Sacraments, and in the fathers and mothers of faith, who are righteous in the sight of God and live in His Love.

The holiness of His Name is thereby demonstrated, and bestowed upon you here, in His grace, mercy, and peace toward you.  For those whom He calls and sends to go before His face — like St. John the Baptist, even from his mother’s womb — those men likewise announce the presence of the Lord and rejoice in Him by the Gospel; whereby you also, like St. Elizabeth, are filled with the Holy Spirit and rejoice in the Life and Salvation of Christ.

Hidden here, in the womb of His Church, the Body and Blood of the Lord, born of Mary, crucified and risen, are given and poured out for you to eat and to drink in the remembrance of His mercy.  For so does He fill the hungry with good things, and so does He feed you with these great things, unto the resurrection of your body and the life everlasting in Communion with the Holy Trinity.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.