Most of the time Lutherans don’t think all that much about Mary. In fact, some Lutherans don’t think much of Mary at all. It is as if she is some bit player in a big drama, like the character actor whose face we know but whose name we do not. It does not help that Mary is largely quiet – except of course for the song that erupts from her lips in her visit to her cousin Elizabeth. She is overshadowed by sudden appearance of an angel announcing that she has found favor in the sight of God and would become the mother of His Son and about all she can muster is a question “how” and her consent “let it be to me as you have said.” Her silence, however, betrays her great strength. At the first miracle in Cana of Galilee when Jesus changes water into wine, Mary is there. When all the disciples left Jesus alone at the cross, Mary is there. In the Upper Room awaiting the promised Spirit from on high, Mary is there.
You do not get a choice as to whether or not to honor her. God has honored her. So then, if you are of God, YOU must honor her too. You do not have the luxury of ignoring her or dismissing her or forgetting her or looking down at her because you think some have looked too highly at her. The excess of some in devotion to Mary do not justify none. Listen to the Lord and honor her. She is the chosen maiden of the Lord to fulfill the promise of Isaiah, “a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” She is the one whom God has declared the virtuous woman of faith and on whom His favor rests. She is the “full of grace” whom all generations shall call the “Blessed.” The honor we give her does not elevate her higher than God has – for that cannot be done – but to follow her example of faith, to echo her praise of God’s mercy, and to stick with Jesus when all others may fall away.
The Angel Gabriel addresses her as “Full of Grace.” This is not a description of her achievement but the declaration of the Lord. She is literally full of grace for the Lord is not simply with her in spirit but IN her, in her womb. The Lord has taken up residence in her, taking flesh and blood from her, so that He might take residence in us by baptism and deliver to us the rich gifts of salvation He won by the suffering of His flesh and the shedding of His blood. In Blessed Mary is fulfilled the promise once given to Adam and Eve of the Son of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent. In Blessed Mary is fulfilled the promise given to Abraham and Sarah of one who would deliver to them many descendants. In Blessed Mary is the promise given to Isaac in the Lamb who would not escape the sacrificial suffering and death of the altar of the cross.
The twin attributes of God are that He is gracious and merciful. Blessed Mary knew that grace as the Son growing in her womb, the one to whom John jumped to honor and would baptize into the public ministry of His redemption. Blessed Mary is full of this grace and is no footnote in history but a central figure in the story of God’s redemption. But she does not seek any glory except the glory of her Son and His glory is mercy. That is why she is such a good example.
We see this mercy in the visit to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Zechariah are old and without any prospect of a child and yet Elizabeth has her womb filled with the one whose voice would announce the mercy of God. So here, in the unlikely womb of an aged woman long past childbearing and in the womb of a Virgin on whom the favor of God rested, the story of God’s mercy is no longer to be about words but about the flesh and blood of His Son who is come into the world to accomplish salvation for a people who can do nothing to help themselves.
You do not hear the condemnation of the Law every Sunday or confess your sins every Sunday because God is angry but because He is merciful. We hear the Law and are convicted by it and we admit our complicity and guilt because we know what God’s response to our shame is. He is merciful. To know the mercy of God we come admitting we are the guilty sinners who deserve nothing of God’s kindness and all of His wrath. But God has chosen not to be angry and not to deal with us as we deserve. He has visited us with His mercy – mercy not in the form of a shrug of His shoulders to wish away our sin and its death but with the sacrifice of His one and only Son into what should have been our death so that He might raise us up to His life.
This is what drives Blessed Mary – the grace and mercy of God. Would that it was what drove us as well. Instead we find ourselves constantly distracted by the joys and sorrows, tests and troubles, peaks and valleys of the world. When fear threatens, we shrink into despair. When dreams become disappointments, we hang our heads in sorrow. When happiness eludes us, we find ourselves angry and bitter. We are not driven by grace and mercy but by every wind of change and chance that this world and this life bestows. We give up our place in the Lord’s house to do what we love better and then when life hands us tribulation, we rush back into the sanctuary to accuse God of not doing His job. We do not willingly bear the cost of discipleship or bear our crosses without complaint. Blessed Mary has much to teach us here and we have much to learn from her.
My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away. He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.
The song of Blessed Mary that rises from her lips is the melody of faith. Pregnant and unmarried, she has a story no one would believe then or now. Her heart will break in the heartache of watching Her Son’s death as a criminal on a cross. But she refuses to be consumed by it all and instead turns her attention to God’s undeserved kindness and generosity in sparing her the just punishments of her sin and delivering her from hell’s torture and raising her to know face to face the unimaginable joys of heaven. And in this, she is our teacher and instructor in what it means to believe, to trust, and rejoice in God our Savior. Let us learn from her how to believe, how to sing, how to pray, how to serve.
Friends, we are wimps. We are sure that no age has faced such threats and no people have known such trouble as we have known. C. S. Lewis was asked once how one can live in an atomic age with its threat of destruction. His words bear repeating: “In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, let us not exaggerate the novelty of our situation. This is the echo of Blessed Mary’s faith. Do not fixate on what is wrong. Trust in the grace of God that has declared you forgiven and the mercy of God which has delivered you from death and hell and marked you for eternity in heaven. That is Blessed Mary’s legacy to us. Will we follow? Amen
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