The Faithfulness of Mary

by    1st December 2002    0 responses

Mary, the mother of Jesus, is someone who has always interested me. The Bible doesn’t give us a great detail about her, but it does tell us a few of the reasons why Mary was chosen to be blessed above all women. I have selected the three Bible verses above, all from St. Luke’s Gospel, to show you why Mary was such a faithful and special woman.

In the first verse, Mary a virgin, has just been told that she will not only conceive a child, but that this child will be the Saviour of the world and the Son of the Most High. Imagine if an angel had appeared to you, and told you something of this magnitude was going to happen. I think that many would agree that it would be difficult to accept, and few would be able to accept it without doubting.

This is where we begin to see the depth of Mary’s faith; she accepted the word of the angel with few questions and with no indication of her doubting. It is a rare and precious faith that can accept something so amazing without question. None of this however, is to say that Mary was not shocked or amazed by what was happening, who would not be? But we see despite the enormity of the situation, Mary accepts it with true faith.

This is a good time to draw attention to Mary’s age. Although we don’t know exactly how old Mary was at the time, it is safe to assume that she was very young. In that time, women married at a young age, perhaps in their mid-teens, showing how young Mary really was. To me, this makes her faith seem so much more astonishing.

The second verse is a quote from Mary’s relative Elizabeth. Upon hearing Mary’s greeting, the child in Elizabeth’s womb (John the Baptist), leapt and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She exclaims that Mary is blessed among all women and that Mary is blessed for having believed what the Lord told her would happen. These are the words of Elizabeth, but the Holy Spirit inspired them, so we can see that Mary’s faith is unquestionable.

The third verse however, is the one that means most to me. It gives me an idea about Mary’s character and an insight into her personality. Mary strikes me as a thinker, as someone who carefully considers the things that happen around her. An image is conjured of a quiet and wise woman, of someone who is humble enough to wonder why she has been so greatly blessed.

The truth is, that the only thing Mary did to be so blessed was to believe and accept. She didn’t earn it or deserve it, but she had a wonderful faith that allowed her to blindly accept the word of her God and to receive the gift He gave her. This is something very important that we all can learn, we need to be humble enough to know that we don’t deserve any blessing, but that our God is gracious enough, and loves us enough to want to bless us despite our shortcomings. All we need do is believe and accept.

As I’ve written and prepared this article, I’ve come to realise that Mary probably has one of the greatest faiths of all the Biblical celebrities.

Perhaps you disagree and can think of several people who demonstrated a greater faith. But I’d like to point out to you that Mary didn’t have to believe. Her belief wasn’t based around a life-threatening situation, like Daniel in the den of lions for example. Believing in God to save your life is one thing, believing in Him to bless you in such an awesome way is quite another.

I think that Mary’s faith came from knowledge of the God she believed in, our God. She knew Him, she knew His love and his mercy, and that’s why she believed. We can also believe in God with such a strong faith, but we need to know Him too. We can learn many lessons from Mary, the greatest being that faith, true faith in God, is a very powerful thing.

Leave a Reply

Allowed tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> <span style="">

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

by

Andy has been a Christian since his teens when he began to develop his relationship with God. He is an Elder in his local church and leads a home group. Andy has a passion for teaching and writing. He lives near Southend, Essex, with his wife. Andy is responsible for writing much of the content on Crossring.

What's On Crossring

Crossring is a community of Christians who meet together online in fellowship around the Christian faith and the Bible.

As part of our active lifestyle of prayer and Bible reading, we are currently reading a small section of the Bible together each day and sharing our responses to it with each other. We also publish a short devotional thought on a key verse or two from each day's passage to prompt prayer or reflection.

Introducing Daily Readings

Introducing Crossring Forums