First Sunday of Advent November 28, 2010 “Mary's Story” Reverend Michael D. Powell Luke 1:26-31

The holiday season is officially upon us. “Black Friday” is widely considered a day of good tidings and great joy, a time of incredible sales and money saving bargains. It’s easy to get caught up in the thrill of the bargain and forget the reason for the season, so the church sets aside the thirty days of Advent to remind us. Advent is a time of expectation and preparation for the birth of the Christ child.

This morning I want to focus on Mary, the mother of Jesus. It’s hard to tell Mary’s story because there is only one scripture that mentions Mary by name after the resurrection of Jesus. So, in order to say much about her, we have to look to the legends and traditions of the church and we, as Protestants, aren’t very educated in those stories. The Protestant Reformation threw out all but a few biblical references to Mary, considering them just so much dirty bathwater. But two thirds of the Christians in the world, 1.3 billion people, including the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox traditions, have a rich tradition of symbols, icons, literature and legends concerning Mary, and it’s those stories I share with you this morning. (1)

Mary’s death is celebrated on August 15^th. Roman Catholics call it The Feast of the Assumption. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition it’s the Feast of Dormition, the Latin word for sleep, which is a euphemism for death. Both Catholics and the Orthodox believe that after Mary’s death she was taken up into heaven to be reunited with her son, Jesus. They tell the story in slightly different ways, however.

Roman Catholics believe Mary died and was immediately taken into heaven. They cite the Old Testament stories of Enoch and Elijah, both of whom were considered special vessels of revelation, and were taken up into heaven by God. This might seem a little far-fetched to more literal minded Protestants, but two thirds of the Christians in the world honor Mary as a divine vessel, as the one whom God chose to give birth to the Christ child, to nurse at her breast, to nurture, fret over and love in the most intimate way humanly possible. There’s a whole lot my literal mind will never understand, and who am I to say how God chooses to honor such a sacred vessel?

But now it gets interesting. The Orthodox have a different way of telling the story. According to their traditions Mary was not taken up into heaven until three days after her death. And in this story the Angel Gabriel comes to Mary before she is to die and announces that she is about to be reunited with her son in heaven. Gabriel looks exactly like he did fifty years before. He hasn’t aged a bit since coming to Mary when she was just a fourteen year old girl. But Mary is now 64 years old, and she has one request, that she be with all the apostles one last time. The apostles have scattered to the far ends of the earth, spreading the gospel, but they are all, including Paul, mystically transported back and gather around Mary’s deathbed. There are many depictions of this in classical art, here’s one:

In the Orthodox tradition there is one apostle who is absent. You guessed it, Thomas is not there. He arrives three days late and wants to see the body of Mary. They take him to the tomb and he goes inside, but the tomb is empty and all that is left behind is her burial shroud.

After her death Mary is laid in a tomb, and here again the traditions differ. It can get a little confusing. When Anni and I went to the Holy Land we visited Ephesus, which is on the West Coast of Turkey, and the tour guides showed us the tomb of Mary. They cite the story from John 19:26-27 in which, from the cross, Jesus commends his mother to the Apostle John’s care. Orthodox tradition is that John spent the rest of his life ministering to the church in Ephesus, and Mary lived there also. About a hundred years ago archeologists excavated the house they claim Mary lived in. There’s now a very beautiful little chapel built on that spot and you can go inside and pray.

But, most Christians point to Jerusalem as the location of Mary’s death, and even in Jerusalem there are two candidates for the location of her tomb. The primary place is in the Kidron Valley, just a short walk from the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. You go down a short path, and then down forty seven steps into a kind of cave, where there is, to my mind, a typically gaudy little chapel. This is the tomb Thomas would have visited and found the discarded shroud of Mary.

Whether or not you believe that Mary was a virgin who was assumed bodily into heaven isn’t the point this morning. I want to focus on Mary’s faith. The holidays are hard for many people, especially those who have lost loved ones. We can learn from Mary’s faith.

In what I thought was an incredibly bold move, Adam Hamilton actually taped an interview with a woman who had lost her son in a tragic accident, and played the video for his congregation during worship. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. It’s one of the most profound experiences of grief imaginable. The woman talked about her suffering, and said she didn’t know how she’d ever have made it without her faith and her church family. She said she looks at death and heaven differently now. “I know he’s in a better place,” she said, “and it offers me such comfort to know that I’ll be reunited with him one day.” Then she used a phrase that I find incredibly powerful. She said that her grief had been “tempered by time, seasoned by hope.” For those of us who have not experienced that kind of grief these words might almost seem cliché, but the belief that death is not the end became an absolutely essential part of this woman’s faith. Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 4:13 say it all. The church at Thessalonica was aging. Some of their charter members were dying, and Paul writes these words to address their grief: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope . . .” He is preaching hope, and faith that death is not the end.

Mary had that kind of hope, that kind of faith. She would have been 46 years old when Jesus was crucified. Tradition tells us she lived until she was 64. How did she endure those 18 years? What do you think she thought about? How do you think she spent her days?

I think I know, and I believe the answer to that question has profound implications for every one of us. I mentioned that there was only one passage of scripture that mentioned Mary by name after the resurrection. That scripture is in the first chapter of Acts. The Apostle Luke tells about the last appearance of Jesus before his ascension into heaven, and about how the apostles then returned to that same upper room where they had shared the last supper with Jesus. He writes, and I quote: “All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus . . .” That’s the last time Mary is mentioned by name. She was with the apostles. So what did she do with the last eighteen years of her life?

None of the traditions give us any details, but I believe she spent her remaining time on earth doing exactly what Jesus has instructed all of us to do. She was part of a body of believers, and we know what they were doing. There were gathering in small groups, breaking bread together, witnessing to their faith, and they were reaching out to love and touch others in Christ’s name, searching out the lost sheep, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, binding up the broken, comforting the afflicted, healing the sick and visiting the imprisoned. Mary’s faith, hope and love not only comforted her during her hour of loss, but also empowered her to reach out to the world with the hands of her son, and be in ministry to all the world. As we enter this season of Advent, I give thanks for Mary’s story. Her entire life is a model for us.

Thank God for the promise of Advent. May we take the light of Christ out into the world, and share the healing word of God’s redeeming, reconciling love. Amen.

(1) In 2008 Adam Hamilton preached a series of sermons at The Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, entitled, “Not a Silent Night.” I am indebted to Rev. Hamilton’s scholarship for much of the material I share this morning about Mary’s story.