And Mary Sings

Mary, Mother of Our Lord

(12 Sunday after Pentecost)

Ruskin Heights Lutheran Church

August 15, 2010

St. Luke 1:46-55 (Magnificat)

I don’t like musicals, as a rule.

Well, it is not “as” a rule.

It is a rule.

I do not like musicals.

I never watch Glee.

The Rogers & Hammerstein world wants us to think that perfectly normal, ordinary people are capable of breaking into spontaneous song at the least provocation.

I never break into spontaneous song.

Why should anybody else?

But that is what St. Luke wants us to believe this morning,

this day when we commemorate Mary, The Mother of Our Lord.

What we have for a Gospel report this morning is Mary singing to her aunt Elizabeth, singing the Magnificant, praising God for the Messiah to come through her.

The occasion for this song is in response to what her aunt Elizabeth says to her.

Mary is told the Messiah is to be borne of her, and Mary is of all women most blessed.

Her aunt Elizabeth told her so.

The angel Gabriel previously addressed her as “full of Grace.”

The Lord is with her.

Indeed the Lord is in her.

Grace took up residence inside her, wore her flesh, to be born in blood and water that He might by blood and water make us clean.

And Mary sings.

That Baby is set for the rise and fall of many in Israel

– old Simeon will tell her that

– and this Baby will break His mother’s heart, a sword to pierce her through

– old Simeon will tell her that too.

His little feet will bring Good News from God, but those feet will be pierced and bear scars into eternity.

His little hands

– whose touch shall bring healing, turn water into wine, and multiply the loaves

– shall be bitten by the nail and bestow absolution for us each.

He is God.

And Mary sings.

He is with us, one of us, for us.

And Mary sings.

He shall die, but He shall rise and ascend to lead the way for us into heaven.

He is Emmanuel.

From Mary’s womb.

And Mary sings.

Mary, Virgin Mother of Our Lord is honored by God,

honored above all others.

But it is a strange honor.

She is honored by the shame of pregnancy before wedlock and by the ridicule of her people.

There is a hint of that in St. John's Gospel report.

The Sadducees counter Jesus telling him,

"We have Abraham for our father."

Which is a way of telling Jesus, "You don't know your daddy."

If this was for her Son, what was for her?

For so they persecuted the prophets; for so they shall mock her Son.

A strange honor God gave her.

The kingdom of God is not a kingdom of the world where Herod and Caesar rule.

In God’s kingdom — in a Theology of the Cross — it is suffering and shame that carries the glory and the honor.

The rule is short and sweet and to the point: No cross? No crown.

A reminder: The wisdom of God is foolishness to man.

Thus, Mary, most blessed of women, a peasant girl of a distant royal heritage, is the vessel of the Messiah and is honored through shame.

And the Church — even this church — calls her Theotokos: The Mother of God.

Thus God greatly honors her.

So then must we too honor her.

We honor her for saying “yes” to God, and praise her for it.

God uses Mary, with her weaknesses and her piety, with her shame and her honor, to strengthen our faith.

In her He demonstrates His compassion for us, the lowly.

He used her, shamelessly.

Mark my words, he will use you too.

So we honor Mary by imitating her.

Her faith is also our faith.

A faith which declares the child of Bethlehem is for the salvation of the world.

We cling to the same faith and the same hope, believing as she believed.

Justly so: Her soul magnifies the Lord.

And so it is that by the Grace of God in Christ Jesus,

by that terrible and most wonderful sacrifice,

by the power of His resurrection and His triumph over the grave,

by all that

Mary, Mother of Our Lord,

is most certainly immaculate, pure, and undefiled forever

– not because she give Him birth, but because she heard the Word of God and

– impossible though it was

– she believed that Word.

She is the first believer, Mother of the Church.

And Mary sings.

Her soul rejoices in God her Savior; in God, her Son, her savior.

That’s the way it is with all God’s saints.

Even you.

Ah, shucks.

I guess I need to revise my opinion of St. Luke’s report.

I don’t suppose it is any harder believing Mary broke into song than it is believing what Mary believed.

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