The Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Luke 11:28 29
As he (Jesus) was speaking, a woman in the crowd called out, “God bless your mother—the womb from which you came, and the breasts that nursed you!” Jesus replied, “But even more blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.” ( NLT)
The Virgin Mary is the prototype of the Church. In her life we find the true role of the Church and in this morning’s Gospel we have a lesson to learn from Jesus about that role.
The Church is called to be the means that Jesus is manifest to the world and has the role of “bearing” Christ and revealing him to the nations. The Church must nurture and protect that Name and instil in its people the character of God. Like a mother providing a space for a child to grow to its full potential the church must not fashion Jesus in it’s image but bring Jesus into the world and provide room for the Son of God to live in the world and achieve what His Father (The Almighty God) sent him into the world to be.
In the Magnificat – The Song of Mary Luke 1:46-55 we hear what the woman in the crowd was refereeing to – “How blessed is Mary” ( and as we are saying here, the Church)
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour; he has looked with favour on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed; the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. He has mercy on those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm and has scattered the proud in their conceit, casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, to remember his promise of mercy, The promise made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children for ever.
In my reading of the text Jesus is affirming that Mary is blessed, that the Church is blessed but as the New Living Translation puts it – “But even more blessed are those who receive the truth of Christ and respond to him.” To me it is a reminder that the church is to be a blessing to the world, not just to receive the blessing for itself. The purpose of the Church is not to create a community of redeemed people who live for themselves under the blessing of God, this is the error that Israel made. They saw themselves as blessed and superior. No, the purpose of the Church is to manifest the love of God to the unworthy and the broken and the lost. But we can only do that if we have ourselves received salvation, forgiveness of sins and peace with God. We as the Church need to be like Mary, who bore Jesus not by the will of man but by the power of God. It is the Spirit of God who gives Jesus life in the Church. It is the Spirit of God who we must submit to, and it is the Spirit of God through whom Jesus is truly given to the world. We must accept our role just as Mary did, and like Mary we may have humble beginnings we may seem inadequate, but God has chosen us to be the ones who bring Jesus into the world to save the world. Jesus stepped into darkness in humility so that all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Therefore, we cannot simply be the Church and receive the blessing for ourselves. We need to do what God has commanded us to do. We need to go into all the world and preach the Good News, in thought, word and deed. God’s purpose for the Church is that all the world will be blessed through her.
As we remember that we are the body of Christ – we are the embodiment of Christ, we ‘bear’ Christ in the world – may we be a blessing to the world and impact the world so that we who have been blessed to “hear the Word of The Lord’ may do what he (the word of God) calls us to.
let us pray.
Loving God, you have called us your own and made us to be a holy nation. May we with Mary say, “ let it be to me as you have said,” and submit our lives to you. Today may we hear the word and do what it says. May we who are blessed to be your children be a blessing to all the world may every encounter with others today reveal Christ to the world.
May we like Mary, in humility, live for what we were created to be.
Amen.
