In this feast today we honour the Blessed Virgin Mary for her part in the story of our salvation. In her, our liberation from the power of death is anticipated. It is our belief that Mary, like her Son, is already alive in heaven. She is the type, or image, or symbol if you like, of the Church -- and shows us, in her life, what God does, particularly for those God loves and redeems.
The feast days of the Church are not just the commemoration of historical events; they do not look only to the past. We remember what has gone before so that we may live in the present and look to the future with hope. Through this we might gain an insight into our own relationship with God. The Assumption looks beyond the present, and beyond the future to eternity, outside of time and place and gives us hope that we, too, will follow Our Lady when our life here on earth has ended.
The collect for our feast, which we prayed earlier, said: “O God, who as on this day didst take to thyself the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of thine only Son: grant that we who have been redeemed by his blood may share her glory in thine eternal kingdom…”
The words of this prayer may be pure Anglicanism – giving a hint of what is believed but not putting too fine a definition on it. In this parish we might talk of Mary being assumed into heaven; because we put such a weight on the Book of Common Prayer as the standard for our worship, we might refer to ‘the falling asleep of the BVM’ In all of this the collect only refers to God taking to himself the Blessed Virgin Mary. Whatever our theological take on this feast, we prayed, and we continue to pray, that we may share the glory of Our Lady in heaven, the eternal kingdom of God.
What was uniquely glorious during her life on earth is now uniquely glorious in her life in eternity. Mary was essentially, vitally, involved in the redemption of mankind through her child, Jesus, whom she had carried in her womb, brought to birth, and suckled - the Son of God himself.
Jesus gave great glory to his heavenly Father in and through the humanity that he had received from his mother. In his so doing Jesus was himself supremely glorious in the fullness of his humanity - body, together with soul.
Indeed, it was through his mother, Mary, that the Son of God was a full member of the human family. Mary gave great glory to God in her mothering of the Saviour, and in her being there at the foot of the cross giving loving, motherly support to her dying Son, In so doing Mary was herself supremely, uniquely glorious in the fullness of her humanity.
We, through our baptisms, are united with Jesus as members of his Body, which is the Church.
The Assumption of Mary takes place so that her body, which had been the vessel for the incarnation, would not see decay. In this God is making yet another statement about our human bodies. With this in mind, St. Paul cajoles the Christians of Corinth, 'Do you not realise that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you and whom you received from God? You are not your own property, then; you have been bought at a price. So use your body for the glory of God.'
Your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit! …Use your body for the glory of God! This is exciting Good News that needs to be proclaimed in our day when men and women are regarded as sex objects, and even consider themselves no better than this - devoid of dignity as human persons. Is not human parenting also being debased with genetic engineering, in vitro fertilizations, and cloning which are paraded as clever and acceptable substitutes or replacements for the two-in-one-flesh coupling of spouses who are bonded together in love?
As we look around us we are forced to ask where the reverence for the human body is to be found in a world of terrorism and of weapons of mass destruction; a world that has the resources and skills to provide for the hungry but acquiesces to the starvation of millions; a world that deprives the frail and sickly of easily available life-saving medicines, through pricing them out of range?
We, like Mary, will experience death. Our bodies will die. How we lived in them will be a consideration as we go to be with God.
May God bless you as you look to that point in your life when you go home to be with God. May God spare you from dying suddenly and unprepared.
