Our pastor last Christmas season presented a message on "A Mary Christmas." It was thought provoking and it stirred me to consider the event of Jesus birth from the viewpoint of his mother, Mary.
We don't know a lot about Mary, but the Bible does tell us a little. We know she was young and modern research leads us to believe she may have even been a teenager. We know she had not been married before, nor had she been with a man before, to use the language of the Bible. She was a virgin. She was pure. Pure not only in body, but evidently pure in mind, motive, and heart. She had kept herself unspoiled. She was so pure, in fact, that the God who made her and everything we know, took special notice of her purity, and choose her to be the conduit to bring Himself into the world clothed in flesh.
That thought alone could keep a person thinking a long time. But without exploring that path, I want to think about Mary's involvement.
If Mary was so pure in heart, mind and motive to attract the attention of God, I imagine the entire idea of being the vessel that presented God in the flesh to the world would have been staggering. We know from scripture that she believe in and worshiped YHWH (which has come to be pronounced Yahway in English) the living God. Because it was considered blasphemous in her day to use the word God (I often wish it was true today) she would have known Him by YHWH, not in spoken word but in written form only.
Anyone so pure will also be very humble. Purity is predicated by humility. One cannot be proud and be pure. A search of the Bible yields many scriptures of God's disdain of the proud including James 4.6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the PROUD, but giveth grace unto the humble. If God resists the proud, then Mary must have been a very humble person. In her humility I am sure she would not have been jumping around like she had just been awarded a cash prize of significance. I can see her frightened nearly to tears or worse, and wondering how was she going to present this to her family and her fiance.
At the same time I see Mary as a very strong individual in her faith in God. The Bible has no record of her going to pieces or having a nervous breakdown. She seemed to bear up under this very weighty task she has been beset with.
Another attribute of Mary that I believe she must have had was a unique understanding of who this child really was. In her mind and heart she somehow had a revelation of what was happening. As she sat and nursed this helpless infant in the first few hours and days of His life how she must have wondered at the amazing fact that she, a created human in a very humble life and surroundings, was holding the very one that created her and everything she knew.
Think of the amazing fact, if you can get your mind around it; she, the created, is holding in her arms, the creator. Not just A creator, but HER creator.
I have a list of people I want to talk to in the next life, and one of them at the top of the list is Mary, mother of Jesus.
I hope as you prepare for this extravaganza we call Christmas you will be able to let your mind wrap itself around those first few hours in Jesus life as Mary held him and gazed on his face, all the while understanding that his little one was the same one who created her. I wish you a Mary Christmas season. May you truly come to understand what the birth of God meant then, now, and for future generations.
Blessings
Again, if you have any comments or want to add to my understanding email me at bwcatlett@comcast.net.
