Dormition 2006

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

My brothers and sisters in Christ, I greet you in the name of our crucified and risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on this joyous and hope-filled feast day of the Dormition of the Theotokos.

How many of you are aware that this feast day was foreshadowed or spoken of in the Psalms? In Psalm 132:8, David, the prophet, king, priest, and psalmist of ancient Israel wrote, “Go up, O Lord, to the place of your rest, you and the ark of your sanctification.” Now, when David composed this psalm, he composed it for usage during the ancient Israelite liturgy when they commemorated and dramatically re-enacted the discovery of the Ark by David and its return to Jerusalem as recorded for us in the Old Testament in 2 Samuel 7:1-6. I would imagine that it was also used when, under the later reign of King Solomon, the ark was brought into the newly-completed temple of God and came to rest under the wings of the cherubim in the Holy of Holies where we are told that the glory of the Lord filled the temple (1 Kings 8:1-12). For the Israelites then, this was a great sign of the reality of the covenant that God had made with his people. Today’s feast day of the Dormition is no less than that same assurance for those of us blessed to be a part of the new covenant.

You see, the joy and hope of today’s feast finds its true meaning in Jesus Christ. He is the Word of God made flesh, born of a woman, the new Adam who came into the world to bring His message of salvation to the world. But the world rejected Him and crucified Him and in doing so, Jesus was offered up on the Cross as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Then, Jesus entered into Death, into Hades itself, and destroyed it, freeing the captive souls that had entered there since Adam and Eve brought that curse upon us. And then, having destroyed death by His might, He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. He has promised us that those of us who bear His name also have the hope of the resurrection and of life eternal with Him, His Father, and the Holy Spirit. And as proof of that promise, He gave us this glorious feast day.

It was shortly after the death of Jesus that His mother, Mary, entered into her own death. As the story goes, all of the apostles were there for her funeral – except Thomas who arrived three days late. As a result, the apostles could bear witness to the fact that all of humanity was subject to death and in need of a Savior – even the Savior’s mother. For it was Mary herself who proclaimed years earlier at the Annunciation, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” Even the most holy, most pure, and most blessed human of all time still needed Christ for salvation.

Now, at her death, Christ’s gift of salvation is made manifest. Like all of us who are descended from Adam and Eve, the Theotokos died a death natural to our fallen nature and her soul departed her body. St. John of Damascus affirms this when he states, “…as a daughter of Adam, she undergoes the ancestral trial [death] since even her Son, life itself, did not refuse it. St. Andrew of Crete makes the argument that just as her Son entered into Hades at His death, so too did the soul of the Theotokos enter and then pass through Hades – or the remnants thereof - just like Christ did because, quoting Matthew 10:24, “…the servant is not above his [or her] master.” But he reminds us, since Christ had previously destroyed Hades it has become a functionless place where souls to pass through before they enter into the presence of the risen Lord. From the Canon at Orthros this morning, we heard, “…O Virgin Mother and Bride of God, you who gave birth to the Life has been transported into immortal life, attended by angels, principalities, and powers, by apostles, prophets, and the whole creation: and your Son received into his immaculate hands your spotless soul.” In other words, in a great funeral procession consisting of the Church militant on earth and the Church triumphant in heaven does the soul of the Theotokos “…commend itself into the hands of her Son.”

But wait, there’s more! As the story goes, when St. Thomas arrived three days late, he went to view her body. When they opened the tomb on the third day, just like her Son’s, the tomb of the Theotokos was empty. The Lord had honored his Mother and demonstrated the truth of His word by resurrecting her body. As a result, Psalm 138 is fulfilled and the New Ark of the New Covenant, the Theotokos, who carried not the Word of God written on stones as the Ark of the past, but rather carried the Word of God made flesh in her womb, enters in a great heavenly procession, soul and glorious resurrected body, into the heavenly temple to take her rightful place at her Son’s right side as prophesied in Psalm 45 – “The Queen stood at your right hand clothed in a robe of gold and many colors.”

Our hope and our joy is the fact that the Lord has shown us the reality of His promise of the resurrection to life eternal to all of us by the example of His mother. It happened to her, it will happen to us! Those of us who live the fullness of the Christian life have nothing to fear about death. The psalmist states, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil; for you are with me….” Because of Christ, Hades is destroyed, the devil is overthrown, and the demons flee before the face of the Savior who comes with His precious pierced hands to gently carry our souls to be with Him. Then, at the appointed time, we see through the lens of this feast day, that our tombs will one day be empty when the Lord calls us forth to unite our souls with our new and glorious and immortal bodies.

As we celebrate the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, let us lift up our hearts, our minds, and our souls, in everlasting praise and thanksgiving to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For through his life and death and resurrection has Death been destroyed and the gates of Heaven opened for all who seek what the Virgin Mary has found – salvation, resurrection, and life eternal in everlasting joy. Glory to Jesus Christ!

last updated:Saturday, 19-Aug-2006 12:48:16 EDT

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