Unlike our Roman Catholic friends who celebrate The Assumption of Mary or our Eastern Orthodox buddies who celebrate The Dormition of Mary, or our Lutheran Church Missouri Synod frenemies who celebrate St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord, we Book of Concord, C0nfessional Lutherans celebrate on August 15th as we confesses her to be: Mary Mother of God. I quote the Formula of Concord: “7. Hence we believe, teach, and confess that Mary conceived and bore not a mere man and no more, but the true Son of God; therefore she also is rightly called and truly is the mother of God” (Epitome, VIII, 12).
No, you are not required to believe, that Mary was forever virgin. Yes, our Confessions do state that and Luther certainly believed it as well. But as Dr. Robert Preus was at pains to point out, we are not bound to the Book of Concord’s exposition of the Word of God but to it’s exposition of the doctrines of the Word of God. As we are not bound to believe that garlic nullifies the power of magnets, as our Confessions claim, because that is not a doctrine of Holy Writ, so neither is Mary being semper virgo. Her being Theotokos is. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” John 1:14 states. This is the Word that was in the beginning and was God.
The above official Orthodox icon of Mary (#02) is said to have been painted by St. Luke. A mentor of mind St. Rudy Kurz gave this to be 32 years ago. On the back he wrote: “She holds her left hand up protesting honors to herself. In her right hand she holds the cross (coveting His wounds) directing us to honor God the Son who took flesh in her womb.” God the Father did not take flesh in the womb of the Virgin, but nevertheless since “all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ” (Colossians 2:9), Mary is the Mother of God.
These are the fine points of theology that your LCMS SMP pastors, among others, will not know, think important, or be able to confess much less teach. The LCMS says SMP stands for Specific Ministry Pastor, but given they do much less study than a fully trained Master of Divinity pastor, it really stand’s for Simple Ministry Program. The LCMS will only reap the whirlwind of sowing this particular doctrine, or lack thereof, when the SMP’s become district, synodical, collegiate, and seminary officials.[i]
You probably note that icons are somehow stilted, off, poor compared to the Renaissance masters. They are meant to be this way. The Orthodox consider them to be windows into heaven, a view from this temporal passing world into the eternal real one. My mother, raised Russian Orthodox, told me that her first memory in the crib was the icon by her light switch. Every room in an Orthodox home is to have one. Contrast this with my earliest crib memory being the mobile of plastic blue jays and cardinals circling my head.
I knew a confessional Lutheran pastor in Louisiana who when we first meant said he was a _ generation New Orleanian. I would be lying if I could say 30 years later how many generations he said, but some quick math at the time made me think there were not that many generations since the French settled the city.
More likely my math was wrong, and the theology he espoused next was spot-on. He said, “You know some Protestants are going to owe Mary an apology when they see her in heaven.” I think he’s right. Rome and the East speak beyond what Scripture does, but some Protestants speak less than Scripture which records an angel sent from God declaring Mary “blessed art thou among women”.
And so would be any woman chosen to bear God in flesh and blood. And so we sing of her “Thou Bearer of th’ eternal Word,/ most gracious, magnify the Lord:” in TLH 475:2. Always mindful of her left hand raised in warning and her right hand clutched on what ultimately matters.
[i] I have been told that in the 2026 LCMS synodical convention, among other Confessional leaning matters, that those in the “alternate” ways of becoming ordained outside of the seminary’s Master of Divinity program are being encouraged to go back and get their M.Div. We will see while hoping and praying that this be true for the good of all Confessional Lutheranism “as Zion in her anguish/ With Babylon must cope” (TLH 448:2).
