Intro “The Dormition of the Mary”: What does that even mean? Dormition comes from the Latin word dormio, which means “to sleep.” Yet, what does dormio have to do with today, a day when we remember St. Mary, on a day that commemorates her death? It goes something like this: When someone dies in the faith, we say that he has fallen asleep. We say that because we know on the Last Day, Christ will ‘awaken’ him from the grave, from what we call “the sleep of death.”
Yet, today, we do more than just honor the blessed Virgin. Today, we learn to value all the more what God did through this most-blessed of women. Main Body In our Old Testament reading, we heard Isaiah foretell of God fulfilling His promise to save us. God said: “Instead of your shame you will receive a double honor; and instead of disgrace, you will rejoice in your inheritance” (Isaiah 61:7). Isaiah looked ahead and saw what was to be. Yet, who was that promise made to, that promise of shame, yet double honor? God’s promise of shame, yet double honor, pointed forward to all God’s saints. Yet today, we see how this applies to a particular saint of God: the Virgin Mary. Today, we remember someone marked with shame, but also someone we doubly honor. What, then, was Mary’s shame? It was her out-of-wedlock embarrassment. She was pregnant but was unmarried. She had no visible means of support. That was her shame. Her double honor was what God would bring about through the Son whom she would bear. That is why Mary chanted, “From now on all generations will call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). And today, when we remember Mary, when we doubly honor her, we do so in a way that praises God all the more because of what He did through her. Since the beginning of the New Testament Church, Christians have always had a special place in their hearts for Mary. Yet, this double honor we give to Mary is not some holdover from the early Church that we should have rid ourselves of centuries ago. No, our respect and devotion to Mary grows out of God involving Himself in our salvation through Mary’s Son, Jesus Christ. Our understanding of God is tied to what He did for us through that young Virgin from Nazareth. That’s because God doesn’t show us His true nature apart from Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “The one who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). God didn’t show us His true nature at Mount Sinai with scorching lightning and deafening thunder. He didn’t show us His true nature in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Not even the threats of the Law given through Moses show us God as He wants us to know Him. No, we see God’s true nature in Mary’s womb. For in Mary’s womb, the God of the universe had taken on human flesh! That wasn’t by chance or accident. It was by God’s divine plan. When Jesus took on human flesh in Mary’s womb, it wasn’t something that He had to do. No, He took on human flesh because He wanted to save us! The incarnation shows how God loves us and how He wants to save us. When Christ took on human flesh, He didn’t scoop up the dust of the earth to become human, like He did with Adam during creation. He wasn’t formed the way God formed Adam. Instead, God created a new, sinless, human being--a new Adam--from the sin-infected human race in Mary’s womb. In the womb, Jesus assumes all of humanity into Himself to save all humanity in His flesh. In the Virgin’s womb, God and man unite in a new, permanent reality, the reality of God becoming man. Jesus Christ, stirring in the Virgin’s womb, brings God and fallen humanity into fellowship once more. Becoming human in such a way, God shows that He will bring back into being what the old Adam, the first Adam, had brought to ruin. Today, we recognize that Christ--even at His conception--was God! Even when Jesus was still just a cluster of cells in the womb, He was so filled with God’s essence and qualities that no God existed than the God who was also Mary’s Son! Through Jesus, and because of Him, we can claim the words we heard in our Old Testament reading as our own: “I will find joy in the Lord. My soul will delight in my God. He has clothed me with the garment of salvation. He has wrapped me in the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). So why, then, do we make such a fuss about Mary, when it’s all about Jesus and what He did to save us? This is why. When Mary received the Savior into her womb, she represented every sinful Christian having Jesus indwell within them. Mary said, “May it happen to me according to your Word” (Luke 1:38). When she said that, she represented each fallen person in the world who would have Jesus Christ, Salvation Himself, indwell within them. For our salvation isn’t only because God, in the person of Jesus, died for us. Oh, that’s true, but Jesus didn’t only come to die for us. He also came to live in us. Salvation isn’t only a Jesus for us--it’s also Jesus in us! That’s why the Apostle Peter says that “we become partakers of [Christ’s] divine nature” (1 Peter 1:4). Through the Virgin Mary, God is foreshadowing this indwelling of Christ, this divine union, in every person who will be brought to faith. That’s why Luther could preach: “God pours out Christ, His dear Son, over us and pours Himself into us and draws us into Himself . . . He becomes fully humanified and we become fully deified and everything is altogether one thing: God, Christ, and you” (1526 sermon). Like Mary, every Christian is also a bearer of God within him (Ignatius, Ephesians 9:2). Because Mary received God in her womb, you--a full-bore sinner--now have a claim on God that’s as strong as God’s claim on Jesus. It’s a claim that’s as real as the flesh and blood of Jesus. It’s a claim that’s as real as your own flesh and blood. Even as God claims Jesus as His one-and-only Son, you now claim Him as yours because He is also the human, flesh-and-blood Son of Mary, God incarnate. What does all this mean? It means this. Because of God’s work through Mary, you now have life, true life, eternal life, in Jesus. Through Jesus Christ, Mary’s Son, you have died, but have also been raised from the dead. Through Mary’s Son, God has reconstituted the human race as His own people. It is as the Apostle Paul writes: “For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Basking in the perfect holiness of Christ, when God now sees you, He doesn’t see a rebellious Adam in the throes of a temper tantrum. That rebellious Adam is now gone, killed on the cross of Christ. As God the Father now sees you, your true reality is in the second Adam, Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is your true reality because He took on human flesh in the Virgin’s womb. Just as the first Adam’s sin became your inherited curse, now the sinlessness of Jesus is your inheritance. To God, the first Adam is now dead. He’s dead because you belong to the Son of Mary, Jesus Christ, the second Adam. This Son of Mary, who wears your flesh and blood, stands at the right hand of God the Father for you, interceding for you. Because of Jesus, you are now pure, blameless, and holy. This reality exists for you only because Jesus has flesh and blood--flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary. Only God has the power to save us. But it was when Jesus became fully human in Mary’s womb that He became God for you. Only after Jesus became God for you, could He become God in you, and so be the God who saves you! Can you see now why Christ’s incarnation in the Virgin’s womb was so needed for your salvation? Conclusion That’s why we have this day to remember everything that God did through the Virgin Mary. Today, we celebrate her Son’s unity with sinful humanity. That’s why we joyfully give Mary such double honor on this day. For she was the chosen one who gave the God in her womb human flesh and blood, as we confess, “for us men and for our salvation.” Amen. -- Rich Futrell, Pastor Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Kimberling City, MO Where we are to receive and confess the faith of the Church (in and with the Augsburg Confession): The faith once delivered to the saints, the faith of Christ Jesus, His Word of the Gospel, His full forgiveness of sins, His flesh and blood given and poured out for us, and His gracious gift of life for body, soul, and spirit. ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. 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