Today's Devotion

Thursday, July 2, 2026 (The Visitation) - Acts 10:34-48

In the name of + Jesus. Amen.

Today, the church remembers how Jesus and John the Baptist first met. It was thirty years before John baptized our Lord, and both were infants in the womb. Their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth – who were relatives – both found themselves miraculously pregnant. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and confessed Jesus as Lord – even while He was in the womb. And John – even while he was in the womb – confessed Jesus as well, by leaping. And Mary was also filled with the Holy Spirit and confessed that the child within her was both God and her Savior (Luke 1:39-56).

When John baptized Jesus, the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove – calling to mind the end of the flood and the restoration of peace with the world after the wrath of God had subsided (Gen 8:6-12).

As the Gospel of Jesus was beginning to spread among the Gentiles, there was still division. Although Jesus had appeared to Peter and removed the restrictions that once separated Jew and Gentile (Acts 10:9-17), the restoration of peace between the peoples of the world under the reign of King Jesus took time to play out, even within the church. And it also took the intervention of that same Holy Spirit.

At his meeting with Cornelius the God-fearing centurion (Acts 10:22) – along with both Jewish Christians and Gentile believers in the Jewish God – Peter proclaimed the Good News and taught who Jesus is. He explained our Lord’s divinity, His resurrection from the dead, and His mission to forgive sins. Peter explains that forgiveness is a gift that one receives by faith: “everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.” And when that forgiveness is applied, God’s wrath subsides, and the Holy Spirit brings peace.

“While Peter was still saying these things,” even before his sermon ended, we see the power of the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus. For “the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the Word.” And even Peter “was amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.” For just as Sts. Mary and Elizabeth spoke holy words when the Holy Spirit came to them, these new Gentile converts to the holy faith received the gift of tongues – the same miraculous ability to speak in other languages that God gave the holy apostles at Pentecost.

“Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” These new Gentiles were baptized and brought into the church, without distinction. And we see the connection between baptism, the Holy Spirit, and the confession of Jesus. As the hymnist confesses: “This is the Spirit’s entry now: the Water and the Word, the cross of Jesus on your brow, the seal both felt and heard” (LSB 591:1).

Amen.

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