Luke 1:26-38; Luke 2:1-52; John 19:25-27
Mary has been a person of great interest to Christians and Muslims since the days of early Christianity. She has been venerated by Catholics and Orthodox believers and is considered by millions to be the most meritorious saint. She is said to have miraculously appeared to believers many times over the centuries. There is significant diversity among major religious traditions in their beliefs about Mary. For instance, the Catholic Church holds several distinctive Marian doctrines, including her immaculate conception, her perpetual virginity, and her assumption into heaven (without dying). Many Protestants minimize Mary’s role within Christianity, basing their argument on the lack of Biblical support for any beliefs other than the virgin birth of Jesus. In Islam, Mary has the highest position among all women. She is mentioned in the Quran more often than in the New Testament; two long chapters are devoted to Mary and her family.
There have been many apocryphal stories about Mary through the ages. According to the Gospel of James, Mary was the daughter of Saint Joachim and Saint Anne. Before Mary’s conception, Anne had been barren and was an older woman. Mary was given as a consecrated virgin in the Temple in Jerusalem when she was three years old. According to other accounts, Mary was betrothed to Joseph at the age of 12-14 years old. According to ancient Jewish custom, she could have been betrothed at the age of 12. Another ancient writer, Hippolytus of Thebes, said that Mary lived for 11 years after the death of her son. It is believed that she died in Ephesus, where she moved with John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.
But no matter what else we know or think or believe about Mary, the one thing we can be sure of is that she was the mother of Jesus. Mary was a mother. And there are several things we can know about her as a mother from the stories about her in the New Testament.
The first story took place while she was betrothed, or engaged to be married, to Joseph. The angel Gabriel came to tell her that God had chosen her to be the mother of his Son, the long-awaited Messiah. While Mary was confused about the logistics of how this could happen, since she was a virgin, she accepted the explanation of the angel and accepted God’s plan for her life. It’s quite interesting to think about what might have happened if Mary had said, “no.” I wonder what God’s plan B was! But I guess God knew Mary’s heart and soul well enough to know that he had chosen wisely and Mary was going to say yes. She exhibited so much courage, especially if she was as young as twelve or fourteen years old. What a huge responsibility she was agreeing to take on! To parent the child of God! Wow! And what humility she showed in the way that she responded. She didn’t say, “Yay, me! God must think I’m really great!” She said, “I will do this if God wills it.”
The birth of Jesus did not happen as anyone might have planned or wanted it to, except perhaps God. I’m sure Mary expected to have that baby at home, with an experienced midwife on hand, or at least her mother or other female relative to get her through it. Instead, by circumstances beyond her control, she had her baby in a stable with only her husband to assist. What woman would want that setting as a delivery room? But Mary did the best that she could. She adapted to her situation. She made the most of her limited resources. And her love for her son was the same, no matter where he was born.
After Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph took care to do all the things required by the Law. They had him circumcised on the eighth day. And they took him to be presented in the Temple in Jerusalem and to offer him to God as the firstborn. They made the required sacrifices. And they met up with some fascinating people who took a special interest in their son. Simeon was a devout believer who had been watching and waiting for the Messiah. He had been assured by God that he would not die before seeing the one he had been waiting for. And he was led to Mary and Joseph and their son. He also warned Mary that there was going to be pain ahead for her because of the work that her son was called to do. Next they met a prophet named Anna, an 84-year-old woman, who praised God and spoke about what Jesus was going to do. Then Mary and Joseph took Jesus home to Galilee.
Mary made sure to bring Jesus up to know and live according to Jewish law and custom. For one thing, they took him every year to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. This was important for every Jew who lived close enough to make the trip. And it was important enough that Mary and Joseph did so every year. When Jesus was twelve years old, they went to Jerusalem as usual. But when they left to go back home, they assumed that Jesus was with their group. When they stopped for the night, they couldn’t find Jesus anywhere. He wasn’t with their relatives or friends. And they realized that he must have somehow gotten left behind in the city.
This is a nightmare that every parent has: having a lost child. And it can happen so fast. Especially in a big city. Mary probably assumed that Joseph had made sure Jesus was with them; Joseph probably assumed Mary had brought him along. They both probably thought Jesus was with the other young people in their traveling group. It was no one’s fault. But the terror must have been choking. So Mary and Joseph rushed back to Jerusalem and started looking for their lost child. It took them three days to find him. And when they did, it was in the Temple. Jesus was there with the teachers of the law, listening to them and asking them questions. Mary was angry with him. Isn’t that always our first reaction when we have been afraid of the worst and find the child safe and sound? She let him have it. “Son, why in the world would you treat your father and me like this? We’ve been scared to death looking everywhere for you!”
And Jesus answered calmly, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” Well, that seemed pretty cryptic. But Jesus went home with them and was obedient to them. I just bet he was! Mary probably grounded him for like a year! But Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. And Mary treasured all these things in her heart.
The last time we see Mary in the gospels is in John chapter 19, when she is with some other women at the foot of Jesus’s cross. I cannot even begin to imagine what it is like to lose a child to death, to have to watch the one you gave birth to die. And even worse, to watch that child die an agonizing death, suffering for hours, hanging on a cross. Mary must have had such incredible strength to be able to bear it. And yet, where else could she have been? There was nothing else for her to do, except be there with him to the end. I like the way that Frederick Buechner described this scene in his book, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who:
For all the sentimentalizing that their relationship has come in for since, there’s no place in the Gospels where he speaks some special, loving word or does some special, loving thing for the woman who gave him birth … No place, that is, except at the very end when, cross-eyed with pain, he looked down from where they’d nailed him and said something just for her … “Behold your son,” he said, indicating the disciple who was standing beside her, and then to the disciple, “Behold your mother.”
It was his going-away present to her really, somebody to be the son to her that he had no way of being himself, what with a world to save, a death to die. He would be present in that disciple, he seemed to be saying, for her to live for, and to live for her. Beyond that, he would be present in generation after generation for her to mother, the Mater Dolorosa who seeks him always, and sorrowing, everywhere she goes.
It is believed that, from that day, Mary went to live with John, the disciple that Jesus loved. And when John later moved to Ephesus to minister, Mary went with him. Maybe she needed to be with someone who had really understood her son, who he was and what he came to do, in a way that his own brothers never seemed to do (except perhaps for his brother James). Jesus knew that she would need comfort and a pur-pose after he was gone, and this was his solution. And Mary is mentioned in Acts as being with the other believers in the upper room, taking a role in the early church.
Mary was quite a remarkable woman, quite a remarkable mother. She learned to make do when circumstances were less than ideal. She made sure to bring up her son according to her faith and to teach him to live by it as well. She didn’t let him get away with misbehaving, but made sure that he learned to be obedient. That came in handy later, when he had to choose to obey the will of God when it was a hard way to go. And Mary was committed to not leaving her son when he needed her most, when he was dying. She provided her support, her comfort, her presence, during his final moments. And she carried on his legacy after his death. No matter what else Mary might or might not have been, she was an incredible mother.
