Good Morning Friends,
There is no doubt that our faith is caught up in Holy History but so too in our personal history as the Holy Spirit reveals the presence of God active in both. To exclude either one I think is a mistake for they are in a dance as our lives play out. The amazing thing is that what we count has part of Holy History can make a difference in our personal experience of God. And this point I think comes together in a powerful way in how we view the life of Mary and the power of women. My Catholic friends are today contemplating the depth of this personal relationship between Jesus and Mary but also perhaps contemplating the roles of women in society as well. And so, this morning I am considering how much of my experience spills over into what I currently consider Holy History as it relates to Mary and the role of women in a more global sense. And so, I start with admitting that God is in history and is revealed in history, but that God is more than the sum of history. Regardless, I am of the mind that what we count as Holy History is important even though God will always be more than our abstract thoughts and imaginations alone. So today we consider the Assumption of Mary and ask, How Is God Being Revealed In Our Lives Today?
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, 10ab (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 Catholics are celebrating the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And since it was a man’s world when Jesus walked the earth and still is in most of the world’s culture as well as in the Catholic Church today, it seems to me to be a good thing to consider given the importance of women rights on the global stage. My understanding is that this Catholic Holy Day began in 1950 around the time of growing women’s rights and was added then as part of Catholic dogma to commemorate the death of Mary and her assumption into Heaven, as a foretaste of our own bodily resurrection at the end of time. Now some believe that she did not die at all, for our death does not really count for much. But the thing is that today people around the world are contemplating Mary in heaven and so perhaps we should not ignore this reality. And though the bulk of the story comes from the Apocrypha in the book of Sirach and is not in Protestant Bibles, which you can research on your own, I have included scripture of more universal Canon and God can reveal to you in that what is important. I will say that the extra Biblical text from Sirach is a kind of wisdom literature that puts Mary in the position of personified Wisdom and the origins seem to be Coptic in origin. The bottom line is that for practicing Catholics, today is a Holy Day of Obligation, which I figure means it is considered very important dogma. Still, even for those not from this tradition it is worth understanding this belief, for it has been around since the 4th century and might just help us to better understand the work of the Holy Spirit not just in Holy Biblical History but in our own personal journey of faith, especially since the work of the Holy Spirit was so prevalent in the life of Mary. You see, the Holy Spirit is manifested in many ways including the life of people who inspire us to engage in a work that glorifies God. And let’s face this reality. Mary inspires a lot of people. Of course, we can experience the revelation of the Holy Spirit through people both living and dead, but there is more. Creation itself expresses the personal power and creative intelligence of God in nature especially through the grace of our existence. But we also experience the Holy Spirit through our own conscience, revealing to us that God must be righteous. So too the Canon of Scripture reveals to us through the Holy Spirit hundreds of fulfilled prophecies and amazing internal unity and amazing scientific accuracy (though the Bible, I think, was not specifically written as a book of science). Regardless the Bible does demonstrate great foresight corroborated by extra biblical historical sources. But I think the most important way God is revealed is not in Canon but in the person of Christ. And if this is true then it follows, we might just have something to learn from his mother. Here is the point. How we view history makes a difference in how we live and how we react to Holy History being played out in our lives.
And So, friends, what God reveals to you may be very different from what God has revealed to me. Still, realizing the importance and sufficiency of Scripture and the reality that not all things that are true are in scripture, dogma plays an important role in bringing what is an external history into what becomes an internal history. Here, what we count as information and data is “-eds” but transformation is an “-ing,” knowing, believing, feeling…belonging. Martin Buber put it this way. In external history, all relationships are between the “I” and an “it” but in our internal history all relationships are between the “I” and the “Thou.” What we count as part of the story of the Christian life reveals though the Holy Spirit what “We” see can from our limited points of view at the crossroads of history and faith in our relationships with others. How and what we see changes us. What we imagine as true makes a difference. So, as we contemplate the fear of a young girl about to bear the child who would bear the sins of the world and the anticipation, heartache, joy and struggle of bringing such a new life into a harsh world, we should also contemplate our own willingness and openness to be vulnerable to God’s purposes. For when we do, God reveals new things. Friends, from the simple faithfulness of a young woman we learn the importance of faith and the joys and sorrows of saying yes to God. There is merit in seeing God through the eyes of the Mother of Jesus, if only so we might begin to better see God through our own history.
Pray we are drawn into the Spirit of God’s will.
Pray we celebrate because God has won. Pray we celebrate because life has won.
Pray
we do what we need to do despite the difficulties of life. Pray we are focused on encouraging others when the Spirit is inspiring them. Pray we say “yes” to God and overcome the challenges and suffering of life by belonging and believing. Pray we appreciate the model and character of Mary and the hope that we might be reflecting her wisdom in our lives and relationships. Pray we accept the offer of salvation and everlasting life growing in the revelation of the Holy Spirit connected to the will of God. 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 bodies become blessed to be a blessing to others.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 