Advent Sermon Series on Mary, Part 3

Please see the comment at the beginning of Part 1 of this sermon series above.

Ave Maria, Part 3: Mary, Woman of Sorrows

Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
December 14, 2008

Scripture:
Luke 2:25-35

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

In the first two sermons in this three-part sermon series on Mary of Nazareth I have suggested ways to see Mary that are quite different from the traditional Christian view of her as meek, mild, obedient, and even submissive. I have suggested that we see her as the model of liberated womanhood and as a prophet. There is, however, another way in which the tradition has seen her that I have not yet addressed. In this way of seeing her the tradition has, at least in part, gotten it right. One of the traditional images of Mary is the woman of sorrows. In Latin she’s called the Mater Dolorosa, the Sorrowing Mother. One of the great treasures of western music is Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater,” set to a Latin text on the Mater Dolorosa. One of the great treasures of western art is Michelangelo’s Pieta, an emotionally wrenching sculpture of Mary cradling the lifeless body of her crucified son Jesus in her arms. Mary is in many ways a model of female humanity. Female humanity is of course full humanity, and full humanity includes the experiences of pain, loss, grief, and death. The Biblical image of Mary includes this aspect of Mary’s humanity in all its fullness and all its pain.

Right at the beginning, right after Jesus' birth, Luke’s account of Mary tells us that the fact that God has greatly blessed her and has lifted her up from her lowliness does not mean that she will be spared these human experiences of grief and loss. Luke makes this point by introducing into his story of the beginning of Jesus’ life a man named Simeon. Simeon first recognizes the infant Jesus as the Messiah. Then he addresses Mary. His words are prophetic and appropriately obscure. He says that the child Jesus is “destined for the rising and falling of many in Israel.” and that through Jesus “the inner thoughts of many will be revealed,” whatever that means. Then Simeon says to Mary “and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

The reference is clear. We know that a sword will pierce the body of Jesus, that he will die a violent and unjust death upon a cross. His violent and unjust death will be a sword through Mary’s heart too. At least some of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion have Mary present, watching the state-ordered murder of her son. We can hardly imagine her anguish, her anger, her despair. On the cross Jesus endured the worst that human sin can inflict on another human being, and I think we can be sure that if she could have Mary would gladly have traded places with him. Most mothers would, such is the depth of true motherly love for a child. Mary couldn’t trade places with him, of course, so she stood helplessly by and suffered her own unspeakable pain. Not physical pain but emotional and spiritual pain, and those of us who have experienced real grief know that such emotional pain is every bit as bad as physical pain—or worse.

Mary, so joyous at the Annunciation, is at the crucifixion indeed a woman of sorrows. In her we see the profound truth that God’s blessing in this life does not mean freedom from suffering. We are blessed in many way too, and we suffer too. So we are tempted to ask: If God’s blessing doesn’t mean that we don’t suffer, what good is it to us? Is it really blessing at all? It is a legitimate question, a serious question, a question that deserves a serious answer.

For the Christian, that answer is found in the person of the child whom Mary bore and in that horrible event that ended his earthly life, the event that was a sword the pierced Mary’s heart too, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. In the crucifixion we see what God’s blessing really is.

To see what’s God blessing really is we need to go back to Matthew’s story of the Annunciation. There the angel says to Joseph that the child Mary is carrying shall fulfill an ancient prophecy from Isaiah. The prophecy says that a child shall be born who shall be called Emmanuel. Mary’s child was actually called Jesus of course, but the Christian tradition also calls him Emmanuel. More importantly, we see him as Emmanuel, for the name Emmanuel in Hebrew means “God is with us.” In Jesus Christ, the child Mary bore, we Christians see God with us.

In Jesus Christ we see God with us in his life and in his teachings, but perhaps even more importantly we see God with us in Jesus on the cross. There we see God in the person of Jesus, whom we confess to be the Son of God Incarnate, entering into the worst that human life can offer. We see God entering into physical suffering. We see God entering into the human experience of betrayal and abandonment, the human experience of injustice, and even the human experience of the absence of God. In Jesus we see God entering into all of those profoundly human experiences and sharing them with us. In Jesus we see in the most real way possible God’s promise that none of these things, that nothing in all creation, can separate us from the love of God. In Jesus on the cross we see God standing in unshakable solidarity with all of humanity in everything that happens to us. Paradoxically we see God standing in unshakable solidarity with Jesus as he cries out his despair at the human experience of God-forsakenness when he cries “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!” And we see God standing in unshakable solidarity with Mary as that sword pierces her heart, as she feels her own unfathomable despair, her own inconsolable anguish.

This, after all, is why we remember Mary at all. We remember her precisely because she was the mother of Emmanuel, of God with us. We remember her because through her God came into our world. Through her God came to us as one of us to demonstrate the nature and will of God to us in the fullest measure that we humans are capable of receiving. In early Christian centuries there was a great argument about whether it was appropriate to call Mary “Theotokos,” which means the God Bearer or, more colloquially, the Mother of God. How, you may ask as many of the ancient Christians did, can anyone be the mother of God? Yet in wisdom and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the Christian tradition said yes, that is precisely who Mary is. She is the Mother of God, specifically the Mother of God With Us. Through the son whom she brought into the world we see and know that God is with us always, in everything, especially in our most profoundly human times, our times of pain, sorrow, and grief.

Mary felt all of those things. We will never know if she understood her son the way we understood him. Perhaps as that sword pierced her heart as she watched her son be murdered she didn’t see the full significance of what was happening. It took the Christian tradition centuries to figure out the significance of what was happening. Much of Christianity hasn’t figured it out yet. We know however that in this too, in her experience of grief and pain and loss, she is a model of humanity. Mary was indeed the woman of sorrow. We are all people of sorrow. Through the child whom she brought into the world we know, however, that we are not alone in our sorrow and that Mary was not alone in hers. God was with her. God is with us. For that we give thanks to God. And we give thanks to Mary, through whom the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Good News of God’s unshakable solidarity with all of humanity in everything that happens, came into the world.

So as we approach the blessed day of Jesus’ birth eleven days from today let us remember Jesus, but let us remember also Mary. Our Protestant tradition doesn’t pay much attention to her or give her much honor. Yet when we look at the few Biblical accounts of her with fresh eyes, we see a remarkable woman. We see a strong, liberated, free woman who reaches for the stars and says yes to God. We see a prophet proclaiming God’s word of justice just as other prophets did before her and just as her son would do after her. And we see a fully human woman as much in need of the salvation her son brought as we are. So with the angel we say Ave Maria, Hail Mary. For you and for your gift to us, the gift of the man Jesus, we give you thanks, and we praise God for all that your son means to us and to the world. Amen.