Tuesday, August 15, 2023
Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Love and be grateful to Mary for her Son
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pai as she labored to give birth.
Many years ago I read a piece in Christianity Today by a Protestant woman who struggled to appreciate Mary, let alone love her, because of the Catholic church’s determination to adore Mary, which seemed to take that adoration of Jesus and turn it on its head. Jesus OR Mary, it felt like.
But an experience in the dead of night (that would be a dream, right?) brought her back from this Either-Or puzzle to a Both-And solution, which seems to me a far better thing.
The amazing story of war in heaven from Revelation 11-12 might be about Mary. How could it not be? And then of course, it is about Jesus. How could it not be? CGI might bring this to life on the movie screen for us. John didn’t have that tool. But his visions came thoroughly to life for his readers and listeners, their imaginations revving at full speed, high gear, trying to keep up.
Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth.
God is alive, magic is afoot, and the devil is sweeping away a third of the stars and throwing them everywhere. Fireballs in every city, far more fires than in a few dry tinderboxes in the heat of summer. Rage and rebellion throw any normal conventions aside. The devil is desperate. Mary is determined. Jesus is about to be born.
But the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child at the moment of his birth. And she brought forth her firstborn son.
Mary did not lay Jesus in a manger. Not in this story. There is no room for Mary or Jesus, not at the inn, not in the sky, not anywhere that the devil can get to.
Her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for one thousand, twelve hundred and sixty days.
We can only imagine! But let’s do imagine. Jesus growing in the care of his Father, Mary struggling in the wilderness for 1,260 days. How many hours is that? How many months and years? How can she stand being away from her flesh and blood like that! Do you think it might be possible to give Mary a little credit here?
Mary set out and traveled to the hill country in haste to a town of Judah, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant leaped in her womb and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said, “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb!”
Jesus!
The angels come now, the angels who announced to Mary she would be carrying God’s son, the angels who certainly surrounded her as she walked to the home of her Auntie Elizabeth and then walked from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The angels come now to battle for the Lord.
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But the dragon was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down to the earth, that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.
Oh, yeah!
This is a big day for us, especially for many of us Protestants, who spend very little time thinking of Mary, praying with her, or loving her. This is a day to give Mary her due. A little adoration might even be in order.
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have salvation and power come, and the Kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed One.
(Deuteronomy 10, Psalm 147, 2 Thessalonians 2, Matthew 17)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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