“Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” These words of St. Elizabeth spoken to St. Mary, the mother of our Lord, are definitely words worth learning by heart and hanging up in our homes. Indeed, blessed are those who believe the promises which the Lord speaks. Blessed is anyone who believes the Word of the Lord because the Word of the Lord is truth and life and light. Sometimes, like it did for Mary, the word of the Lord is hard to believe – it challenges us, it denies to us the desires of our flesh, it stands in complete opposition to the prevailing wisdom of the world around us. That is why only by the Holy Spirit are we able to believe the Word of the Lord. And it is the Word of the Lord by which the Holy Spirit comes to us to create and strengthen faith. Without the Holy Spirit the Word of God remains veiled to us and our hearts remain hard. Thus our daily prayer should be for the Holy Spirit so that we may believe and confess that “Jesus is Lord”, that Jesus has taken on our flesh in the womb of Mary and offered up that flesh as the sacrifice for our sin. Blessed are all who believe this Word from the Lord which will be proclaimed again this coming Sunday. May the Lord stir up in all our hearts a fervent desire to hear God’s Word and receive His gifts so that we, with Mary, might be called “Blessed”. I look forward to seeing all of you this Sunday.
~Pastor Ulmer
