Remembering Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus
Who is Mary that she was chosen to be the earthly mother of Jesus?
In Mid-Eastern tradition she was engaged to Joseph — a carpenter by trade — probably at only twelve or thirteen. The Bible introduces her when the angel Gabriel visits her house in the city of Nazareth to announce “...you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.”
That's a shocker, and Mary knows it. She doesn't exactly argue — but she does question. Ultimately she not only believes Gabriel's explanation, but tells him she completely trusts God. Mary was no “shrinking violet.”
Then there is the journey — at nine months pregnant — to Bethlehem with Joseph to register for the census. There is no donkey in the telling. They walked through rough country for close to a week. This woman is tough.
Nor can I presume it was Mary's first choice to give birth in a crude animal enclosure — she was a city girl — or cradle her newborn in a feeding trough. Yet when excited shepherds arrived with their talk of a glorious night sky filled with angels celebrating the birth of a Savior “for all the people,” Mary welcomed them in her exhaustion, amid humble surroundings.
She did more than that. She “treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Mary was a woman of thought. Someone who lived the moment — and carried its meaning with her.
Then there was the “pick-up-and-go” in the middle of the night, fleeing to a whole different country — Egypt — when the King Herod wanted to get rid of the “competition.” He didn't like hearing another “king” had been born. That sojourn lasted several years. Mary was adaptable.
She and Joseph were not too happy to have “misplaced” their son at twelve years old, when he wasn't in the friends and family caravan returning home from the Passover feast in Jerusalem. It took a day to notice — they obviously allowed him freedom to roam--and three days searching to find him in the temple astounding the teachers with his understanding.
Like any mother Mary had been anxious — yet when Jesus told her it was time for him to be “in My Father's house,” once again she “treasured all these things in her heart.” He went home with them — but Mary had to have known — and begun to accept — her son had a calling far beyond her nurture.
She went from being a parental authority in his life to valuing his authority as an adult. At the wedding in Cana — when the wine ran out — she dictated to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” She'd spent a lifetime watching him grow. She was bold on his behalf. She comprehended he was a man to be heeded.
Early on, when dedicating their infant son in the temple, Mary was warned by a devout man Simeon, “… and a sword will pierce even your own soul …” This courageous mother watched her son die up close on a cross. The teen who had said yes to God must have agonized, cried, “Why!”
The Bible does not record the moment she and Jesus reunited after his resurrection. It is their private memory. I can imagine how it must have been. Joy unspeakable! That treasured moment when she understood she and her son would never be separated. That her child was life for the world.