“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary said. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Luke 1:38
I’ll always remember the first time I heard someone refer to Mary as “Our Lady”. At first I was just puzzled - “Our Lady? - who on earth is he talking about!” And then it dawned on me, “Oh, of course, he means Jesus’ mother!” He wasn’t a Roman Catholic, but presumably he must have been a fairly “high” Anglican: to him, if Jesus was “Our Lord” then Mary was “Our Lady”.
To an evangelical Protestant like me it seemed very strange, even slightly shocking. Still does, in fact. Any suggestion of putting Mary remotely on a par with Jesus is, surely, just plain wrong.
But we need to be careful. Is there a danger that we over-react to this kind of theology and, in effect, air-brush Mary altogether out of the gospel story? She does, after all, occupy a massively important place in God’s dealings with the human race: the mother of the Son of God!
Her experience, at face value, is a million miles from anything we could possibly identify with. Yet, on reflection, there is much that we can learn from it. Here are four episodes - four snapshots, if you like - which are worth pondering.
Snapshot 1, of course, is Mary the exhilarated, awestruck, excited (not to mention frightened), young girl (Luke 1).
The angel Gabriel visits her (she is of course still a virgin) and tells her that “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.”
Once she has recovered from the shock we can picture her, her face radiant, her eyes shining, as she shouts out loud what, if you are an Anglican, you will know as The Magnificat: “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour... the mighty One has done great things for me - holy is his name...!”
Well, I have never been anywhere near where Mary was on that day, and I imagine the same is true for you. But all of us, I hope, have experienced times in our lives when the reality of God was overpoweringly wonderful.
It may very well have been like that when we were first converted - truly “born again” into a whole new life. And there have, I hope, been lesser experiences along the way ever since - unexpected events, coincidences (that weren’t!), wonderful answers to prayer, providences great or small - which have made us feel “Yes, the hand of God is truly on my life! Thank you, Lord!”
So Mary speaks to us of those spiritual “highs” which punctuate the often routine progress of our spiritual lives. We are not, of course, to go looking for such highs - but we can certainly be grateful for them when they come.
And I think we can learn from Mary that even at such times we should remain both humble and obedient. Putting it another way, we should never allow exciting events in our lives to make us arrogant or proud. “I am the Lord’ servant,” said Mary. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”
Doesn’t that strike a perfect note of submission to the will of God?
Snapshot 2 is very different: Mary in confusion and doubt.
Fast-forward to Mark 3. Jesus now is fully embarked on his ministry: preaching, healings, cleansing of evil spirits. And not everyone is happy. Indeed, some of the religious authorities think he is a messenger of Satan rather than of God: “He is possessed by Beelzebul [a name for the devil]! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons” (verse 22). This (understandably) unsettles Mary and Jesus’ siblings: when they hear about it, “they went to take charge of him, for people were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’”.
“They went to take charge of him”: oh dear, Jesus has clearly become a worry and an embarrassment to them.
How different from the ecstatic girl we saw in snapshot 1! You could even ask how someone who has had such an awesomely supernatural experience could possibly experience such doubt or disillusionment.
But Mary did: and that suggests that it can happen to us too. I personally, over many years of ministry, have seen people who have had wonderful “mountain-top experiences” plunged, later, into the valley of depression and doubt.
The anxious, troubled, middle-aged Mary, then, serves for us as an encouragement: even the strongest and most mature of God’s people can go through such times.
If that is you today, please take heart!
I said I had four snapshots of Mary in mind. But I have run out of space, so I will have to return to her next time. I hope what I have said so far convinces you that her story is well-worth a second visit...
Lord God, thank you for Mary - her life, her humility, her ordinariness, and her simple trust in you. Help me not only to admire her but to learn from her even though the footsteps in which I walk are so radically different from hers. Amen.
I’ll always remember the first time I heard someone refer to Mary as “Our Lady”. At first I was just puzzled - “Our Lady? - who on earth is he talking about!” And then it dawned on me, “Oh, of course, he means Jesus’ mother!” He wasn’t a Roman Catholic, but presumably he must have been a fairly “high” Anglican: to him, if Jesus was “Our Lord” then Mary was “Our Lady”.
To an evangelical Protestant like me it seemed very strange, even slightly shocking. Still does, in fact. Any suggestion of putting Mary remotely on a par with Jesus is, surely, just plain wrong.
But we need to be careful. Is there a danger that we over-react to this kind of theology and, in effect, air-brush Mary altogether out of the gospel story? She does, after all, occupy a massively important place in God’s dealings with the human race: the mother of the Son of God!
Her experience, at face value, is a million miles from anything we could possibly identify with. Yet, on reflection, there is much that we can learn from it. Here are four episodes - four snapshots, if you like - which are worth pondering.
Snapshot 1, of course, is Mary the exhilarated, awestruck, excited (not to mention frightened), young girl (Luke 1).
The angel Gabriel visits her (she is of course still a virgin) and tells her that “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.”
Once she has recovered from the shock we can picture her, her face radiant, her eyes shining, as she shouts out loud what, if you are an Anglican, you will know as The Magnificat: “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour... the mighty One has done great things for me - holy is his name...!”
Well, I have never been anywhere near where Mary was on that day, and I imagine the same is true for you. But all of us, I hope, have experienced times in our lives when the reality of God was overpoweringly wonderful.
It may very well have been like that when we were first converted - truly “born again” into a whole new life. And there have, I hope, been lesser experiences along the way ever since - unexpected events, coincidences (that weren’t!), wonderful answers to prayer, providences great or small - which have made us feel “Yes, the hand of God is truly on my life! Thank you, Lord!”
So Mary speaks to us of those spiritual “highs” which punctuate the often routine progress of our spiritual lives. We are not, of course, to go looking for such highs - but we can certainly be grateful for them when they come.
And I think we can learn from Mary that even at such times we should remain both humble and obedient. Putting it another way, we should never allow exciting events in our lives to make us arrogant or proud. “I am the Lord’ servant,” said Mary. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”
Doesn’t that strike a perfect note of submission to the will of God?
Snapshot 2 is very different: Mary in confusion and doubt.
Fast-forward to Mark 3. Jesus now is fully embarked on his ministry: preaching, healings, cleansing of evil spirits. And not everyone is happy. Indeed, some of the religious authorities think he is a messenger of Satan rather than of God: “He is possessed by Beelzebul [a name for the devil]! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons” (verse 22). This (understandably) unsettles Mary and Jesus’ siblings: when they hear about it, “they went to take charge of him, for people were saying, ‘He is out of his mind’”.
“They went to take charge of him”: oh dear, Jesus has clearly become a worry and an embarrassment to them.
How different from the ecstatic girl we saw in snapshot 1! You could even ask how someone who has had such an awesomely supernatural experience could possibly experience such doubt or disillusionment.
But Mary did: and that suggests that it can happen to us too. I personally, over many years of ministry, have seen people who have had wonderful “mountain-top experiences” plunged, later, into the valley of depression and doubt.
The anxious, troubled, middle-aged Mary, then, serves for us as an encouragement: even the strongest and most mature of God’s people can go through such times.
If that is you today, please take heart!
I said I had four snapshots of Mary in mind. But I have run out of space, so I will have to return to her next time. I hope what I have said so far convinces you that her story is well-worth a second visit...
Lord God, thank you for Mary - her life, her humility, her ordinariness, and her simple trust in you. Help me not only to admire her but to learn from her even though the footsteps in which I walk are so radically different from hers. Amen.
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