Baby on Board: A Look at Mary, Jesus’ mother

A RECAP Last week, we explored who Joseph was and investigated his example, learning that he was to provide a place, a people and a purpose for Jesus’s life. God, our heavenly Father, has created a place, a people and a purpose for those who place their trust in Jesus Christ. Like Joseph, we are called to be people of faith, obedience, strength and courage, boldly sharing the good news of Jesus with the world around us.

“ In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.” (Matthew 1:18-25)

What must it have been like for Mary to have heard Gabriel’s words? Many scholars put Mary at about 16 years of age, however; there is a significant minority of scholars who posit she would have been as young as 13 at the time of Gabriel’s visit. Mary’s distress is related to the idea that she is highly favoured and that God is present with her. Mary’s thoughts at that moment can be summed up with three words – “Me? Favoured? Why?’.

The angel encourages Mary to not be afraid and then shares with her three exciting pieces of information: she is “greatly favoured”, she will conceive and give birth to a son, and her son will be the Messiah. That pesky little “why” never gets effectively addressed for Mary. Mary’s confusion regarding a virgin birth is met with a simple answer from the angel’s mouth – God will make it so. Mary firmly accepts the call with complete and utter abandon – full submission to the will of God.

Mary does not stay close to Joseph in Nazareth, but hastily goes to the hill country of Judea to meet up with her cousin, Elizabeth. It was quite possibly the case that Mary left Nazareth before informing Joseph of her pregnancy! A three month sojourn in Judea might just have given her the respite she needed to collect her thoughts before facing Joseph and the Nazarene community again. Scripture is also clear that throughout this entire roller coaster ride of a pregnancy, Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart”.

The Roman governor decided to call a taxation census, requiring all people to return to their ancestral homes - Joseph needed to make the journey to Bethlehem. Joseph may have originally been from Judea, so in all likelihood Joseph and Mary would have travelled alone. All of this points to a quality that Mary possessed in spades – trust.

Trust: As Evidenced in Mary’s Life Mary first trusted that the word of God to her through the angel Gabriel was true and she gave herself fully to the call that accompanied it. Mary also had to trust Joseph pretty intensely as he now led her away from all that she had ever known and the only safety she possessed. Mary became a follower of Jesus, her son, despite what must have been great difficulty, placing her trust in Him.

Humility: As Evidenced in Mary’s Life Mary humbly sacrifices all of her future plans to remain obedient to God’s word to her. Mary humbly allows Joseph to fulfill the role to which God called him, never exercising undue influence upon him. Mary abandons her “motherly power” over Jesus to humbly follow her son throughout Palestine.

In Mary we see three common responses to God’s grace shown to us. We often default to a position of unworthiness, a sort of “Me? Favoured by God? Why?” dialogue runs through our minds and often times, we find it difficult to believe that God could love a person like us. We are not worthy of salvation, but it is our unworthiness that makes our salvation an act of grace. We do not deserve it, yet it is extended to us.

Another common response to God’s grace is confusion. In the end, just as Mary accepted the fact that her pregnancy would come about because God said it would, we too must come to a place where we accept God’s puzzling grace at face value, understanding that it is entirely effective because God says it is. The final common response is the response of fear. Mary’s example teaches us that by living in humility – by showing both the strength to submit and the strength to trust - fear can be banished from our lives.

Today as we draw ever nearer to Christmas, let me close by encouraging you to ask yourself: have I accepted God’s grace shown through Jesus Christ with a humble and trusting heart?