So, What Does It Mean That Mary Is Blessed?
Good Morning Friends,
My Catholic friends are celebrating the Assumption of Mary today and as far as I can tell it is about the idea of Mary being in God and with God but also, in part, associated with the struggle of the church in the fight against evil as much as it is about Mary being taken up body and soul into heaven. You will not find it in scripture but it is part of the Catholic tradition linked to the idea of Mary’s involvement in Christ being the first fruits. The image is of the painful labor of the birthing of a child overlaid with the opening of the holy of holies. Mary is depicted in the role of the Ark of the New Covenant. And judging from the pain of the last week in the conflict, even within our nation, the birth pangs are coming closer together. For sure the regal image of a woman in scripture and the coming birth of her ruler son is evident. It is not so much the story of the incarnation of God and the Christmas story but more so the enthronement of the resurrected Christ and the hope of the King’s return. So, What Does It Mean That Mary Is Blessed?
Scripture: Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.
A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10a (NRSV)
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him.
1 Corinthians 15:20-27 (NRSV)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.
Luke 1:39-56 (NRSV)
Message: Today for many around the world is a celebration of the blessedness of the mother of our Lord. Now, the precise nature of her raising to glory has been the subject of much theological debate which I am not going to indulge. That would lead us down the road of obsessing about how, rather than honoring and respecting the person of Mary. So, I would like to draw our focus to the mother of Jesus through a song she sang. There is a very familiar line from the Magnificat, the Song of Mary that says, “from this day all generations will call me blessed.” But what does it mean? This requires a little more reflection. So, let’s put it in perspective. The context of our Gospel reading is Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth. Now, Mary’s song of praise begins, not with the Archangel Gabriel’s tidings of divine favor. No. At that point, she is merely obedient and faithful to God’s will. However, when a woman of flesh and blood, like herself, calls her “the mother of my Lord”, the message of the angel assumes a living force of its own. Mary is moved by this force in a way that she cannot help but glorify her Lord! She sings, in Hebrew thought and style, of the all-excelling perfections of God; his power, his holiness, his mercy and his faithfulness. Interestingly, the Magnificat is almost wholly comprises of Old Testament quotations, and there are very clear resonances with Hannah’s Prayer on the birth of Samuel in 1 Samuel chapter 2. It is intriguing that Mary does not utter a single, direct word connecting her with her promised Son, but clearly, the whole hymn is inspired by this truth. She undoubtedly understood that the Messiah would inaugurate a cosmic Jubilee foretold in Isaiah chapter 61. It would be a time of massive political reordering and social reversal. Luke uses the past tense for these revolutionary acts as a prophetic statement of confidence in a perfect future event. Just as we may see the light of dawn emerging before we set our eyes on the morning sun, so many of the future events of the Messianic age had begun to be realized in the very pregnancies of Elizabeth and Mary. Elizabeth refers to Mary as ‘blessed’ three times in just four verses but the meaning is essentially the same as in the beatitudes and means happy. But not a superficial, fluffy happy. It is the religious joy of a person who has a share in divinely-given salvation. And this is the key to understanding Mary’s blessedness and how we might become blessings as well. Certainly, our roles are not so significant. The part of Mary is a vital and indispensable role in God’s plan for the history of the world. Our roles are less dramatic and yet also resonate with the lesson of the Assumption, that is that the whole person, body and soul, participates in the battle of life and the whole person, body and soul, participates in the victory that exists eternally. It is therefore about our hearts united with patience and struggle and joy that joins our lives to the eternity of the triumphant Church including all its members. Here heaven and earth come close, allowing us to experience the gift of community and the body as an instrument of knowledge, an instrument of pleasure, pain, procreation and the vehicle of life that supports the soul. For me this morning as the sun rises, that is the message of the blessedness of Mary.
Pray we celebrate because God has won. Pray we celebrate because life has won. Pray with joy that love has shown Jesus stronger than death. Pray because heaven has the heart of a mother that proclaims the greatness of our Lord. Pray we are never robbed of hope. Pray we believe in the strength of grace as this gift from God carries us forward with our eyes fixed on heaven. Pray our collective body and individual body becomes blessed to be a blessing to others.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 