In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The earliest feast days of saints in the Church, my brothers and sisters in Christ, are the feasts of the martyrs. We know already by mid-second century—it was customary by mid-second century—annually to commemorate the day on which the martyr died. Our first written account of this is one of the martyrs of Smyrna, a man by the name of Polycarp. It was already a custom of the Church annually to remember—the local church, the church where the martyr died. But other people became jealous of them, and they wanted to do that, too, so they would celebrate. So now we have every single day… I have only an incomplete calendar, but there’s a dozen or more saints every day commemorated in the Orthodox Church. If you go to someplace like Mount Athos, I’m sure the number’s in the hundreds. They’ve got the complete list there!

Now, the Virgin Mother of the Lord did not die a martyr, but it occurred to people that they should celebrate the day on which she fell asleep. In the first centuries, this feast has been known as the koimesis, the falling-asleep of the Mother of the Lord. For reasons not entirely clear to me, it was changed to Latin about 200 years ago, and now it’s called the dormition, which is fine with me; I love Latin.

This is the day on which in some sense the Orthodox Church comes clean about what it thinks of the Virgin Mary. Most of the time, because we’re celebrating the glory of God, as we should, we just mention her in passing. Most of the time. “Calling to remembrance our all-holy, most-pure, most-blessed and glorious Lady” is about as much as she gets in the ordinary course of the Church’s worship. We would never think of praying without remembering her. Why? Because when we pray, we enter into the throne-room of heaven, and we join our voices with the angels and archangels. Since she is among the saints, the spirits of the just men made perfect there, we would never think of praying without remembering her.

But once a year we pull out all the stops, and we say exactly what we think about her, and that is on August 14 this year, normally the 15th. For this feast, there are four points that need to be made. One of them was made at vespers last night, and you missed that one; some of you missed it. We’ll take points two, three, and four this morning.

What shall we say about Mary, point two? She is the handmaiden of the Lord. I think it wise to begin the consideration with the mother of Jesus by consulting her own words. “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. My soul doth magnify the Lord, my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his”—who? “Handmaiden.” So what is God to Mary? She calls him “my Savior.” Indeed, she is the first person in the New Testament to say, “God, my Savior.” Mary, then, is one of the redeemed. In fact, there’s a sense in which she’s the first of the redeemed. Her soul that magnifies the Lord is a soul purchased with the blood of the Lamb. Her spirit that rejoices in God her Savior is sanctified as every other Christian spirit is sanctified: by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. She is supremely one of us.

Mary’s fundamental identity is servanthood. She is the handmaiden of the Lord, and she is that before she is anything else. Her entire being was consecrated to the service of God, and she was consecrated by that service. In her own case, the service of God was enormously physical. If there’s any body that’s been consecrated by its physical activity, it was her body. This is the body that gave flesh to God. Consequently, this consecration included her flesh, from which God’s eternal Word assumed our humanity in the mystery of the Incarnation. Is there or has there ever been, besides God himself, anything more precious in this world than the flesh of the Virgin Mary?

The ark of the covenant was carried with enormous reverence, and the man who, in an unwarranted way, laid hand on it, was struck dead. The ark of the covenant is nothing besides the flesh of the Virgin Mary, because issuing forth from this flesh became the price of our salvation, the Lamb standing as though slain. From her veins came the blood that was poured out for the redemption of the world. This is why the Church, from the very beginning, has recognized the fact of Mary’s perpetual consecration, symbolized in her perpetual virginity. Her body was consecrated by the physical presence of God’s Son, whom for nine months she bore and nourished in her womb. And that body and that womb belong entirely to him, by reason of that prolonged consecration.

Her womb is the east gate—we had quite a bit about this in vespers last night. In the readings at vespers and in the chants of vespers last night—the Sunday service always begins with Saturday vespers, I seem to need to remind some of you: Saturday vespers is the beginning of Sunday’s service. Ezekiel describes the eastern gate of the Temple, where only the king may enter in, and he may sit there, says Ezekiel, and eat bread in the presence of the Lord. And for that reason, the body of Mary could never belong to anybody else. This is the mystery of the Incarnation.

The Church has always believed that—not just the Orthodox Church; the entire Church has always believed that. Luther believed that—I’m not saying he’s part of the Church, but Luther was a terrible heretic, but he believed that. Arius was a terrible heretic, but he believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity. Nestorius was a heresiarch, but he believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity. John Calvin, said the most atrocious things about divine grace, but he still believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity. Zwingli did not get the doctrine of baptism right, but he still believed in Mary’s perpetual virginity. The whole Church has always believed that until the last few years. Well, we won’t go into that, but it’s an extremely modern notion. It has nothing to do with sacred Scripture; it’s an extremely modern notion built on humanist causes that in anyway would touch that.

I would counsel those who doubt the perpetual virginity of Mary to remember what happened to the man who laid an unwarranted hand on the ark of the covenant. According to this constant, uninterrupted teaching of the Church, Mary remained a consecrated virgin her whole life long, and this is why we address her as agia parthenos, semper virgo. She remained a virgin for the same reason that we do not take the eucharistic chalice—the chalice that’s going to be on the altar in a few minutes, the chalice that gives contour to the blood of Christ—we would never take that and use it as a beer stein. There’s nothing wrong with beer. I can tell you, there’s certainly nothing wrong with beer! [Laughter] But this cup is used to hold the body of Christ, the blood of Christ; it does not hold anything else. We would not take the ark of the covenant and turn it into a clothes hamper. There’s nothing wrong with clothes hampers.

You see, in the Bible—and I’ll make sure this whole sermon is based on the Bible—in the Bible, holiness is a physical thing. As the handmaiden of the Lord, Mary handed her body over to God’s service. It was consecrated by that service.

Second, what else shall we say about the Lord’s Virgin Mother? She is the Queen Mother, the Gebirah. We’ve already had this mentioned this morning in some of the psalmody used, in matins, and again during the Divine Liturgy. Here we have the testimony of Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth. What does Elizabeth say? “Why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? The mother of my Lord. Why is it granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” Now this expression, “mother of my Lord,” is an essential feature of Mary’s identity. She is not only the handmaiden of the Lord; she is also the Mother of the King, the last of the kings of Judah. And what does holy Scripture say about the mothers of the kings of Judah?

Holy Scripture obviously thinks these mothers important, because each of them is named in the Bible where the biblical author knows her name. There’s only three instances where he doesn’t seem to know her name, but all the mothers of all the other kings of Judah are listed in the Scriptures—no other kings, not the kings of Israel; no other kings, just the mothers of the kings of Judah. It’s a distinction that’s given to no other royal line.

How does the Bible regard the queen mother? What is the position of the queen mother vis-a-vis the king? You see, kings in antiquity had only one mother. Actually, they do now, too. They might have many wives, but they have only one mother. What’s the difference between being the wife of the king and the mother of the king? You want to know the difference? I’ve preached about this before, but some of you weren’t here; some of you have joined the parish since I last preached about this. Let’s take two texts. Let’s take 1 Kings 1. Who is the king of Judah in 1 Kings 1? David. His wife, Bathsheba, enters into the presence of King David, her husband; what does the text say? I’ll just read it for you: “Bathsheba, entering in, prostrated herself and did homage to the king.” Isn’t that a neat custom? Bathsheba comes into the throne room of her husband, he sits on his throne, and she prostrates herself before him.

Now let’s go to the second chapter of 1 Kings. David is dead, and who is the king? Solomon! Shlomo in Hebrew, Shlomo, the world’s wisest man. Bathsheba comes into the throne room of Solomon, her son. What does the text say? Let me read it to you.

Bathsheba, therefore, went to King Solomon, to speak to him for Adonijah, and the king rose to meet her and prostrated himself before her and sat down on his throne and had a throne set for the king’s mother, so that she sat at his right hand.

Now do you see the difference between being the wife of the king and the mother of the king? Is someone going to tell me that Solomon thought more of his mother than Jesus thinks of his mother? And what does Solomon do? He rises from his throne, prostrates himself before her, gets up, sits down on his throne, and places a throne at his right hand for his mother. Now this is attested in the psalm we’ve been using today, Psalm 45 (44 in Greek), which says that “the Queen is at thy right hand, clothed in the gold of Ophir, in a robe of many colors.” This is the position of Mary, to whom, St. Luke tells us, young Jesus as a child became subject.

As in the kingdom of Judah, the Queen Mother is the second person in the kingdom of heaven. I’ve had folks ask me this, usually with a chip on their shoulder: “Do the Orthodox believe that Mary is the Queen of heaven?” And my answer is: “For crying out loud, what else could she be? What else could she be?” If Jesus is the King of heaven, did she stop being the Queen Mother? What else could she be? I’m not worried about the fact that “Queen of Heaven” was a title given to pagan goddesses; I’m not worried about that. We have all sorts of titles and other things in the Church that started out pagan; that doesn’t bother me.

If we assert less than this, we’re saying less than the Scriptures teach. In the Bible, therefore, the mother of the king of Judah is worthy of all respect and honor. In the case of Mary, all generations will call her blessed, and this we hear already in the words of Elizabeth: “Blessed are you among women. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, and blessed is she who has believed.”

Now, what causes Elizabeth to call her blessed? Let’s look again closely at the sacred text; never depart from the sacred text. What does the sacred text say? “When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, babe leaped in her womb”—that’s little John the Baptist who’s six months old. He starts jumping around, doing a little dance inside there. Why? It says when Mary approaches, she’s carrying the newly conceived Son of God in her body, who had to be infinitesimally small at this time, but it’s the personhood [that] is there, and the personhood is the second Person of the Holy Trinity. When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth—what happened to Elizabeth? What does the text say? “...was filled with the Holy Spirit.” What does someone say when they are filled with the Holy Spirit? “And she spoke out with a loud voice and said, ‘Blessed art thou among women.’ ”

Thus, my brothers and sisters, when we address Mary and cry out with Elizabeth with a loud voice, “Blessed art though among women,” how many times a day do we do that? Every time we recite the angelic salutation, we do that. “Hail, Mother of God, full of grace. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb, for thou hast borne the Savior of our souls.” Whenever we say, “Blessed art thou among women,” these words are put on our lips by the Holy Spirit. We call Mary blessed for the same reason that we call Jesus Lord. Just as no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit, just as one cannot say, “Abba, Father,” except by the Holy Spirit, we do not say, “Blessed art thou among women,” except by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit would not have us honor Mary one whit less than Solomon honored Bathsheba.

Point four: I preached on this point—how many years ago? It was way, way back in the old days. I preached on this theme, and I remember it caused consternation. Do you recall that it caused consternation? Well, let me cause a little consternation again this morning. Point four. Mary’s vocation is that of holy Scripture itself. Now, this is a very ancient insight of the Church. The first time it appears, where Mary is actually addressed as the Bible, is on a little piece of ostracon written in Coptic in the second century, which has a prayer to Mary, addressing her as God’s living Bible. Last evening at vespers, we sang a hymn, a Byzantine hymn from the fourth century, in which she was addressed as “the sacred page on which the Father has written with his own hand.” The sacred page.

God caused his Word to be written not only on the skins of sheep, but in the very flesh of the woman who, in faith, consented to become his Mother. Why do we treat this book with such consummate respect? We don’t put it on the floor, for example; we wouldn’t do that. We treat this book with consummate respect. We don’t use it for anything else except what it’s for: the proclamation of God’s holy word. Now, if this is true of this material thing, which is composed of paper and ink on paper, because of the potential that is locked in this word, because we believe that every word of it—I don’t mean the King James Version particularly; I think this is RSV; yeah, this is RSV; I certainly don’t mean the RSV necessarily—but I’m talking about the Bible, the reverence with which we treat it, because it is the word of God. I won’t go into the intricacies of that right now.

God also wrote his word in the flesh of the woman who in faith consented to be his mother. Luke twice tells us that she took all of these things into her heart and pondered them. She so completely embodied God’s holy word as to give flesh to that word. This is why we had these Old Testament readings last night at vespers, these symbols of Mary that are found in holy Scripture. All of the mysteries of holy Scripture come to a certain perfection in her whole life and being. Since the call of Abraham, maybe 18 centuries earlier, God had been preparing a people to receive him, and all of that preparation comes down to a fine point, on the Maid of Judah, who said, “Behold, the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to thy word.”

When she said yes to God, she fulfilled the faith of Abraham, receiving in her flesh the very promise that was made to Abraham. The promise made to Abraham was fulfilled in Abraham’s daughter. She became the burning bush of God’s presence, burning but not consumed. She became, according to the first reading we had last night, the ladder of Jacob, by which God descended to this earth. She became the ark of the covenant, before which the infant John danced like David. She so embodied the mysteries of holy Scripture that holy Scripture was fulfilled in her own flesh. She assumed into her own being all of the Law and the Prophets, and the Father inscribed his Word in her body. She is the handmaiden of the Lord, she is God’s Mother, and she, in her flesh, contains all of Scripture, because all of Scripture is Christ our Lord.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.