THOUGHTS OF A NUN

Dormition

8-15-07

Gen 28:10-17, Gal 3:26 4:5, Lk 1:39-56

Blessed are you among women” We heard from Mr. Jack Phillips Sat. that the meaning of the root of this word Blessed, in Hebrew, is-walking.  It is not standing still or sitting but implies activity. It has come to mean happy also and if you think about it you can see that walking –going forward implies a certain kind of happiness.

 Too often in the past we heard that Mary’s great deed lay in her virgin motherhood rather than that she heard the word of God and accepted it in pure faith. She was open to hearing the word of God and keeping it as Jesus described when his mother, and brethren came looking for him (Lk 8:21.) Her blessedness came from hearing and keeping or obeying the word. The first words she heard were the Hebrew law, the next were the mysterious words of the angel Gabriel, and the third were the words of her Son. Hearing and obeying were Mary’s going forward throughout her life. Her Falling asleep was also a going forward. 

Today’s feast is the Falling Asleep of Mary. This icon shows us the moment of her passing into the next world. If you look at some icons of the Dormition two things stand out. The lower part shows us the great sorrow on the part of the disciples on their loss. The upper part the great joy of the heavenly spirits on Mary’s entering the heavenly realms. Christ is holding what looks like a small child in swaddling clothes, which is a symbol of Mary’s spirit that has been assumed into a new life. If we look at death as our being assumed into a new life, would we be so afraid of dying as we sometimes seem to be?

The white swaddling clothes reminds me also of the reading this morning about being baptized into Christ. By being baptized we put on Christ. Christ shares in our humanness and we all share one human nature. Valuing people based on opinions and ethnicity (either Jew or Greek, Protestant or Hindu, black or white) social status, (slave or free, rich or poor) or gender, (neither male or female) has no place when we realize we are all one. All of us are equal in our dignity of being human. All of us become the adopted children of God by believing in the Good News Christ taught us and is still teaching us through his Spirit. We are blessed when we can believe in God’s word.

 There is a paradox about being blessed. Nowhere can we see this paradox better than in Mary’s life. To her was granted the blessedness of being the mother of the Son of God. Her heart must have been filled with a wondering, tremulous joy at so great a privilege. Yet that very blessedness was to be a sword that pierced her heart. It meant that some day she would see her Son hanging on a cross. To be Christ’s disciple so often means at one and the same time a crown of joy and a cross of sorrow. The truth is that God does not choose a person for ease and comfort but for tasks that take all that head and heart and hand can bring to them.

 When that is realized, the sorrows and hardships that serving God may bring, are not matters for lamentation but can be seen in a different light. As Mary during her life was not told precisely what to do daily but had to ponder and decide how to carry out her task, so do we likewise need to pray and ponder daily how to carry out our tasks in life. Sometimes in living-in going forward- it helps to remember the answer of the man who was asked by Jesus if he believed and his answer was, “Yes Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”

 Christ is in our midst!