TITLE: “What Are Lutherans Going to Do With Mary?”

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today, Mary, Mother of our Lord, is taken from the book of St. Luke the first chapter, the song of Mary commonly called the Magnificat.

I feel like I should begin this sermon by saying Merry Christmas. We’ll see if it makes sense by the end.

I have found with Lutherans today it is very easy to talk about God. You can talk about the Trinity, Jesus as the Son of God and Son of Mary, the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the means of grace, how God works in the world through His Holy Word, all of these things are pretty commonly recognized and agreed upon in biblical Lutheran circles. But one of the areas that gets people going is when you talk about things like saints. And there is no saint more controversial for Lutherans than Mary, the Mother of God.

I think that the reason for this is really pretty simple. The rank and file Lutheran associates Mary not as the Mother of God, but more like the Pope’s mother. We associate Mary, and anything that has to do with Mary, with the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore anything that has to do with Mary is suspect, if not downright false doctrine.

But there is an underlying problem here. If we are going to be faithful to God’s Word, if we are going to cling to what the Bible teaches and how it expresses the Christian faith which we believe, then we can’t let the Pope have Mary as his mother. Mary plays a more prominent role in Jesus’ life than any other figure, save maybe Jesus’ close ring of disciples (Peter, James and John). She appears in more than a dozen episodes of Jesus’ life. She is one of the figures in Jesus’ life that has kind of a unique place, in that we never hear about Mary without hearing about Jesus and what Jesus does for us. The two always go together. When you are talking about Mary, you are talking about Jesus, for these is no other way in the Bible to speak about Mary.

We can see this most obviously in the song of Mary, the Magnificat. The song begins with the familiar words, My soul doth magnify the Lord. She is praising God, but at that point, it is really not about her at all. Mary’s song tells us about God and what He does for us in our lives. She calls Him Savior, she highlights that God blesses her. He viewed her lowly estate. He shows strength with His arm, He scatters the proud, He lifts us up. The Song of Mary is not about Mary at all! It is all about God and what God does for His children.

Now this, I suspect, is why most Protestants are uncomfortable with Mary. The Lutheran objection regarding the saints in the sixteenth century was that we should not pray to them or expect them to intercede for us, for that is Christ’s work alone. As we read in the Lutheran Confessions:

“Even though Mary is worthy of the highest honors, she does not want to be put on the same level as Christ but to have her example considered and followed.”

That is how Lutherans look at the saints. We are to remember them and their godly example. We are neither to pray to them nor expect them to do favors for us. What that means is that a history Lutheran piety with hold the saints, those Christians who have gone before in the faith, with great honor and in the highest regard. It is quite common, if you were to look at Lutheran churches built up through the 19^th century, to find Saint Luke, Saint Stephen, even an obscure saint like Saint Lawrence has a church named after him in Michigan that is LCMS. Go a little farther outside the circle, and you will find St. Mary Lutheran Churches, including Martin Luther’s own church in Wittenberg.

But by the time you get to the 20^th century, Lutheran piety basically had become just like Methodist or Presbyterian or Protestant churches. To name a church after a saint was pretensions, arrogant, and would somehow be taking something away from God. You will rarely find a Lutheran church dedicated in the 20^th century with the word “Saint” at the beginning of its name.

Now this is the point, dear friends. This is an important point when it comes to the Gospel and how God gives His gifts to us. God bestows His gifts on us sinners. He forgives our sins. He draws us into His holy kingdom in the waters of baptism. He lifts us up and sets us up on His throne as co-regents with Him. All of this is done purely by grace, without any merit or worthiness in us. When we remember Mary and what God did through her, it’s not about Mary. It’s about Jesus. When you remember your grandparents or great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends who have died in the faith and gone before, you are remembering how God brought them into faith, kept them in the faith, and brought them to be with Him in heaven. It isn’t really about them at all, it’s about God’s mercy in giving us, His children, such honor we do not deserve.

What so much of Christian piety today utterly misses is that simple Gospel. It’s not about you and your works, your piety, your acts of love and charity toward your neighbor. It’s about God’s mercy toward you and me and His whole church. In fact, in ancient Christian theology, Mary is often considered a type or picture of the Christian Church. Mary faith, which God gave to her, pointed her toward God’s mercy and love toward a fallen and sin-sick world.

That is God’s love toward you, dear friends. Jesus Christ came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit by the Virgin Mary. He came into our lives, our flesh and blood. And by His perfect life, you now have life in His name. That is the treasure that God gives to you this day. Trust in the Son of Mary for your life, for your hope and your future. For in Him lies all the fullness of the Godhead, and He gives it to you in Water, Word and Meal. Join with Mary and all the hosts of heaven in singing Holy Holy Holy. He will bring you through your trials and tribulations. You have a future, because of the babe of Bethlehem. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.