There was no hesitation.
Moses stalled.
Barack negotiated.
Thomas doubted.
Mary yielded.
Yielded her heart, yielded her body, yielded her reputation, yielded her disappointments.
The angel of the Lord declares her to be “blessed among women and highly favored.” But this favor did not make her divine nor rich. The blessedness did not defend her reputation or exempt her from trial. We can ask in awe, “Mary did you know?”
Though intimately connected with Jesus, this did not bestow perfect understanding of His mission to her heart. Once it took a full day to miss Him and three whole days to find Him at the temple, a Child teaching the sages wisdom.
“Why have you treated us like this?,” she asked.
By grace she delivered in her labor the Son of God, the consolation of Israel, the Desire of all ages, her personal Savior. But with that gracious favor came a sword, a rhomphaia, a piercing sorrow beyond description as she stood watching her Son hang on a cruel Roman cross.
A piercing dividing asunder of her spirit from cherished theories and precious myths.
“My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior,” she proclaimed. Mary was blessed and mortal. She shared with Jesus her humanity but was uninvolved in His divinity. God is the joy of her own salvation from sin. “…and the child that you deliver will soon deliver you.”
Mary believed the word from the Lord and believe in the Word made flesh. At a wedding turning to desperate servants with too much feast left at the end of the wine. “Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it,” she said. “My soul doth magnify the Lord” and Mary magnified Jesus even when she did not understand Him.
In prison the greatest of the prophets wondered if He was Messiah. His closest disciples misunderstood Him. And Mary could be swayed by prevailing views too. The earthly family of Jesus was divided and Mary was in the middle; the division a sharp edge poking at her heart. But still she followed on.
Her experiences and example are worthy of examination and reflection because she traveled a path where, like Abraham, she knew not where it led.
From the promised land to the Promised One, through a manger to Egypt to rough and tumble Nazareth; through the death of her husband to a miracle wedding to the clamor of a dysfunctional family; through public pressure and private pain to amazement and wonder at the fulfillment of prophecy her path to the Upper Room was filled with peril, traveled by faith on the way to faith made sight.
Mary was misunderstood in life and is misappropriated after death. She was a mortal virgin giving birth to the Son of God not a perpetual virgin or a divine co-redeemer. “As a believer and doer of His words, His mother was more nearly and savingly related to Him than through her natural relationship.”—Desire of Ages, p. 325
Many rose and fell in Israel and the sound of updraft and collapse affected her soul. But she kept those things in her heart where only Jesus could hear and see and understand.
“I would love to tell you
What I think of Jesus
Since I found in Him
A friend so strong and true
I would tell you how
He changed my life completely
He did something
That no other friend could do”
But then, Calvary.
The weight of the rising and falling in Israel was crushing her Son and that sword begins its work.
For the assurance of the last supper, the struggle in Gethsemane, for His kidnapping by the mob, the fleeing disciples, the cock crowing, for the demonic clamor of “crucify Him!”, she was not there.
But for the ringing of the hammer she was there;
And the lifted cross, the jamming of it into the earth;
For the taring of flesh and the mockery of priests;
For the sarcastic superscript and the wagging of heads.
Mary was there when they crucified her Lord.
“Woman, behold thy Son.”
And the sword pierces deeper…
“Behold thy mother.”
…then completely through her soul.
What must all those things she kept in heart mean now, as they laid Him in the tomb?
What does the belief in your heart mean after something precious is taken from you?
Mary’s path to the upper room winded where our steps must surely follow.
What does it mean to be blessed but poor, favored but not informed?
When the responsibilities and the resources don’t seem to match and your month runs out of money?
“Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.”
Because His word never fails.
Jesus snatched the keys from death and the grave, and with all power in His hands promised to return again. This same Jesus, Who walked in Galilee and taught beside the sea. Mary’s Son.
“These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.” Acts 1:14
Mary believed Jesus not because He was her son but because He is the Son of God. And she held on to that faith, experiencing the outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon His church.
She was there for the early rain, because the trying of her faith worked patience and patience experience and experience hope and, despite the agonies of Calvary, Mary and the believers were not ashamed. Because Jesus led her all the way, that will be her song and our song through endless ages.
Are you letting Him lead you all the way? Despite your pain and disappointments will you be where the Spirit is falling? Revival and reformation is a free gift but it takes everything we have, bolstered by His grace, to accept it.
Mary made it to the Upper Room not because she was the mother of Jesus but because Jesus was her personal Savior. She was there by faith when Jesus promised to come back and to pour out His Spirit. What a testimony she could share on that Pentecost morning!
What is your testimony in these last days? Where will you be when He returns?