Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

From the Old Testament of the Day: Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, And instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. [Isaiah 61.7]

From the Epistle: But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born^[a] of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. [Galatians 4.4-5]

From the Holy Gospel: And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. [Luke 1.47-48]

Today, on this 13^th Sunday after Trinity, we observe the Feast of the Dormition of St. Mary, Mother of God, which occurs on the 15^th of August on the historic Western Church Calendar. The term "dormition" comes from early Eastern Greek sources, meaning "the falling asleep." In English, the term "dormitory" comes from this same Greek root.

As with every other saint’s day, this one occurs marking the day of the death of the saint. This is quite different from the way in which we mark civil and national noteworthy person, where we use the birthdate for occasion. Why would the Church be different? Why mark the death of important persons for the Church? And, don’t we celebrate Jesus on the day of His birth?

Well, we celebrate, in the liturgical sense of the word, the coming, the birth, the infancy, the pre-adolescence, the baptism, the adulthood, the death, the burial, resurrection, ascension and return of Jesus. He is clearly a special case and the center of the Christian faith. But, consider this: on which of those days of celebration are you saved? The answer is: you are saved on day of the death of Jesus – Good Friday, we call it. So, perhaps the Church has given us a helpful pattern, as we give thanks to God for the life of a saint on the day of the death of that saint.

Today, we give thanks for St. Mary, the Mother of God and give thought to this important term, also from the Greek, that describes Mary’s importance: "The Theotokos."

I.

In the Old Testament of the Day, you hear God’s promise of surprises when it comes to the salvation of the world. Through the prophet Isaiah, God says to you: "Instead of your shame, you shall have double honor, and instead of confusion, they shall rejoice in their portion."

Isaiah speaks of what he sees, given the inspiration and insight of the Holy Ghost. He looks forward and sees what lies ahead. To him, it all seen as the "Last Day of this world and the beginning of the next." As it unfolds, the Last Day is a Last Era, beginning with Christ’s incarnation and wrapping up with His return on what we now call the Last Day."

Speaking for God, Isaiah proclaims "Instead of your shame, you shall receive double portion." Well, to whom is that promise made? It is made to every person in Isaiah’s view of the Last Day, every person in God’s salvation plan. And the first of these is young Mary.

Well, in the case of Mary, what is it that is your shame, a shame that, according to the promise of Isaiah’s vision, will be changed into double honor? It is Mary’s pregnancy that is her shame. She is with child, but without a human husband, with out the bands of matrimony, and with out visible means of support. That is her shame.

Her shame is that her betrothed husband wouldn’t understand – and he didn’t. It is that her parents and family wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t bring shame upon their household by bringing her back. Who would understand? The answer to that question takes her to the home of Elizabeth and Zecharias. Why here? Because the angel Gabriel, who brought her the news that she would bear the Savior of the world, also told her that her relative, Elizabeth, after a life of barrenness, is going to have a son. Yes, go to Elizabeth, Elizabeth would understand, wouldn’t she?

II.

And indeed, Elizabeth does understand, at least somewhat, at least enough to welcome Mary into her home for three months! "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord."

Elizabeth understands, and Mary has a haven for herself and for her unique, truly unbelievable condition. Later, her betrothed would re-think his decision to break off their betrothed status, but only after he gets a proverbial kick in the back-side from the angel: Hey, Joseph, you son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what is conceived in her, indeed, as she told you, as you didn’t believe, is by the Holy Ghost! And, HE is the Savior of the world, promised by God – to which Joseph undoubted responded: Oh! Oops! Okay, God! – or words to that effect.

And at that time, three months after Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s home, Joseph gets Mary, to whom he is still betrothed, but to whom he is not yet formally married, and he takes her into his home, living -- as is so common today – as husband and wife without the benefit of marriage, which makes their unborn child out to be illegimate, an out-of-wedlock child. And that is her shame! But not to her and not to her betrothed, for the both now understand. God will take her shame and make it into her glory, her double-glory, her beyond-human level glory, indeed, beyond human understanding glory, for she is bearing not just a human being, but also God Himself, technically God-the-Son-Himself. And show she is called, a rightly so, the Mother of God, Theotokos!

III.

Down through the centuries of the Church’s life, Mary as Theotokos has been troubling, with many wanting to be Christians but at the same time to have nothing of this Mother-of-God business. That is the way I was raised; many of you probably were also.

Imagine my amazement, my shock to listen to the words we confess as Christians, and especially to the church councils in Nicaea, where Christianity was clearly delineated from Arianism and other religions that would deny, in some way or other, that Jesus is both fully human and yet also full divine – completely man and completely God. In short, that Mary bears a human who is God, or therefore that Mary bears God in her womb who is also human.

The Church, through the centuries, gives us the language to express what God has revealed, and in this case, the language is quite simple to say and to believe, if not to fully understand: Mary is the Mother (confessing her child to be human), Mary is the Mother of God (confessing her child to be God). Here’s the shocker: to deny this language is to deny Christianity; it is to deny God’s Word; it is to take away the true nature of salvation Jesus as God and Man.

So, we say, "Mary is the Mother of God." Anything else that may been said of her through the ages may be quite unscriptural, but this truth remains, for your salvation: Mary is the Mother of God!" And so, her Son is the Savior of the world.

Her son is your Savior. He is your gift from God. He is your substitute before God’s judgment. He is your advocate in times of need. He is your forgiveness and your growth in grace and your perfection by faith and your full redemption upon His return. He is it all as God-Man. And so St. Paul guides us to say, "God sent forth His Son, born of a woman," the God-Man, for you!