Mother Mary
In all the story, how much attention do you give to Mary? Was she just the surrogate that carried Jesus? Or was she more than that?
A few weeks ago I was asked why is it important to care about Mary if we care about Jesus. A good question.
Our concern for who Mary was and her role to our faith journey comes from the simple reality that it was through her womb that our Savior came. God chose her. And while there may not have been anything unique or special about Mary to compel God to choose her, he still chose her and made her unique and special when he chose her. Had he not made her special or prepared her to carry the Savior of the world, it could make the already challenging reality of virgin birth all the more challenging.
Mary represents something of the mission of Jesus. Mary, along with the virgin birth, represents possibility in the face of impossibility. She represents God’s will and blessing in and from an unlikely place.
If we take a close look at Luke 1:48 we realize that Mary gives us the primary reason she sings to God. She says, “…because he has looked with favor on the humble condition of his servant.” The phrase “humble condition” is interesting because it means a few things in its original language. It means poor, miserable, insignificant, captive. In other words, Mary is keenly aware of her positioning in the social strata of her time. There’s no question that Mary sits at the margins of society and it has caused her to feel miserable, unimportant and even trapped in a cycle of poverty much like the marginalized groups of our time — communities of color and immigrants as examples.
Yet Mary was also a woman in a society whose perceptions of women was negligent at best and abusive at worst. Mary was a woman in a society whose laws would often leave her among the most vulnerable — along with widows and orphans.
As if being a poor woman in first century Palestine wasn’t difficult enough, add to Mary’s description Galilean. Galilee was the region of Israel that historically was home to the largest population of racially intermixed people. When King Solomon tried to make friends with one of the non-Jewish nations around Israel, he did that by handing over 22 towns in the region of Galilee to their King; creating an even greater racially intermixed society in that region.
Galileans often found themselves in this middle, somewhat intermediate and perhaps ambiguous space. On one hand, it was a space where true-blood Jews would perceive them as not entirely Jewish. The Galileans weren’t fully received as one of “them” and so they were often treated with disdain, second class among other Jews. They would say sarcastically of the Galileans: “can anything good come from Nazareth (town in Galilee)?”
Or make statements dripped with doubt. During Jesus’ trial one Pharisee stood up in defense of him, asking that he be given a fair trial with an opportunity to speak. The rest of the Pharisees replied saying: “Are you from Galilee too? Investigate and you will see that no prophet comes from Galilee.”
It was the kind of disdain that led them to make statements that associated Galileans with criminality. In other words, subtle racially profiling statements. Peter is a prime example. After he had twice denied his association with Jesus during his very sketchy trial, someone in the crowd said to Peter, “You really are one of them, since even your [Galilean] accent gives you away.” That’s as if to assume someone is dangerous simply because they wear a hoodie at night. Or as if believing that someone is a criminal because they are often referred to as an illegal alien.
On the other hand, Galileans — to the Roman Empire — were unequivocally not Romans, they were Jews. They were second and third class in the Empire. And the status quo throughout the Empire made sure of it.
In other words, being Galilean only widened the distance between the center of culture and the margins of culture. Being Galilean, from a societal vantage point only qualified you to be forgotten, unimportant and with no real home in society.
Jesus is well known for fulfilling the words of the prophet in Isaiah 61 when he says, “He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners.” This was a declaration that his mission, while it was aimed at the entire creation, was uniquely and passionate aimed at the vulnerable of society — often the poor, orphans and widows. In fact, Wil Gafney a professor of of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity School says, “People at the bottom of every power curve are God’s primary concern: the oppressed, the broken-hearted, those experiencing captivity — political and social, such as occupation, and those imprisoned — with no mention of guilt or innocence, and those who mourn. The well-being of these is at the heart of the gospel in both testaments.”
Jesus makes it clear that his message as much as his mission was given to him from his father in heaven. But I can’t help imagine how much of this messaging he also experienced from his mother, Mary, and the environment he was born into. Before Jesus was even born, at the announcement of conception Mary declared, “He has satisfied the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.”
It shouldn’t be strange to imagine that the Divine mission of the Son given by the Father was in some ways emboldened in Jesus by his mother. The incarnate son had a mother who acknowledged and praised the nature of God’s love for the broken-hearted before he had a rear-end to put a diaper on!
None of this is to minimize or strip away from the reality that Mary’s conception would lead to the birth of humanity’s only Mediator and Savior. It is to say, however, that in choosing Mary and in Mary’s acknowledgment of the unique thing God was up to is special. Gabriel, the angel knew it. She knew it. Elizabeth knew it. And we would follow in that same legacy if we also acknowledged it. In this season I am grateful for Mary, the mother of our Savior.
