Title: A SIGN OF JOY

Focus: The encounter between Mary and Elizabeth functions as a sign of confirmation. This sign confirms God’s saving work in the wombs of these women, and it leads to great joy.

Function: To encourage the people to receive the signs given to Mary and Elizabeth as confirmation of God’s saving grace. Our salvation is entirely God’s work. Thus praise and joy are appropriate responses to God’s saving work.

Text: Luke 1:39-56

The birth of a child is an occasion for great joy. Who would argue against that? As in baptism today we welcome to the family of God Nate and Sarah’s newborn child--Owen Gene De Kam—we testify and underscore that joy. The children we have and receive are truly God’s gifts to us. And we welcome them with great joy.

So it is also with the Christ child born to the virgin Mary. Her child, however, is one of a kind. Mary’s child is the eternal Son of God and Savior of the world. And this child of Mary is the One who brings joy to the world—that is, to anyone who receives him by faith and bows before him as Savior and God.

Today’s Scripture reading confronts us with an encounter between the virgin Mary and her distant relative—Elizabeth. The encounter functions as a sign of confirmation. It confirms God’s work of salvation in the wombs of these two women, and the sign leads to great joy.

As we learn of Mary’s and Elizabeth’s encounter, I encourage each one of us to embrace that sign of confirmation. Be instructed by that sign, and remember this truth: Salvation from sin and death and eternal condemnation is entirely God’s gift to us. Mary said so in her song of praise. And we must learn to do what Mary did: receive the Savior by faith and in humility and rejoice in God’s saving work.

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The story is familiar to many of us. But that familiarity may also result in us missing God’s sign of confirmation to Mary and Elizabeth—and to us. Therefore, I invite you to pay close attention to the text: What do we see? We note a dramatic encounter between an unmarried young girl and her distant relative, who has been barren for decades, but who now in advanced old age is expecting a baby: Mary is the young virgin; Elizabeth the elderly, expectant mother.

The encounter is dramatic as we learn from the text. Listen: “At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.” In other words, the Spirit of God triggers an astonishing response in Elizabeth’s womb.

More than that, the Spirit of God also loosens Elizabeth’s tongue, for she begins to prophesy. Listen: “In a loud voice, Elizabeth exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!’” In response to Elizabeth’s prophetic words, the virgin Mary also prophesies. Moved by the Holy Spirit, Mary utters a song of praise to God. She toots the horn of God’s saving mercy to her and to all God’s covenant people. Clearly, the passage confronts us with a dramatic, divinely-inspired encounter between two women whose wombs are opened by a miracle of God—the one a virgin; the other a barren woman. That’s what we see!

Now we must ask the question, “What is going on?” That question will lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of this encounter.

Note for example, that after telling Mary that she would be with child, the angel Gabriel made the Virgin Mary aware of a sign. When Mary asked Gabriel in faith the question: “How will this be since I am a virgin?” Gabriel said: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” The reference to Elizabeth’s pregnancy, then, is a sign. And by observing the sign of Elizabeth’s miraculous pregnancy in old age, Mary would be confirmed in her faith response to the message of Gabriel. The sign of Elizabeth’s pregnancy confirms God’s saving work in the wombs of these two women, and that confirmation leads to great joy.

But why? Why would this encounter be a sign of confirmation for Mary’s and Elizabeth’s trust in the Word of God to them? The answer is woven in their nation’s covenant history. They know the Scriptures. They know God’s covenant promises and awesome works from the past. It is out of nothing, out of death or barrenness or seemingly hopeless situations that God brings about salvation. God opens the future and God brings about a new beginning through miracle births.

Think about Abraham and Sarah. Salvation would come to Abraham and his offspring through a son by way of Sarah. But Sarah was barren. God, however, opened her womb.

Isaac was born. He married Rebecca. Rebecca was barren; God opened her womb—and thus he also opened the future for Abraham’s offspring.

Jacob was born; he married Rachel and Leah. God closed and opened their wombs at his own good pleasure. And so God’s covenant promise of salvation advanced through Abraham’s seed.

Later on in the history of Israel, we learn of Hannah and Elkanah. Hannah is barren; God opens her womb, and Hannah gave birth to Samuel. Much later, in the fullness of time, God opens the womb of a barren woman. Elizabeth may give birth to a child that would announce the coming of God’s salvation.

Then in the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God visits a virgin (not a barren woman, but a virgin who has not known any man), and God performs an astonishing miracle—by means of his Holy Spirit, God brings about new life—his very own life, his eternal Son, in the womb of Mary. And the child to be born is the Savior of the world.

Here is the sign of joy and confirmation: Out of barrenness, out of hopelessness, out of death and nothingness, God brings new life. That’s the sign for Mary and Elizabeth—and for us—that God is at work. Mary’s child and our salvation are entirely the saving work of God.

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Today, there are many Christians who think that they have to do something to gain eternal salvation from sin, death and eternal condemnation. They believe that by their spiritual disciplines or by their own good works, or by their own virtues they can please God to the point where surely God will give them eternal life. Driven by a subtle spiritual anxiety, many people act with the notion of “do more, try harder to please and serve God.” And many hucksters and misguided leaders in the evangelical world are fueling this notion among the masses.

Perhaps you are one of them. I have good news for all of us: There is nothing that you and I can do to earn God’s righteousness; There is nothing that we can do in our own strength to overcome sin and its deadly consequences. The human race cannot save itself. The good news is that God saves—in Jesus Christ. Like Mary, we are recipients of God’s favor. Like Mary, empty-handed, we receive God’s gift, and like Mary, we respond with joy and praise.

You see, God is bringing about our salvation in this encounter between Mary and Elizabeth. God is undoing the curse of sin and death.

Remember the Scriptures! The mother of all humanity—Eve, together with Adam her husband—fell into sin. A fallen angel in the form of a serpent tempted her, and Eve, together with Adam, disobeyed. And ever since that terrible act of disobedience, sin, misery, and death has surrounded Adam’s offspring like a shroud.

But now, in the fullness of time, there comes a faithful angel of God to a virgin called Mary. And Mary, in humility and deep trust, believes the Word of God. As Eve was seduced by the word of an angel to flee from God, having rebelled against his Word, so Mary by the word of an angel received the glad tidings that she would give birth to the Savior called Jesus. And unlike Eve, Mary believed the Word of God.

And thus Mary’s obedience reverses the curse of Eve’s disobedience. Now we understand why Elizabeth, moved by the Holy Spirit can say to Mary: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear…Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

Mary and Elizabeth received a sign of confirmation. The sign confirmed God’s saving work in the wombs of these two women. And that sign led to great joy.

Let your and my response to God’s saving work in Jesus Christ be this: rejoice and sing for joy. For salvation from sin, death and eternal condemnation is entirely the work of God Almighty. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.