Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 10:38-42; 11:27-28
At the very heart of our faith as Orthodox Christians is
the good news that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. He truly died and was buried as a human being,
but Hades and the grave could not contain Him as God. Because He is risen, those who die enter into
His presence as they await the resurrection of the body and the Last Judgment. Those who have loved and served Him
experience paradise already as a foretaste of heaven, for they are with the
Lord to Whom they united themselves during their lifetimes. Our Savior rose as a whole person with a glorified
body and then ascended into heaven forty days later. That is how He has made it
possible for us all to share in the eternal joy of the heavenly kingdom.
As St. Paul
wrote in today’s epistle lesson, Christ rose and ascended because, though He is
fully divine, He “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in
the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and
became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly
exalted Him and bestowed on Him the Name which is above every name, that at the
Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the
earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father.” Our Lord has made it
possible for us to participate in His heavenly glory by lowering Himself to
become one of us, and thereby conquering sin and death on our behalf.
This great feast
of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos shows how we may all come to share
in the eternal life of our Lord. 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. Her Dormition is an icon of our hope
for eternal life.
In order
to see the connection between this feast and our hope, we must remember that
the Virgin Mary is as fully human as the rest of us. We call her “Theotokos” because she is
the “Bearer” or “Mother of God.” The One to Whom she gave birth is our Lord,
God, and Savior Jesus Christ. In order
for Him to be truly human, He had to have a mother like the rest of us. From ancient times, Christians have honored
her with this title for that very reason.
The only ones who refused to call her Theotokos were those who did not
believe in the divinity of the child born to her, such as the heretic Nestorius.
By overreacting to various abuses in the Roman Catholic Church during the
Middle Ages, Protestant traditions have downplayed and often ignored her unique
role in our salvation. In contrast, the Orthodox
Church makes a clear distinction between worship and honor or veneration. We worship only God, but we honor or venerate
those whose lives are shining examples of God’s holiness. The honor that we give them magnifies the
glory of God Who has done great things through them. Properly honoring the Theotokos in no way
distracts us from worshiping her Son, but inspires us all the more to welcome
Him into our lives as she did. And since
she followed Him into the heavenly kingdom at her Dormition, how could we not
ask for her prayers even as we celebrate her wonderful example of loving and
serving the Lord? Remember that He performed
His first miraculous sign in St. John’s gospel, turning water into wine at the
wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, at His mother’s request.
It is no accident, of course, that the Theotokos is a woman,
for obviously only a woman could be the mother of our Savior. Her unique role in our salvation reminds us
that 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 became 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,
born from the blood and water which flowed from the Lord’s body at His
crucifixion. 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.
Today’s
gospel reading reminds us that the Theotokos prepared to follow her Son into
eternal life by attending to the one thing needful, by hearing and obeying the
word of the Lord. As she said to the
Archangel Gabriel in response to her unique vocation to become the Virgin
Mother of the Son of God: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me
according to your word.” Through her
obedience, she gives life to the One Who conquers death. She risks her life and reputation by agreeing
in humble faith to do something totally unheard of in becoming a virgin
mother. In a world where slavery to the
passions so easily dominates the circumstances surrounding conception and
childbirth, she bears the Savior in complete purity. None of this was her
idea or plan; it was God’s. But she obeyed
in humility, nonetheless.
The particulars of our callings are different from that
of the Theotokos, but the underlying truth is the same. Namely, we become participants in the eternal
life of our Lord by obeying Him in humble faith, by opening our lives to Him
such that His holy glory shines through us.
She became the living temple of the Lord in a unique way when she
contained within her own body the Son of God.
Remember, however, that we also become temples of the Holy Spirit by the
presence of Christ in our hearts. We are
living members of His own Body, the Church.
We receive His Body and Blood into ours.
We, too, are called to give life
to Christ in this world, to allow Him to become incarnate in us and in all that
we say, do, and think.
In all these ways, the Theotokos stands as a clear and relevant model for each
and every one of us, regardless of the circumstances of our lives. Married, single, widowed, or divorced, we must
all keep a close watch on our thoughts and desires, especially concerning the
relationship between man and woman. If
not, they will control us instead of us controlling how we respond to them. No
matter how busy or distracting our lives may be, we must devote ourselves to
prayer and reading the Scriptures daily. If not, we will end up putting the
world before God without even noticing it.
Above all else, we must become close to Christ, uniting ourselves to Him
in obedient love. That means doing our
best to live as we know He wants us to, not because of a law, but because we
want His life to become ours. We want
His holiness to shine through us. That
is how to prepare to enter joyfully into His presence when we depart this
life.
The
feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos calls us to enter mystically into the
Kingdom of Heaven as we celebrate her following her Son into eternal life. It should not be surprising that one who had
welcomed Christ into her life so profoundly was in turn welcomed by Him. Inspired by her great example, “let us lay aside every
weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with
endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat
down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2) That is how we
will prepare, by God’s grace, to follow the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin
Mary into eternal life. She shows us how
to respond to the good news of His resurrection which, of course, is the basis
of our hope to participate in the blessed joy of the heavenly kingdom. “Behold
the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Those who live that truth are already in the
presence of the One Who died, rose from the grave, and ascended into heaven. They are united to the Savior in holy
love and experience a foretaste of heavenly glory.
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