Visitation by Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448–1494)

Audio: iTunes | Spotify

Disclaimer: This is a transcript of Pastor Fenker’s sermon. It was preached from an outline, and the transcript taken automatically from the audio. Please forgive any typographical or formatting errors.

Blessed is she who believed. For there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord.

᛭ INI ᛭


We believe in miracles. Christians believe in miracles. It’s part of what it means to be a Christian, to have faith in Christ means to have faith that miracles happen. And miracles do happen.

There are 2 miraculous pregnancies under one roof in our gospel reading this evening. Elizabeth, old, past the age of childbearing, just like Abraham’s wife, Sarah, in the Old Testament. And then there’s the Blessed Virgin Mary. She’s a virgin. And yet is pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit. 


We rejoice in the miracles. We should rejoice in them like the butt of a joke God is telling, to shame the wise in this world. We rejoice in the great miracles of God’s salvation in Christ, Jesus, our Lord. Because of all the miracles, that’s really the ones we’re worried about and concerned about, or should be, as Christians.

Because God reveals miracles throughout the scriptures. All sorts of miracles. Most of them, saving his people. Miracles. Like Crossing of the Red Sea. Miracles, like Jonah being in the belly of a fish, and then cast on the seashore. Miracles like axe, heads floating and donkeys talking. We believe all sorts of miracles. where God does things out of the ordinary. 


Christ IHS is the foundation of our faith. There is no other foundation that has been laid except IHS Christ our Lord. And there are 2 great pillars of this foundation, our faith in Christ. 
It is the virgin birth and the resurrection. Do away with any one of these, the Christian faith, the foundation in Christ begins to crumble very quickly. And we believe the miracle worked in Mary’s womb because we believe the miracle of Christ’s empty tomb. 
That is the chief miracle, that Christ was dead for 3 days because he was crucified for your sins, and then he was raised on the 3rd day for your innocent verdict. That’s the whole scriptures. And miracles. 
They are what the Bible also would call a mystery. That is, a miracle can be witnessed. It can be confessed that it, in fact, happened. 


But a miracle is a mystery in that it cannot be explained. How did such a thing happen? We believe in supernatural events, or really moments. 


The moment that it takes for uh, A zygote to be formed in Mary’s womb. The moment that it takes for Jesus’ word to raise the dead. And then their bodies function as a living body would. 
Or water into wine, that moment, and then it’s just wine. We believe in these events, and then everything carries along as it should be, God feeding new data into the system, as it were. The Blessed Virgin Mary then is who the angel Gabriel says she is, and who Elizabeth also says she is, once she is filled with the Holy Spirit. 


Elizabeth calls her the mother of my Lord. Mary is the mother of God. For Christ is the eternal son of the Father, full of grace and truth, the one in her womb is the one who created her womb. 
And our faith is in this great miracle. That the one who died and rose for us is the Son of God, and his blood pays for our sins, and he was born and conceived without sin by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our faith in these things is not irrational. 


It’s beyond our reason. It’s beyond our ability to comprehend and explain. We can say that it’s true. But we can’t explain how. And miracles had witnesses. Mary is of course, the witness to Christ’s birth. But there were many in Judah that knew of the miraculous conception of Elizabeth, that she, in her old age, conceived John. And there were many witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. Peter, the 12, 500 at one time, James, his brother, who thought Jesus was crazy, and then, of course, St. Paul, who was a persecutor of the church. They all confessed that Christ was risen from the dead, that he was born, that the proper time of a woman, a virgin. It happened. 
How, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and reason after that, must shut its door. But we must rejoice in these things. They are great miracles.


For God to work his salvation in Jesus Christ, our Lord. And for there is an indeed a fulfillment of whatever the Lord speaks. That’s what Elizabeth rejoices about. It’s what Mary sings her song about, that if the Lord makes a promise, He does it. And if it takes him doing a miracle, then he’ll do that too. He saved the Israelites from Egypt with 10 miracles. We call them plagues. But the miracle was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In your seed, all families of the earth will be blessed.


The promise was made to Adam and Eve. that The Lord would put a division, enmity between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed. He, the woman’s seed, would crush his head. No, the devil may strike his heel. There was indeed a fulfillment of what was spoken to the blessed Virgin Mary from the Lord. The message from Gabriel was true. that she would conceive, and she did. That she would call his name Jesus. Because he will save his people from their sins. He did. His word was true that Christ’s kingdom would be without end, that he would rule forever. 


A promise of his undying reign. And yet he would die. Simeon told her that, that a sword would pierce through her own soul also, the pain of witnessing her son’s death, a death for her, and for you. 
And Elizabeth’s word should be true too. We should not shy away from calling her the blessed Virgin Mary. Because she is the mother of our Lord. 


And this text also tells us that there is, and there will be a fulfillment of what is spoken to you from the Lord, that Christ indeed accomplished your salvation, that he was born of the Virgin Mary, that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, and that on the 3rd day he rose again, according to the scriptures. And the promise for you is that you too will rise. There will be a fulfillment of what Christ says because I live, you will live also. 


And there still is a fulfillment of what is spoken to you from the Lord. And if it takes a miracle, If it takes some mystery, He’ll do that too. Water and word to make you his beloved child. 


The words of absolution to open the kingdom of heaven to you. Bread and wine, blessed with Christ’s own words, or then he is body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. All these things are true. 


They are miracles. They are mysteries. We can say and confess and believe that they are true, but how the bread and wine are, his body and blood, beyond just the word blessing them, we know not how. 
We have a Lord who seems perfectly capable of taking care of all that. And we rejoice in these mysteries, miracles, things that don’t make sense. And we will praise Christ and his father and the Holy Spirit forever for all of them. 


Worthy is the lamb who was slain is the eternal praise. His death, the death of God himself, is eternal praise and his resurrection as well. We rejoice in the great miracles of God’s salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ, that he was born of the Virgin Mary, that the Son of God suffered for our sins, that God was dead for us, to defeat our own death, that he rose from the dead. 


Blessed is she believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which are told her from the Lord. So also for you. We have not seen them. 


Many have seen them. Christ blesses you also. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. believed in him, and believed in his miracles too. 


᛭ INI ᛭