St. Mary, Mother of our Lord 2021
Luke 1:39-55
August 15, 2021
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
Over the last few years here at Zion, with some exception, whenever a special feast or festival day falls on a Sunday, we have observed it in the Divine Service with the appropriate Scripture readings, prayers, and colors. Part of the reasoning is because your average Lutheran congregation doesn’t really observe these things too often since it isn’t part of our American Lutheran culture to attend church throughout the week when these days typically are observed. But we’ve been doing this to increase the knowledge and understanding of these events and people to highlight the example of their faith, but most importantly of God’s grace given to His Church throughout time and location. These days are according to the historic western church calendar, which can be found in the Lutheran Service Book on pages x-xiii.
Normally an event is observed on its anniversary, and a person is observed on the day of his or her death, their heavenly birthday, as it were. And so it is today in the case of St. Mary, the Mother of God. There is probably no other saint that causes Lutherans, and most Protestants in general, to perk up or have a knee jerk reaction than that of St. Mary, the Mother of our Lord, particularly because the abuses by the Roman Catholic Church.
Luther carefully outlines how we should and should not honor this “Most Blessed Virgin Mother” in some of his devotional writings on Mary’s song, the Magnificat. As Lutherans, we follow suit and want to give her no false attributes or idolatrous devotion. We want to give her no undue honor. But neither should we fall into the trap of many in Protestantism that neglects her faithful example and position, nor depreciate “her unique place in the whole of mankind, among which she has no equal” as the Mother of God, or in the Greek, the Theotokos (Luther, On the Magnificat, AE 21).
St. Mary, the mother of Jesus, the mother of the very Son of God, is mentioned repeatedly in the Gospels and the Book of Acts, with nearly a dozen specific incidents of her life being recorded: her betrothal to Joseph; the annunciation by the angel Gabriel; her visitation to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptizer; the nativity of our Lord; the visits of the shepherds and the Wise Men; the presentation of the infant Jesus in the temple; the flight into Egypt; the Passover visit to Jerusalem when Jesus was with the twelve; the wedding at Cana in Galilee; her presence at the crucifixion, when her Son commended her into the care of His disciple John; and her gathering with the apostles in the Upper Room after the ascension, waiting for the promised Holy Spirit.
So Mary is present at most of the important events in her Son's life. She is especially remembered and honored for her unconditional obedience to the will of God, as we heard about today where she responds to the Word of God and His promise, “Let it be to me according to your Word" [Luke 1:38]; for her loyalty to her Son even when she did not understand Him when He changed water into wine ("Do whatever He tells you" [John 2:1-11]); and above all for the highest honor that God bestowed on her, without any merit or worthiness of her own, of being the mother of our Lord, as the church has always joined in with the angel’s words, "Blessed are you among women" [Luke 1:42]).
So it can be appropriate to call Mary, “the blessed virgin”, and even the “mother of God” both of which are references not as much to her as they are about Jesus. And that’s the real benefit of today. Whatever we say about Mary is meant to draw attention, not so much to her, but to Christ. Our feast for today is similarly Christological in focus.
She died, brought to heaven to await the resurrection of the dead with all the heavenly saints. We reject the Roman Catholic unscriptural dogma of the immaculate conception – that Mary was conceived sinless – or that she somehow acts as a mediator between you and Jesus, or even as some have called her, a co-redemptrix along with Jesus. When we use the Scriptural language and call her “blessed” our attention is not on Mary, but the One who blessed her. Mary herself confesses in the Magnificat her lowliness and how God’s grace given her is undeserved. We make the same confession when we sing her song – that we have a special place in the family of God purely by grace and given direct access to God Himself. Yes, the saints have direct access to God, they have the ear of Jesus. And so do you! You too have been declared a saint, holy and righteous in the sight of God purely for the sake of Jesus, as St. Paul writes to Timothy, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time” (1 Timothy 2:5-6). The special favor that Mary has by being Jesus’ mother is given to you by Jesus becoming your brother in the flesh, by becoming man.
Likewise, then, the confession that Mary is the mother of God is a way of affirming the Incarnation and the two natures of Christ – that Jesus is both fully God and fully man. Our Lutheran Confessions put it this way, in the Formula of Concord in 1578, "He showed His divine majesty even in His mother's womb, because He was born of a virgin, without violating her virginity. Therefore, she is truly the mother of God and yet has remained a virgin." [FC VIII:24]This is what we confess in the Nicene Creed, “Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man…” (Nicene Creed). And again the Athanasian Creed, “He is God begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages; and He is man, born from the substance of His mother in this age; perfect God and perfect man… not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God…” (Athanasian Creed).
But it’s not just God’s blessings and the incarnation that we remember today, it is also the death and resurrection of Mary’s son. Mary, who saw her son die on the cross and was given into the care of the disciple whom Jesus loved, the apostle and evangelist John, also bore witness to His resurrection. And so on a day when remember Mary in light of their death, and how the Lord preserved her unto a blessed death, we cannot the reality of Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead. Jesus is the firstfruits of those who shall rise. Just as with His mother, He gives you into the care of His church, where He feeds and cares for all His people to preserve them in the body and soul to life everlasting. Upon His return, all who believe in Him in this earthly life will be raised bodily.