When it comes to “the saints,” per our Lutheran tradition since the Augsburg Confession of 1530, “our people teach that that the saints are to be remembered so that we may strengthen our faith when we see how they experienced grace and how they were helped by faith” (AC, Article XXI). Among the saints, the blessed Mary is particularly honored –– especially among Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians –– and again this month we too remember the mother of Jesus so that our faith might increase as we consider the grace God lavishes on ordinary people like you or me or Mary.

Mary was normal. In the New Testament, when she opens her mouth to sing as a gospel poet-prophet, Mary points to the very normalcy of her otherwise-overlookable life: Mary calls herself lowly and servile; she identifies with humility and hunger and helplessness (Luke 1:48, 51-55). It is precisely because God graces a normal soul like Mary that we may be strengthened to see God’s grace for merely, purely, simply human souls like our own. If Mary had earned her place in God’s family, we might think we could or should do the same –– but if God has been born in this world through a life no better or higher or holier than ours, perhaps we to may would be graced to deliver the Word of Life in our world of threatening death.

Yet, however normal she is, there is something about Mary we cannot deny –– something that does seem out of the norm for someone like me: while Mary is a humble, hungry, helpless human, “we believe, teach, and confess that Mary did not conceive and give birth to a child who was merely, purely, simply human, but she gave birth to the true Son of God. Therefore, she is rightly called and truly is the Mother of God” (Formula of Concord, Epitome, Article VIII). Jesus is our brother –– we are siblings with Christ, one blessed family with God. But God in Christ calls Mary Mama. And how can anyone claim averageness in a creation where the creator calls you Mama? The same God who commands us to honor our parents must certainly honor and obey the girl who comes of age while laying Jesus in the manger’s hay.

Perhaps when you’re the Mother of God it gives you a certain privilege to be bossy: Mary has no qualms in directing the world to “do whatever Jesus tells you.” Could you or I be so bold? Could we be so familiar with God or so direct with those around us? What does God want us to learn from the ironic relationship of our Lord Jesus, Savior of the World, in saving a mother’s spot in God’s human heart for blessed Mary?

While we do not traditionally invoke Mary or the saints in heaven for the needs of the church on earth, “to be sure, concerning the saints we grant that in heaven they pray for the church in general, just as they prayed for the entire church while living. …. Now we grant that blessed Mary prays for the church. … Even though she is worthy of the highest honor, nevertheless she does not want herself to be made equal with Christ but instead wants us to consider and follow her example” (Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Article XXI). Mary’s example is to deliver Jesus’ life to a waiting world. Mary’s example is to never lord her role as an authority over the Lord’s role for her. Mary’s example is to recognize God’s grace as grace without ever claiming it as honor owed. Mary’s example is to teach us how to be so close to God, so honored by God, so loved in God, that we might find Mary no more spectacular than any neighbor whom God graces fully in Christ. Mary’s example is to be the church of Christ overshadowed by the Holy Spirit for life.

The Holy Spirit “has a unique community in the world, which is the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God, which the Holy Spirit reveals and proclaims, through which the Holy Spirit illuminates and inflames hearts so that they grasp and accept it, cling to it, and preserve it” (Large Catechism: The Creed). Mary, as a normal human, stands beside all who are themselves normal. Mary stands within the church, having been the first but not the last Christian to carry and deliver Christ as God With Us. Mary’s experience of God’s grace strengthens our faith to experience God’s grace for us, that together we would be a church of poet-prophets in proclaiming how “our souls magnify the Lord, and our spirits rejoice in God our savior, who has looked favorably where we are bowed low: from now on, all generations will call us blessed.” Blessed, as Mary before us, in this life with Christ indeed, who –– again on the third day –– delivers us to life and causes us to spread good news: “Do whatever Jesus tells you!”

Rise up and live in Jesus’ peace, Pastor Joel