At the end of the Mother of God’s
earthly life, the Apostles were miraculously assembled in her presence. St.
Thomas, however, arrived three days late.
When her tomb was opened for him to pay his last respects, her body was
not there. Even as she was the first to
accept Christ into her life—and in a unique way into her womb as His virgin
mother—she was the first to follow Him as a whole, complete person into the
Kingdom of Heaven. She is the first and
greatest example of one who receives, loves, and serves Jesus Christ with every
ounce of her being.
When we think of the Theotokos, we
are immediately reminded of how God creates us male and female in the divine
image and likeness, and uses both sexes together to bring salvation to the
world. The Church knows the Theotokos as “the New Eve” through whom the Son of God
became “the Second Adam.” The first Eve
came from the body of the first Adam, while the Second Adam becomes a human
being through the body of the New Eve.
The imagery of male and female continues with the Church as the Bride of
Christ, which is born from the blood and water which flowed from the Lord’s
body at His crucifixion, for they symbolize the Eucharist and baptism through
which we share in the life of our Lord. He
is the Groom and we, the Church, are His bride.
The biblical drama of salvation culminates in the wedding feast of the
Lamb in Revelation, which fulfills so much imagery from Christ’s teaching and
ministry about the marriage banquet as a sign of the Kingdom of God.
The term “Theotokos” means “Bearer”
or “Mother of God,” but not, of course, in the sense of her somehow being the
mother of the Holy Trinity or a goddess.
From as far back as anyone can tell, Christians have honored Mary as
Theotokos in recognition of the divinity of her Son. Those who refused to call her Theotokos, such
as the heretic Nestorius, denied a true Incarnation and did not think that the
baby born to her was truly God. The
Church teaches that the Virgin Mary is every bit as human as the rest of us,
but in her purity, obedience, and receptivity to God’s will, she freely agreed
to become the mother of the Son of God, Who alone is fully divine and fully
human. Hers is a unique and glorious
vocation. “Blessed are you among women
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
By accepting her life-changing calling,
that obviously only a woman could fulfill, the Theotokos heals and restores the
vocation of motherhood to welcome and nurture new life. In contrast to the
mortality and corruption that have been the common lot of everyone born since
the fall of our first parents, she gives life to the One who conquers sin and
death. In the place of slavery to the
passions that so easily makes the circumstances surrounding conception and
birth tragically broken, she brings forth the Savior in purity and faith. And when her Son turns water into wine at the
wedding in Cana of Galilee, He does so at her request. This miraculous sign reveals the potential of
the union of man and woman to become an icon of our salvation, our true participation
in the heavenly banquet.
In all these ways, the Theotokos’
life is about the fulfillment of our broken and imperfect selves and
world. God called her to play a unique role
as a woman and a mother in setting right what has gone wrong with all the
children of the first Adam and Eve. Her
example stands as a powerful reminder that God’s salvation is neither an escape
from the world as we know it nor an imaginary endeavor of simply pretending all
is well. The Theotokos dealt with
matters of life and death, challenges as unsettling as a surprising pregnancy,
the suspicion of others about the miraculous conception, and the rejection and
public execution of her only Son. This
is the stuff of real life by anyone’s definition.
We celebrate her Dormition, her
“falling asleep” at end of her earthly life, because even in death she is a
brilliant icon of God’s intentions for us all.
Even as her Son’s tomb is empty on the third day, so is hers. The New Eve joins the Second Adam in the
heavenly kingdom, thus showing that the man and the woman who bear God’s image
and likeness may find together the fulfillment of the gracious purposes for
which God breathed life into them in the first place. Together with the Ascension of the risen
Christ into heaven forty days after His resurrection, her assumption into the
heavenly kingdom presents an icon of the salvation of all humanity, of the
entire creation. Not only is eternal
life a reality for her Son, the God-Man, but He shares that blessedness with
her and all who like her respond to Him with faith, love, and obedience. He makes us all guests at the heavenly
banquet, the wedding feast of the Lamb, where we as the Bride of Christ become
true participants by grace in the divine nature. We thereby enter into the eternal life that
He shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit as whole, complete persons united
in love. By sharing in the Lord’s bodily resurrection, we become “one flesh”
with Him in the glory of heaven.
It is surely not an accident that the
Theotokos’ story began with an old Jewish couple, righteous and barren, who
prayed to God for a child and dedicated her in the Temple where she grew
up. Sts. Joachim and Anna remind us of
Abraham and Sarah and of others in the biblical narrative who struggled with
infertility. The unique blessing of man
and woman, created together in God’s image and likeness, to bring new life into
the world out of love for one another should remind us of the overflowing love
of the Holy Trinity which created all that is and enables us all to become
participants in eternal life. To set
right all that has gone wrong with man and woman from time immemorial, the
Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, became the Son of the Virgin
Mary. She fulfills the meaning of all
humanity in saying “yes” with her whole person to the Lord in ways that the
first Adam and Eve did not. In this way,
she entered into real life, into true humanity, the fulfillment of the image
and likeness of God.
In the icon of the Dormition, Christ
holds the soul of the Theotokos as she held Him as a baby. This detail indicates that she has been born
anew in the eternal life of the heavenly kingdom. What else would we expect for one who played
her unique role in the salvation of the world so faithfully? She welcomed Christ fully into her life and
now He welcomes her fully into His.
Together they show us the ultimate purpose of our creation as male and
female, which is to enter into real life, to find fulfillment for every
dimension of our existence in God. So let us celebrate the Dormition of the Most
Holy Theotokos by honoring her, asking for her prayers, and—above all
else—following her blessed example of responding to the Lord’s calling: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be
to me according to your word.” That is
how we will become truly ourselves in the image and likeness of God.
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