Sermon: Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary - 2018

15 August 2018

Text: Luke 1:39-55

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

In our day and age, it has become trendy to honor women: not so much for their achievements, but out of a sense of “virtue signaling.”  For nearly two thousand years, the Christian Church, by contrast, has honored both great men and great women of the faith.  The saints inspire us: not by virtue of their sex or ethnicity, but rather by their faith, their courage, and most of all, by their virtuous confession of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For centuries, today has been the day in which we honor a unique woman: the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of God.  Our Lutheran confessions describe her as “sanctissima” – which is Latin for “most holy.”  Indeed, she herself, filled with the Holy Spirit, revealed the truth that “all generations will call [her] blessed.”

There is a temptation to degrade our Lord’s blessed mother, to point out the fact that she was not a great theologian, not a bishop, nor even a foundress of a community of nuns.  She was not a great queen.  She did not stand up to the emperor.  She was not martyred.  And aside from her motherhood of Jesus, she really didn’t do anything great.

But notice how that last sentence reflects the worldview of our day?  Other than being a mother, what did she do?  Dear friends, we live in a day and age in which being a mother and a wife are denigrated, and considered “not doing anything.”  In our current culture, being “just” a wife, “just” a mother, and “just” a keeper of a home are things to be ashamed of.  How wonderful that the Church stands defiantly countercultural over and against this hateful and evil belittling of the holy vocation of bearing and nurturing new life!  How great and far we have advanced technologically, but how shrunken and disfigured our culture has become morally!

Blessed Mary willingly became pregnant with God.  Knowing the scorn, the scandal, the ways in which her life was to change forever from that moment in which she conceived after being told of God’s plan by the archangel, she nevertheless agreed.  She became the Lord’s handmaiden, and her soul indeed magnified the Lord.  She heard of how she, a poor unmarried (but betrothed) teenager, was to carry the Holy One, and even heard the prophecy that a sword would pierce her heart.

For behold, from then on, her life was not her own.  Her life was to be of service to her Son, the Son of God, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  Her life and breath and blood and tears were offered for the sake of her God and Savior.  Far from seeing this service as a burden, Blessed Mary speaks of Him “who is mighty” who “has done great things” to her, declaring, “holy is His name.”  And far from boasting in herself, she boasts in the Lord who showed her mercy and did great things to her, pointing out that His name, the name of Jesus, is holy.

Holy Mary is holy because Holy Jesus is Holy.  Jesus is Mary’s God and Savior.  He sanctified her womb and her entire life by His presence, and by His death upon the cross.  His blood saves her.  His blood is offered for the sins of the whole world.

We honor the Blessed Virgin Mary not only for what she did – in assenting to carrying her God and her Savior in her womb – but also in who she is: the sacred vessel that held the body and blood of Christ.

We do not find it odd that the sacred vessels used for the body and blood of Christ at our altar are treated with reverence, called holy, and honored for their role in giving to us the benefit of what Jesus did for us at the cross, and so we should not find it odd that we Christians love and honor our Lord’s humble and obedient mother – whose holy calling is much like the communion vessels that bring our Lord to us.

For what did the Blessed Virgin Mary do?  She became the mother of God, the bearer of our Lord Jesus Christ, the protector and nurturer of our Incarnate God and Savior!  She raised Him and loved Him.  She told people to listen to her Son, and to “do whatever He tells you.”  She also watched in submissive agony as her beloved Child was mocked and tortured and put to death before her very eyes.  Indeed, the sword pierced her heart in a kind of martyrdom, a suffering for the kingdom in a way that no other person who has ever lived has experienced.

From the cross, our Lord Jesus gave His mother to the church, commending her to the apostle John.  He did not tell John to worship her or pray to her, but John was given to love her and protect her, to honor her, and to remember her, to call her to mind by name in the Holy Scriptures that he would both write and read.

We do not honor Mary because she is a woman, but we honor the woman Mary because she is great. She is not great because of greatness as the world sees it, but rather because of her obedience in her “humble estate” as a servant.  And we honor Mary by doing what Mary bids us to do: listen to Jesus, and do what He says. 

Listen to Jesus, dear friends!  Listen to His Gospel of forgiveness, life, and salvation, the good news of our redemption by His blood on the cross, through His incarnation in the womb of His sanctissima mater, his holy mother.  Listen to Jesus declare you pardoned and forgiven through Holy Absolution, through the new life given you at your Holy Baptism!

And do what He says, dear friends!  Repent of your sins and believe the Gospel!  Take His body and drink His blood!  Be His disciple as one who is baptized, and listen to the teaching and preaching of those whom He called into the Holy Office!

The Holy Spirit not only filled the Blessed Virgin Mary and caused her to speak the words of our Gospel, but He also fills you with the same rejoicing to have Christ in you: your God and your Savior, whom you confess and trust and worship and listen to and obey!  Fill your own speech with His words!

As St. Elizabeth says, also filled with the Holy Spirit: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” and as our Lord says, “Blessed are they who hear the Word of God, and keep it.”  With all generations, we say, “Blessed is Mary.”  And we also confess that blessed are we, dear friends, blessed by our God and Savior, not to signal our politically-correct virtue, but to acknowledge the true, manly virtue of Christ: Son of God and Son of Mary, whose name we bless, and by whom we are blessed, forever and ever.  Amen.

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