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Sermon for the Festival of St. Mary, Theotokos
Galatians 4:4-7 + Luke 1:41-50
This is the first time we’ve ever celebrated a festival of St. Mary, at least, a festival on August 15th. We do have Mary’s Visitation on July 2nd, and that we’ve celebrated before. In fact, the Gospel we’re using today is just a shortened version of the Gospel for that day. August 15th has been observed for centuries as the Dormition of Mary, that is, the day when she “fell asleep” in the Lord. Or, it’s called the Assumption of Mary or the Ascension of Mary, either because her soul was taken up to heaven, as are the souls of all believers when they die, or based on a legend that her body, too, was taken up to heaven when she died. That’s the official doctrinal position of the Roman Catholic Church.
Luther celebrated this day, as did some Lutheran churches in the 16th century, although Luther made it clear that we don’t know anything about Mary’s body being taken up to heaven; it isn’t an article of faith. And the Gospel for that day was the Gospel of the sisters Mary and Martha when Jesus came to their house, so that’s what Luther preached on. Still, not all Lutherans continued the observance. Already in the early 1600’s Johann Gerhard, the great Lutheran theologian, didn’t include this festival among his festival sermons. And our 1941 hymnal, TLH, although it includes festivals for all the apostles and even for Mary Magdalene, didn’t include one for Mary, except for the Visitation.
That’s an understandable omission, not only because the “assumption of Mary” is based on legend, and Lutherans refuse to make anything an article of faith that isn’t taught in Holy Scripture, but also because, of all the saints, Mary is the one who has been most abused in the history of the Church. She has been worshiped. She has been prayed to. She has been feared, loved, and trusted in as much as God, and often times more than God. She is falsely claimed to have been “immaculate” from the time she was conceived, unspotted by sin. She’s referred to in Roman circles as co-redemptrix, that is co-redeemer, our “redeemer together with Christ.” And then there are the phony or demonic apparitions of her, like the Virgin of Guadalupe, who reportedly told Juan Diego to go build a shrine in her honor, saying, “Am I not here, who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the fountain of your joy?”—a statement that is not only false, but robs God of His proper glory and honor. Modern Catholics still write things like this: “She stands on the threshold of divinity…The Virgin has always been honoured by a supereminent worship…Hence Mary is queen of the human race, queen of heaven, and is to be venerated by all. The title of Mother of God makes Mary all powerful with her Son.” In other words, Mary has been turned into an idol, a false god, by millions of deluded Christians over the centuries.
Given all this superstition and idolatry throughout Church history, it isn’t that surprising that Lutherans have often chosen not to celebrate a festival of Mary on August 15th. The last thing we want is to participate in the idolatry of Mary, the worship of Mary, the superstitions about Mary, or the praying to Mary that is all still so common in the world. And yet, we don’t want to jump to the opposite extreme that many Protestant churches do, which is to ignore Mary, diminish her proper place in God’s plan of salvation, or even dishonor her. Once in a while, it’s good for us to remember, as Lutherans, that we still should and do hold her in high regard, and that we do, in fact, embrace the title by which she has come to be known, Theotokos, the God-bearer, or the Mother of God.
We turn to the Gospel. Elizabeth was about six months pregnant with John the Baptist, and Mary had just recently become pregnant with Jesus after the angel Gabriel made that blessed annunciation to her that she would give birth to the Son of God. Mary went down from Nazareth to Judea to visit her pregnant-but-elderly relative, and as soon as she greeted Elizabeth, the baby leaped in Elizabeth’s womb. Now, 24-week-old babies kick and jump and squirm in their mother’s belly all the time. But this time was different. We’re told that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and so was able to know and to communicate accurately the reason for her baby’s jumping. As she says, As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy in my womb.
That makes sense that tiny baby John would react this way, because, if you recall, the angel Gabriel foretold this about John: He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. So John and his mother Elizabeth were prompted by the Holy Spirit to recognize and to rejoice in the God who had taken on human flesh in the womb of the virgin who was standing on their doorstep.
Elizabeth said to Mary, Blessed are you among women. “Blessed” here means “praised” or “praiseworthy,” worthy to be spoken well of. It’s where we get our word “eulogy” from. You are “to be eulogized” among women. Why? Because of her faith, in that she believed the word of the Lord, even the impossible word that was spoken to her that she, though a virgin, would conceive the Son of God in her womb. And because of her humble submission to the will of God, that she accepted this divinely given role meekly, humbly, and obediently, as she responded to the angel Gabriel, Behold, I am the Lord’s maidservant! Let it be to me according to your word.
And blessed is the fruit of your womb! The fruit of your womb is to be eulogized. Why? Because He is God! But also because He is the God who took on human flesh for the one and only purpose of saving human beings from sin, death, and the devil. As we heard in the Epistle, when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
And how am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?, Elizabeth asked. Notice, she says, the mother of my Lord. Which is no different than saying the mother of my God. “Mother of God” is a fitting description of Mary. Not that she is the source of the Holy Trinity, or the one who begot the Son of God in eternity. But she is the human source of the human flesh of the Son of God, who is truly God, truly divine, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Theotokos, the God-bearer, or the Mother of God is a title that is entirely correct. It’s a title that’s meant to confess the true divinity of Jesus, not any sort of divinity of Mary.
But it is a title that has been abused throughout history to give greater glory to Mary than she or God ever wanted her to be given. We see that clearly in her own words, in the song that we know as the Magnificat.
My soul magnifies the Lord. To magnify is to “make great,” to proclaim as great, to “increase the magnification” on someone or something so that we can see it better and see just how awesome it truly is. We learn from Mary to magnify, not ourselves, not our works, not her, not any other human being, but to magnify the Lord. We have to be careful not to fall into that trap of magnifying anyone or anything, including ourselves, to a position of such greatness, to think too highly of ourselves and what we can achieve and what we can do and how important we are. Let’s learn from Mary to magnify the Lord, and Him alone.
My spirit rejoices in God my Savior. What made Mary’s spirit glad? “God her Savior.” Only sinners need a Savior from sin. Mary was sinful like the rest of us, but through faith in God her Savior, her sins were forgiven, and she rejoiced. Through her, we also learn to acknowledge our need for a Savior, and we learn to rejoice in God for the salvation He has provided by the fruit of Mary’s womb.
For he has regarded the lowliness of his maidservant. Mary was nobody, living up there in Nazareth. She had no fame, no wealth, no importance. But God likes to regard the unimportant things of this world, to look upon the lowly to raise them up, in order to shame the wise. God certainly raised up Mary to an honored place in history, and from her we learn, not only to acknowledge our own lowliness, but to take comfort in the Lord’s mercy toward lowly people like us, to bask in His blessed condescension, in His desire to regard us in our lowliness and care for us as if we were the most important people in the world.
For, behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. And so we do. We call her the “blessed virgin.” She was given a special place in God’s plan of salvation, not a divine place, and not a place that she keeps, either, as if Jesus still listens to her as His mother, or as if she sits as queen of heaven. She fulfilled a servant-role and was raised up, not to royalty, not to divinity. But to blessedness. Happiness. Like all the saints, like all believers. But unlike most believers, Mary and her confession of faith are actually known to all believers in Christ, and so we can all acknowledge her blessedness, whereas our own blessedness is much more hidden, known only to us and to those who can hear or learn about our confession of faith.
For he who is mighty has done great things to me, and holy is his name. Yes, God is the mighty one, not Mary. Her intercession is no more powerful or valuable than that of any child of God. And it’s God’s name that’s truly holy. We say “Saint” Mary, that is, holy Mary, just as we say “Saint” Paul or “Saint” anyone. But we know that our sainthood, the sainthood of believers, is only by imputation, by faith in the holy Lord Jesus. Only God is holy by nature.
And his mercy is on those who fear him, from generation to generation. Yes, God is merciful to all in giving sunshine and rain and harvest and beauty and daily care and rescue from so many dangers. But all of that He does in order to bring us to rely on Him for mercy before His judgment, to acknowledge the sinfulness and neediness of our soul and to approach Him who is merciful for the sake of Christ Jesus. For those who do, there is special mercy for His children, “for those who fear Him,” special care, special love, special faithfulness. And not just for a little while, but from generation to generation, for us and for our children, forever and ever, for all who fear Him.
The Magnificat doesn’t end there, but our Gospel for today does, maybe so that we can end on that very note of God’s mercy, toward Mary and toward us who fear Him. That’s what she was focused on, and if we would honor her rightly, then that will be our focus, too, the mercy of God in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary, who became the Mother of God and, not the mother, but the blessed sister of all who believe in her Son. Let us give thanks to God today for our sister Mary, both for her faith and for her example. May God help us to imitate them both. Amen.
