Audio recording Sermon manuscript: It is kind of hard for a protestant to observe the festival that we are observing today. Whereas Catholics and Eastern Orthodox love their ideas of who Mary is, protestants are a little leery of talking about her. That is understandable. Both of these confessions go too far with their devotion for Mary. They say things about her that aren’t true. Then, because of these false beliefs, they often believe in Mary more firmly than they might believe in Jesus or God. So what do these other churches teach about Mary? First of all they believe that Mary was immaculately conceived. The word “immaculate” means “pure.” So by immaculate conception they mean that Mary was born without sin. In a way, it’s like she is a second Eve. Eve was created without sin, but by her sin, she and Adam contaminated our human race with sin. Mary, as the second Eve, is without sin, so that she can conceive Jesus, the second Adam, without sin. Although the Catholics go too far with this, ascribing sinlessness to Mary, there is a bit of truth here. It is true that Jesus was immaculately conceived. The human nature that Jesus inherited from Eve was not contaminated by original sin, the way that all of us have been conceived in sin by the sinful seed of our fathers. The Scriptures say of Jesus that “he knew no sin.” He received everything from her that being a human being means, but he was not born with original sin. He was pure from the moment of his conception. When the Catholics ascribe this to Mary, they are going beyond what we can know from the Scriptures. The Scriptures do not say that Mary was born without sin. In fact, the Catholics take it one step further and say that Mary’s mother, who is not even named or mentioned in the Scriptures, was made to be without sin. Although Mary’s sinlessness is not taught by the Scriptures, Pope Pius IX declared in 1854 that Mary’s immaculate conception was the official Catholic teaching. In order to be a Catholic in good standing, it is necessary to believe that she was conceived without sin. In 1870, at the first Vatican Council, this teaching was affirmed when the council declared that official statements of the Pope are infallible. These are known as ex cathedra statements. There have only been two times when the Pope has made use of this so-called ability. The first was declaring the immaculate conception of Mary. The second one also had to do with Mary. This second decree is especially connected to today, August 15, in the Catholic Calendar. If you looked at a Roman Catholic Church calendar you would not see “St. Mary, Mother of our Lord” written on today. Instead you would see the feast called the “Assumption of Mary.” In 1950 Pope Pius XII declared that Mary being assumed, or taken, into heaven, body and soul, is official Catholic teaching. The reasoning behind this goes like this: Mary was conceived without sin and was sinless. As you well know, the wages of sin is death. So wherever there is no sin no death is due. Since Mary is held to be without sin, she couldn’t have died like everybody else. So they teach that instead of dying she “fell asleep.” This is known as the “dormition of Mary.” “Dormition” means to fall asleep. Then, after having fallen asleep, she was taken into heaven, body and soul, just like we hear of Enoch, Elijah, and Jesus. Although the Bible says absolutely nothing about these things, the so-called vicar of Christ, the Pope, has decreed that these things are to be believed by Christians on pains of losing their salvation. It is hard to see a clearer example of the Pope putting himself in the place of God as Paul prophesied in 2 Thess. 2. Requiring folks to believe in something that is by no means certain is bad enough, but these false ideas also have led to serious false beliefs that are at the very heart of the Christian faith. Their belief in the sinlessness of Mary has not been left as some bare factoid. It has been incorporated into their u