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sdormition04
The Dormition of
the Blessed Virgin Mary
Text:
Luke 10:38-42; 11:27-28
Date: The Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8/15/04 Skins pour Jedi knight 3
August
15 has been celebrated in the Holy Church throughout the World from
ancient days in honor of Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ,
this being the traditional date of her death or “dormition,” or,
as we say of Christians, her “heavenly birthday.” Though not recorded
in the Bible, it has been the ancient tradition that the most highly
blessed woman who ever lived, died a Christian death and was buried.
The classical icons or pictures depict the Mother of God lying on
her deathbed, in the midst of the Apostles, and Christ in glory
receiving her soul in his arms.
In
the past thirty or so years Lutherans, at least in America, have
“rediscovered” and celebrated August 15 in an evangelical way as
a festival in honor of Saint Mary, Mother of Our Lord. It is only
in preparation for this celebration this year, however that I realized
that I have misrepresented the Roman Catholic teaching regarding
Mary in this respect. I have assumed that, since the Roman Catholic
Church teaches that Mary was sinless, having supposedly been “immaculately
conceived,” she therefore didn't die but was simply “assumed” into
heaven. But the Roman Church has never denied that Mary tasted death.
Rather, that she did, even as her Son, our Lord Jesus, tasted death,
though only his death the atonement for us and for our salvation.
One
other interesting misconception is illustrated in our Entrance Hymn
for today. For if you compare the four-stanza version we sang today
from The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) with the version in our Lutheran
Worship hymnal (1982), you will discover stanza two has been removed.
It appears to me, at least, that the stanza in The Lutheran Hymnal
was uncritically misinterpreted as speaking about Christ addressing
Him as “Thou” capital-B “Bearer of the eternal Word.” Yet Jesus
Christ is not the “bearer” of the eternal Word. He IS the Eternal
Word and Logos, the Son of God. We have inherited this stanza speaking,
rather, about Mary who as the Mother of God is the bearer of the
eternal Word, even then quoting from her Magnificat with the words,
“most gracious, magnify the Lord”! We can still sing this stanza,
however, because it is not as much a “prayer to” saint Mary as it
is a pious or poetic wish as in the Te Deum. In the other stanzas
we address all those who have gone before us and are with the Lord:
first the angels whom we call “watchers and holy ones,” according
to their ranks as seraphs, cherubim, thrones, dominions, princedoms,
powers, virtues, archangels and angel choirs; then Mary; then the
patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs and “all saints triumphant.”
The
traditional Gospel reading is the same that we heard a couple of
weeks ago of Jesus' visit to another Mary and her sister Martha.
With its emphasis on the attentive hearing in faith of the words
of Jesus, we celebrate Saint Mary, Mother of Our Lord, as an example
of faith, as we say in our Lutheran Confessions, “although she is
most worthy of the most ample honors, nevertheless she does not
wish to be made equal to Christ, but rather wishes us to consider
and follow the example of her faith and her humility” [Apology XXI:27].
Today,
then, we consider her faith and humility especially in her Christian
death. It is the Christian's hope, after all, to die peacefully
and not in some horrific accident or disaster. Even more, though,
we wish to die in that holy and certain hope of being carried gently
into the presence of Christ our Lord, unmolested by doubts and fears
and the assaults of the devil.
When
Christians bid farewell to those who die in the Lord, we often use
the words, “Rest in peace,” that is, the prayer that the soul will
enjoy the heavenly refreshment, light and peace that our Lord Jesus
promises to give.
There
is no better picture or finer example of a blessed death than the
peaceful Dormition or falling asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Again the icon or ancient paintings depict her on her deathbed,
surrounded by the Apostles and a host of angels, no glint of pain
or fear on her face, her hands crossed, yet one slightly uplifted
as if she is waiting for someone to help her up. As she waits to
hear her Son say, “Woman, I say to you, arise,” so every Christian
waits to hear the Lord's voice saying, “Well done, good and faithful
servant…. Enter into the joy of your master” [Matthew 25:21 (ESV)].
In such a blessed, Christian death there are no tears, no heartache,
no grief. Faith never asks, “why did this happen.” We know why death
happens. It is but the wages of sin. All have sinned therefore all
die. But as our sin has been atoned for by the Lord of Life on the
bloody Cross and through the now empty tomb of his resurrection,
so we comfort one another with the fact that those who die in the
Lord are with the Lord, and we look confidently for the day of the
resurrection of all flesh and the life of the world to come.
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