The God Who Speaks, Visits, and Gathers

Speaks

God speaks and we listen. We say back to Him what we have learned about Him.

Think back to Christmas for a moment. The angel Gabriel spoke to Mary. He did so at God’s command. Was it the Father who spoke? The Son who spoke? or God the Spirit who spoke? answer today: Yes.

Visits

Soon after, Mary went to see Elizabeth, now cousins by marriage. Each was going to have babies very important to salvation history. Elizabeth (who was going to have John the Baptizer and the last human prophet) took one look at Mary and cried out, “Blessed are you among women! And blessed is the fruit of your womb! … Blessed is she who believed there would be fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Was it Elizabeth or the Holy Spirit who spoke this? Luke’s answer? Yes.

Gathers

The point is not that Mary was chosen of the Lord and is more special than other women or men chosen of the Lord. The point is that God is the one speaking, visiting, and gathering His people.

From the time of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea by miraculous intervention by our Holy God, depicted here, to the time of Mary and Elizabeth, BELIEF is the crux of the matter. “Blessed is she who believed...”

Likewise, as we confess elsewhere: the Holy Spirit has called us by the Gospel, enlightened us with His gifts, sanctified and kept us in the one true faith until this day, May __, 2021. But not without a sense of urgency: the time to believe is now. The Holy Spirit is calling. Time is short.

2 Co 6:2

For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” II Corinthians 6:2

We Lament over sin, but we are visited by Christ anyway.

Isaiah lamented of his lowly status, and asked why should he be used for God’s purposes? “I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips!” — he even writes down his exclamation for the book bearing his name. But then he is visited by angels, a hot coal touches his lips we suppose to burn the mercy of God into him. The Lord sends him out: GO! Go and proclaim the year of the My favor unto a stubborn and stiff-necked people.

In my own words, the Lord’s message through Isaiah is: “The light is always on for you, worst of all backsliders! And the Lord, the God of the whole kingdom (both the north and the south), will throw a huge banquet for you on his holy mountain if you would only hear and listen to His Holy Word.” Holy is the Word, holy is the Lord. “Holy and set apart are the people of the Lord; you are His people. Return.”

But such a gift comes only by the Holy Spirit. And that was last week’s sermon, but will be the point all through Pentecost Season here, though it’ll be said in different ways.

This weekend we’d say it like this: tomorrow is Memorial Day.

Rightfully, we remember and memorialize the honorable service of those who died giving their lives for something greater than themselves, in this case, the United States and the freedom of its citizens. Hopefully we will do so for a long time, as from generation to generation.

I say it that way because tomorrow is also, on some lists of Bible readings for our churches, the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. It is the whole reason I mentioned them earlier to you… that may have been random to you, but I did it for this reason. “God’s mercy,” the mother of our Lord sings, “is for those who fear Him from generation to generation” (Luke 1:50).

But because of God’s mercy, we are also bold to do today what the Christian church and what the Christian preacher must always do: remember to confess our sins; to put them to death and never sit with/walk in them again. As Mary held up a mirror to God in her song, magnifying His goodness and mercy, so a pastor must hold up a mirror that we may see ourselves rightly.

hold up a mirror

to see our true failures when our IP address is marred by visits to pornography Web sites.

Hold up a mirror to see the terrible damage done to children when there is a no-fault divorce and children in the household;

Hold up a mirror to see anger not just appearing once or twice a year, but ruling the roost in households professing to be Christian;

Hold up a mirror to see what happens to us after the sun goes down and temptations tap our shoulder: “Just once. No one’s looking. No one would care if they found out, anyway.”

The Father sees.

The Son shepherds.

The Spirit guides.

Equally uncreated, with the universal or catholic with a small “c” church teaching there are not three Uncreateds but only One. The Father creating, the Son begotten, the Spirit proceeding from them at crucial times and then guiding us, also.

The God who speaks, who is born and who visits. The God who dies for those unconfessed and hidden sins, too--erasing them from the Divine Ledger.

As one Lutheran pastor has said...

We are entering a new era at Calvary Lutheran Church. What’s fascinating to me is what our mission speaker said in late April, and I have been reflecting on what he said as many of you have: we are now in an era similar to that of the first Christians. Our fellow Americans these days might care about us as people and think it’s nice that we have formed a Church; still, it cares little for Calvary congregation and almost nothing for what it means to confess Jesus as a Lutheran.

But together we know who holds the future: the Triune God. He is with us to accomplish the mission of Calvary: Showing Everyone Life in Christ as Lutheran confessors of the faith. To me, “Lutheran” speaks of a tradition with a vibrant faith and clear teaching about that faith. To others, when I say “Lutheran,” they think of certain traditions and probably mostly about pipe organs and potlucks.

But while we are traditional, we are not traditionalist. We like and use tradition, but we are not married to it like it’s a sacrament or something. What new traditions will we have in 10 years? In 20? In 50?

Keep asking Him for answers to those kinds of questions, and most of all, believe as Elizabeth and Mary did. Pray to the Holy Spirit to be less like Zechariah in Luke 1 and more like the faithful women we’ve mentioned, and Jesus’s earthly father, Joseph.

Zechariah didn’t believe the Lord that Elizabeth would be pregnant and bear a child, for this God made him speechless for a while. That is not likely to happen to us, but ask the Spirit to be your guide through His Word. In recommending this to you I thought of the hymn: “I love your kingdom, Lord.” It’s a song I think these other saints could have easily sung, too:

1 I love Your kingdom, Lord,

The place of Your abode,

The Church our blest Redeemer saved

With His own precious blood.

2 Beyond my highest joy

I prize its heav'nly ways,

Its sweet communion, solemn vows,

Its hymns of love and praise.

We also hear the dignity of those who are remembered, who went before us in faith:

3 I love Your church, O God,

Your saints in ev'ry land,

Dear as the apple of Your eye

And graven on Your hand.

4 For them my tears shall fall;

For them my prayers ascend;

For them my cares and toils be giv'n

Till toils and cares shall end.

5 Sure as Your truth shall last,

To Zion shall be giv'n

The brightest glories earth can yield

And brighter bliss of heav'n.

We can see why nations, also, remember those who gave their lives for those of us living now to enjoy the fruits of their “toils and cares” and sacrifice.

“They are with us,” one song says, “though the granite’s touch is cold.” It’s poetic and more emotional than real, but we understand its importance. To remember, to recall a worthy sacrifice when one is seen.

To fall asleep in Christ is our final goal: when “toils and cares shall end.” Though I wanted to focus on sweet Mary: “My soul now magnifies the Lord.” And I would point out how many women are here today, and how they outnumber men. Look at this wonderful tradition continuing: women with the Lord Jesus, pointing out in faith how the Son has come down for us:

From the God who speaks, visits, teaches, dies, gathers us and renews us.

Amen.