The Importance of Mary

[HKHaugan]

The Importance of Mary 

When we approach Scripture, it is important that we view it from its intended spiritual context. What is it saying to us spiritually? Then, how is to be applied to where we are as individuals physically and emotionally? So, when we look at the passages involving Mary the mother of Jesus for instance, what is the spiritual meaning of her life and her words?

 There is an obviously deep spiritual impact when Elizabeth, pregnant with John, hears Mary greet her. She is filled with the Holy Spirit, the baby in her womb (John the Baptizer) leaps for joy and, overwhelmed, she says to Mary “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear (Lk.1:42).” Now here is the really important observation she makes, “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished (Lk.1:45).” Believing, trusting, having faith, is being blessed. This brings us to consider Mary from a spiritual perspective and her being chosen to bear Jesus.

Let’s start with what it means for us.

First and foremost, Mary is the proof that God conceives spiritually and can live and develop a spiritual human nature in a human body. It is totally consistent with Creation itself. It was spiritually conceived in the mind of God. So, everything, that is everything visible and invisible has a spiritual beginning. This lays the groundwork for Jesus’ words that we must be born again spiritually. Our rebirth was by the Holy Spirit and we grow spiritually from that point.

Second, when Mary, referring to the angel Gabriel telling her that she would conceive the Christ, said, “Let it be to me according to your word (Lk.1:38),” it was her faith, her will, her commitment to the Lord God demonstrating the importance of personal faith. Faith is the primary reality that generates life. It would be logical that a woman of faith would respond to a faith encounter with a faithful response. It is a signal to us that when we start with any thought, any motivation and choice and decision it must be spiritually founded. Anything less makes us vulnerable to a sinful response. All you have to do is look at the world around us to see that reality.

Third, the Virgin Birth was a Holy Spirit conception, pregnancy and protected delivery. The important thing to see here is Mary’s faithful response. Jesus was conceived and delivered in the atmosphere of personal faith and raised as a child in that faith. It tells us a lot about responsible parenting.

Fourth, consider further what her response was because it is the response we can give when we remember how we were personally blessed by God: “From now on all generations shall call me blessed (Lk.1:48).” This transfers to us when Mary says in the opening of her response, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has been mindful of the humble estate of His servant (Lk.1:46).” Were we not humbled when we realized He was mindful of us personally, forgave our past and gave us the privilege of being His servant? It takes us back to the passage from Ps.8, “What is man that Thou art mindful of him and the son of man that Thou visitest him?” Faith is the key to worship.

Now, what is the spiritual message Scripture sends about Mary?

 Her place in Scripture is a spiritual lesson. She was chosen by God to bear the Christ. But rather than exalting her above the rest of humanity we need to learn from Scripture her real position in the world at that time. The NIV translates the Gk.tapeinos as humble but the King James is a bit more accurate, “lowly estate.” What the Greek portrays as “lowly estate” is how women were seen at that time. She had three strikes against her. She was a woman, she was from a lower class and she was a Jew. Add to that the Roman worldview of the Jews being an inferior people. And one more thing. Being a single pregnant woman, she would be seen as an outcast even among her own people. Put yourself in her shoes and as a local Jew in her time. How could those things possibly qualify her to be the bearer of the Messiah?

 The real lesson is found in her response. There is no indication that what her world thought had any effect on her. She tells Gabriel, “I am the Lord’s servant; may it be to me as you have said.” No hesitation, no pondering. She knew God. It was her humble example as an ordinary person reacting in faith to God’s calling that is the far more important lesson. This is the real cause for deep and lasting respect considering “her humbles estate.”

 Mary’s example tells us that we too, His created images, were chosen to accept Jesus as Savior and Lord and bear Him in our mind and hearts. That choice to bear the Christ is a humbling task of relational growth in God and with one another as the people of God. Mary was a faithful witness. Jesus grew up with the influence of a mother’s faith. Jesus embraced His Father’s will and perfected human nature through faith-led obedience, by growing “in wisdom and stature with God and man (Lk.2:52)” which is His call to us. That verse applied to us prescribes how we take up our cross and follow Him in our every next moment. Every next moment gives us an opportunity to take up our cross, the cross of faith, so we can grow in wisdom and stature with God and man.

 After her profound experience, Mary recounts what the Lord God has done for His people in the past (Lk.1:46-55). She obviously was raised in a scriptural environment. She relates that God has done mighty things; scattered the proud, brought down rulers, lifted the humble, filled the hungry, confronted the rich and guaranteed the survival of Israel. She certainly knew her people’s history. That’s another spiritual signal to us. Because of the Lord Jesus and stirred by Mary’s example, we discover that Scripture’s history is our history, and this is our time to be faithful in it.