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| Photo courtesy of www.theguardian.com |
"History is like a drunk man on a horse. No sooner does he fall off on the left side, does he mount again and fall off on the right." --Martin Luther
I'd like to discuss something that we Protestants rarely stop to consider--that is, the life of Mary. It seems in our desire to break away from the Roman Catholic Church and their perceived worship of Mary, we Protestants have gone to the opposite extreme and rarely discuss Mary's life. Sure, she shows up in the Christmas story atop a donkey, we can see her at the foot of the cross while Christ is being crucified, and we may even remember how frantically she searched for Jesus when she lost him in the temple as a young boy. But other than that, I am afraid we see her as simply the human incubator of our Savior and overlook her radical and exemplary faith in God's redemptive plan for the nations.
I was running beside my sister-in-law a few Christmas Eves ago when she began to discuss an interesting sermon she had heard about the Magnificat. I honestly had no idea what she was talking about, even though I have grown up in the Church all of my life! She explained to me that the Magnificat is the prayer of Mary which she declared after hearing the news from the angel about her being chosen to be the mother of Jesus (later, I looked it up in my Bible and to my surprise, the Magnifcat was clearly labeled and set apart with a bold heading in Luke chapter one!) She explained how her pastor had talked about Mary as one of his "heroes" and expounded upon her radical faith when, after being told about her giving birth to the Savior as a virgin, she said YES, let it be to me according to your word, dear God!
In fact, we see that Mary says even more than this--let's check it out in Luke 1:38:
"And Mary said, 'Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."
You see, the word translated "servant" is really best translated as SLAVE in the original Greek (for more on that, I'd highly recommend John MacArthur's book Slave--truly fascinating!). You see, a slave is far different than a servant; a slave is bought and sold and has no rights. And we see that Mary marveled at and ultimately rejoices in the fact that she was a slave of God, to be fully used to bring about God's plan of salvation to the world. And in an ancient society that looked down upon women, especially pregnant unwed mothers, her answer to the Lord was still a resounding YES. YES!!
Further down in Luke 1:45 we also read, "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord."
Amazingly, Mary saw that a promise from God was bigger than any problem she could have or would have here on earth. In her Magnificat, we see that she calls God mighty, strong, a satisfier of the hungry with good things, a holy helper, and full of mercy (see Luke 1:46-55).
So, dear Protestant friend, let us not make the fatal error in our effort of avoiding "Marian worship" of completely ignoring this mighty woman of the faith! Let us not, like Martin Luther observes in his quote above, fall off the right side of the horse in our effort to avoid falling off the left! For surely we will miss out on understanding a great woman of God who has MUCH to teach us about faith and trust in God's perfect plans, even when they are HARD and unpopular!!
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