Mary, Mother of God, January 1, 2023 – Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

(Said very fast). “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

We pray the Hail Mary so off handedly, and sometimes so rapidly, that we hardly even hear what it is we are saying. Especially since we tend to focus on the first half of the prayer, which is just a polite form of address to Mary, and we miss the beginning phrase of the second half -
“Holy Mary, Mother of God.” 

The Hail Mary was not prayed among Catholics for the first thousand years of Christianity. It is an invention of a Church that was growing in stature and in spirituality at the turn of the first into the second century of the Christian era. But I’m sure all of you with me this morning remember when we didn’t call this the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God. We called it the Feast of the Circumcision. How come the change? 

The Feast of the Circumcision was meant to focus on three things. That Jesus was a human being. A male human being. And a member of the most despised race in history.

I don’t know if any of you have gone to a bris. I went to a bris about fifteen years ago. It’s very interesting. All the men gather around the mohel as he performs the little surgery. And there really isn’t all that much blood, but there is some. The mother is taken into another room, or at least into a corner of the same room, and all the women surround her and induce her to cry. Usually, she’s crying anyway. If she’s not, they get her to cry, somehow. Because she has to weep that her male child is likely to shed his blood for the promises made to Moses, for the Torah, for the fate of the Jewish people.

So, it’s very likely that something very like that was experienced by Joseph and Mary eight days after the birth of Jesus. The sad thing about the circumcision is the recognition of the pain and suffering that faith will always cause. The joyful thing is that it’s the day the kid gets his name. And we’re told in the scriptures that they were told, and they did, name him Jesus. Yeshua in Hebrew, especially in Aramaic. Yeshua, the same name as Joshua and Jesse. Yeshua, which means God saves us or God is our salvation. And, even though Mary might of shed tears over the few drops of blood that the baby shed that morning, she had no way of knowing the disastrous blood-letting that would end His life for what? The scripture says, “…for our salvation.”

And so, that was the two sided truth of the old Feast of the Circumcision. Then why was it changed?  In the early 1970’s, Pope Paul VI decided that it would be better to call it the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God because of where that title came from and what it actually meant.

Back in the year 431, the emperor Theodosius called a Council at Ephesus right there on the Bosphorus [Strait], near present day Istanbul. The Church was only legitimate for a hundred years. But, in that hundred years, the Roman Emperors had gone from being the persecutors of the Church to being the champions of the Church and meddling in Church affairs. At that time there were three major patriarchates in the ancient world - Rome, the most important one, Constantinople, and the most prestigious one, Alexandria, in Egypt. Egypt, which now hardly tolerates any Christians within its borders. And, in Alexandria, there was a great scholar who became a great saint. His name was Cyril. In Constantinople, where the emperor lived, there was a very controversial patriarch named Nestorius. And, in Rome, the Pope’s name was Celestine. Nestorius claimed that we were not allowed to call Mary the Mother of God because that would compromise our belief in the true humanity of Christ. We could only call her Mary, the Mother of the Christos, the Messiah. Or, if you want, Mary, the Mother of Jesus. But not Mary, the Mother of God. Cyril championed the title Mary, Mother of God and so did the Pope. And so, they challenged Nestorius. And the emperor called a Council to settle the matter. And here’s the record we have of that Council. 

“All that long day, crowds stood around outside the great church, while the interminable routine had slowly worked to its inevitable end, echoes from within making their way to the streets no doubt, in the more lively moments. When the result was known, there were scenes of the wildest joy, people chanting, “Theotokos, Theotokos.” That was the Greek for Mother of God, Theotokos. Cyril, in a pastoral letter written upon his return to Alexandria, has left us a vivid account of it all. This is an actual quote from that letter.

“The whole population of the city, from earliest dawn until the evening, stood around in expectation of the Council’s decision. When they heard that the author of that blasphemy [that is, Nestorius] had been stripped of his rank, they all began, with one voice, to praise and glorify God. And as we came forth from the Church, they led us through the streets with torches to our lodgings for it was now evening. Throughout the city there was great rejoicing, many lighted lanterns, and women who walked before us swinging thuribles filled with incense.” 

We can’t imagine a whole bunch of modern-day Catholics pouring out of St. Patrick’s Cathedral wild with joy about anything, but these people were almost drunk with joy that the decision had been made to call her Mary, Mother of God.

When we look at the two sides of that coin, neither one of them moves us much these days.  We’re not particularly moved by Jesus humanity, although we should be. We’re not particularly moved by the doctrine of salvation because day by day we don’t feel very saved, do we?  It’s just the same old, same old. We carry the same old burdens with us all the time. And day after day, we’re not that conscious of why it means so much, why it means so much, to call Mary Mother of God. The idea of two natures in one person is almost beyond our comprehension.

Let me start from another place entirely. (The following is sung.)

Mary had a baby, My Lord. 
What did she name him? My Lord. 
She name him King Jesus.
She name him King Jesus.
She name him King Jesus, My Lord.

It is an old negro spiritual. Those who study that music tell us that was very rare for the slave population to compose a hymn about the birth of Jesus. They focused on his crucifixion because they understood that pain. They focused on his resurrection because it was the only hope they had in the world. But, by custom, most slave owners gave their slaves between two and eight days off at Christmastime. And so, the slaves hungered for the coming of Christmas each year as a momentary lifting of their burden. And you notice how that melody is composed.  It talks about a happy, happy thing in the saddest kind of melody, because that was the reality of their experience of Christ’s birth, His death and His resurrection. 

For all of us, salvation is a lifelong project. It makes a painful entry into our lives. What was it Leonard Cohen wrote? “It’s a cold and lonely Hallelujah.” But it is, after all, because Mary is the Mother of God as well as the Mother of a human being. It is, after all, a Hallelujah.