Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
That is the traditional Roman Catholic prayer called the “Hail Mary.” For some of you, who grew up in the Catholic Church, you may have prayed those words hundreds of times.
For others, like me, who grew up in the Protestant Church, the Hail Mary is not even something I’m familiar with. (Isn’t it a football thing?)
In fact, while there are plenty of theological differences between Protestants and Catholics or Eastern Orthodox Christians, when it comes to the day-to-day experience of being a Christian, the veneration of Mary has to be one of the most significant.
Orthodox Christian worship involves icons of the “blessed virgin.” Roman Catholics directly ask Mary to intercede with God on their behalf.
To Protestants, she’s kind of just a character in a few Bible stories at Christmas.
It makes me wonder… is it possible we’re missing something here?
Now to be clear: I’m of the opinion that we don’t need to pray to Mary because Jesus intercedes for us.
And I think that the theological arguments that she was sinless or that she never actually died but went straight to heaven are not founded in Scripture…
But the fact that so many Christians throughout history have elevated Mary so significantly makes me wonder: is it possible that the mother of Jesus has more to teach us than we normally acknowledge?
That’s the question I want to explore today.
We’re in the third week of our series, “Witness,” exploring the character and person of Jesus as seen through from the perspectives of those who followed him.
Today we’re going to look at Jesus through the eyes of his mother.
So let’s talk about Mary. Who was she?
Well, the gospel accounts don’t give us a lot of biographical details about her. We have to infer a lot of things from clues in the text and from the things we know about life in the ancient world.
When we first meet Mary in the story she is engaged to be married to a man named Joseph. He was an artisan, a carpenter. So they were essentially working class peasants in rural Galilee.
The way marriage worked back then, it’s likely that Mary was quite young - maybe even 15.
And Joseph was likely older. Maybe in his 20’s. Or, possibly older than that. I’m not trying to rock the boat here, but Joseph might have even been a widower with kids from an earlier marriage.
All we know is that Jesus had at least four brothers and two sisters, but it doesn’t say anywhere that Mary was their mother. She might have been. We just don’t know.
Bottom line, Mary was young, she was a peasant, and when an angel shows up to her and tells her she’s going to give birth to the Messiah, she’s clearly a bit in over her head.
Let’s take a look. Luke 1:26, Page _____.
Luke 1:26-28
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!” Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
There’s a bit of back and forth with the angel, but here is how Mary responds to this incredible promise.
Luke 1:38
I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.
So right out of the gate, this teenage girl is pretty remarkable. Her response to this angelic visit is not, “Why me?” Or “What do I get out of it?” Or “How do I know what you’re saying is true?”
No. It’s simply an open-handed posture of surrender to the will of God. “I am the Lord’s servant.”
It’s amazing that someone so young could have such a mature response.
Long story short, she gives birth to Jesus and then begins the long journey of discovering what it really means for her baby boy to be the son of God.
When he’s 8 days old, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the temple to be dedicated, and there they meet a prophet named Simeon.
I preached about Simeon’s prophecy on Christmas Eve, but I want to draw your attention to one thing he says to Mary. Skip ahead to chapter 2:33.
Luke 2:33-35
Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, the baby’s mother, “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”
Woah. Imagine what must have been going through Mary’s mind at that moment. Your son will be divisive. He will be opposed. And a sword will pierce your soul. That’s a lot for a young mother to process.
So what, exactly, did Simeon mean? What sword was going to pierce Mary’s soul?
HARDSHIP
Well, to answer that we have to start by talking about her life as a mother. There were undoubtedly many moments of delight for Mary. Moments of unprecedented closeness with her son.
Nursing Jesus, bathing him, singing to him, teaching him… She had the joys of watching his first steps and seeing him develop fine motor skills and discover the world.
I’m sure there were happy moments watching Jesus roughhouse with his dad and play with his friends and laugh at goofy jokes.
Mary shared a kind of joyful intimacy with Jesus that no other human could possibly share. She was his mom.
But… it was not an easy road.
Placing her newborn son in an animal’s feed trough because there was nowhere else to put him was not a pleasant experience.
Offering small birds at the temple as a sacrifice because they couldn’t afford a lamb was humiliating.
Fleeing to Egypt as a refugee because Herod was murdering children in Bethlehem… That’s traumatic.
And then there’s the fact that Joseph disappears from the story pretty quickly. Did he die and leave Mary a young widow?
We don’t know, but it’s clear that poverty and hardship were a big part of Mary’s story.
Was that the sword Simeon was talking about? Maybe. But I think it goes much deeper.
DISTANCE
I think the sword that would pierce her soul had a lot more to do with the fact that her son was both fully human and fully divine. As her tiny baby grew, so did her awareness of his bewildering otherness.
For example, there’s a story a bit later in Luke where the while family goes to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, and on their way back they realize that 12-year-old Jesus isn’t with them. It’s basically a Home Alone situation. “Kevin!”
They go back and find Jesus sitting in the temple having deep discussions with the religious leaders. Everyone thinks, “Woah! This kid is bright!” But pay attention to Mary’s response here:
Luke 2:48-50
His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”
“But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they didn’t understand what he meant.
Can you blame Mary here? How many parents here have ever asked their kids, “What were you thinking?!?”
Now, this could just be a “kids being kids” moment. But I think it’s pointing to something deeper.
There is a chasm growing between Mary and her son. Where she has trouble understanding the person he is becoming.
To Jesus it’s obvious that he should be “in his Father’s house.” But all Mary can say is, “Why have you done this to us?” She doesn’t understand.
Later, when Jesus is grown and is about to launch his ministry there is a clear disconnect between him and Mary at a wedding where she wants him to perform a miraculous sign and he says, “No, Mom. It’s not my time yet.”
She’s not understanding his intentions as the son of God. But then he goes ahead and does it. He makes water out of wine. So maybe she does get it? Regardless, there’s some distance growing here.
And you can imagine her heartache and confusion in some of the statements Jesus makes about her.
At one point in his ministry a woman in a crowd shouts out, “God bless your mother!” And Jesus replies, “On the contrary. The blessed ones are those who hear the word of God and put it into practice.”
Or another time, when Mary and Jesus’ brothers show up to see him, Jesus says, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” Then he points to his disciples and says, “These are my mother and brothers.”
Now, obviously Jesus was teaching in these moments and making a point. He loved his mom. He’s Jesus, right? I’m sure he went out and gave her a big bear hug after saying this.
But these statements still must have felt to Mary that her son was drifting away.
Even when he’s hanging on the cross and Mary is standing there with the Apostle John, Jesus says, “Woman, here is your son… John, here is your mother.”
In that moment Jesus is trying to make sure his mom will be cared for after he’s gone, but to Mary those words still must have stung. Jesus is essentially saying, “I’m not your son anymore.” How much more distance could there be?
As Jesus stepped into his role as the savior of humanity, the son of God, the Messiah, he inevitably became more remote and distant from the one who raised him in her arms.
And as his ministry grew and his teachings became more provocative and dangerous, Mary began to understand that she was going to lose her son. I bet the words of Simeon echoed in her head every day.
"This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall…"
"Many will oppose him.."
On the cross Jesus had to bear his tremendous sacrifice alone, and Mary could do nothing but stand beside him, watch, and grieve.
The one who knew Jesus most intimately now faced the staggering mystery of a crucified God.
Mary’s son was beyond her reach. A sword had pierced her soul.
FAITH
And then the story goes quiet. We don’t see Mary mentioned again in the Bible. Tradition has it that she went with John to Ephesus and was buried there. We don’t know.
But here’s what blows my mind. Presumably, in the days after the crucifixion she stayed with the disciples in Jerusalem, which means she would have also encountered the resurrected Christ firsthand.
What went through her mind as she saw her son alive again? What happened within Mary at Pentecost as the Spirit of Christ filled her with his presence?
If we have trouble wrapping our minds around this, imagine what she was feeling.
This woman had the most intimate relationship with Jesus imaginable, but also the deepest recognition of his divine otherness. That distance with her had been growing for 30 years. And now he lived within her.
This journey is what I believe makes Mary so remarkable.
Of all of Jesus’ disciples, Mary had the most reason to fall away from him in bewilderment. To be hurt by his reframing of the meaning of family. To despair at her son’s seemingly reckless opposition to the authorities. To become discouraged by the incomprehensibility of her baby boy’s destiny.
She could have fallen away so easily. And yet she never did.
She stood with him until the end.
Who was with Jesus as he suffered on the cross?
Most of his disciples weren’t. Judas betrayed him. Peter denied him. A lot of the others ran and hid.
But Mary - his mother - stood boldly at his side even as he breathed his last. She said it herself 30 years before: “I am the Lord’s servant.” This woman’s faith was staggering.
In his book, The Lord, Romano Guardini says this about Mary:
“Not understanding, never was she to lose heart, never to fall behind. Inwardly she accompanied the incomprehensible figure of her son every step of his journey, however dark. Perseverance in faith even on Calvary—this was Mary’s inimitable greatness.”
Romano Guardini, The Lord
A sword pierced this mother’s soul, but her trust in Christ remained.
Uniquely aware of his humanity, uniquely burdened by his divinity, Mary followed her son to the end.
REMARKABLE
So what do we take away from Mary’s story in our own journeys of faith?
Again, I’m a Protestant, so I don’t think she’s divine. I don’t think she should be prayed to. She’s just a woman. But she is a remarkable woman.
So what does she teach us?
Well, first of all, I don’t want to miss the very real model Mary is for parents who feel like their children are slipping through their fingers. Maybe that’s you.
As I was writing this message I kept thinking about my own mother’s experience. Back when I was in college, I was in a really dark place in my life. I was cynical and disillusioned. My faith was hanging by a thread. I spent most of my time playing Xbox.
Someone back then asked my mom what my major was and she said, “I don’t know, I think it’s video games.”
She was frustrated and discouraged that I was wasting my life away, her heart was burdened by my disillusionment and crumbling faith. She felt helpless because she couldn’t just sweep in and fix my problems.
This is the burden of parenting adult children. I know many of you are in the same boat.
So one takeaway here is that Mary is an excellent example of how to do this well. No, she didn’t understand who her son was becoming. No, she couldn’t take his pain away.
But she could stand by his side with him to the end, and that’s exactly what she did.
Maybe there’s a parent today who needs to hear this message. Let Mary’s faithfulness be a model to you. Don’t give up on your child, no matter the distance between you. Trust like Mary that God has your child in his hands.
And I’m sure someone’s thinking, “Sure, but she was the mother of Christ! She talked to angels! She was cut from a different kind of cloth!”
No. Mary was an uneducated peasant girl from Galilee. The only thing that made her unique was her steadfast posture of surrender and faith.
Mary entrusted her child to God. You can do so too.
But Mary is a model for more than just faithful parenting. I think she’s a model of what faith in Jesus looks like for all of us in the midst of uncertainty.
I don’t think Mary ever fully understood the nature of her son’s identity until the resurrection. Maybe even afterwards she was scratching her head.
But she followed him nonetheless.
Maybe for some of you this whole Jesus thing is a bit fuzzy. Maybe you have a laundry list of reasons to be skeptical. To doubt God. To question. I get it. I’m a skeptic too.
But here’s the thing. Faith? Trust? It is not the absence of doubt. Faith is what you choose to do in the midst of your doubt.
And this is where Mary can be our example. She never once had all the answers. In fact, having been so deeply close with Jesus as his human mother, she had even more reason to doubt his incomprehensible divinity. “I changed his diapers!”
And yet she chose to believe. What if you did the same?
What if you chose to say: “I still have a lot of questions. But I will surrender my life to Christ without all the answers.”
“No, I don’t know why God won’t just fix this broken world. Why he allows suffering. But I will follow him regardless.”
“No, I don’t understand everything about this fully human fully divine messiah. But I choose to believe in him nonetheless.”
Faith is not the absence of doubt. It’s what you choose to do in the midst of your doubt.
Mary chose to follow her son, even when she had no idea where the journey would end. Will you choose to follow him too?
—
What an amazing person Mary was. What a wonderful gift her story has become. What a powerful example of trust in the son of God.
That we can see this loving mother, weeping at the foot of her son’s cross, yet still unmoving in her faith. That we can say, even in that moment:
“Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.”