Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [144]
What might you say if your fourteen-year-old daughter sat you down and said that an angel told her that she was going to give birth to the Son of God? But not to worry, Mom and Dad. She’ll still be a virgin! The traditional images of the virgin Mary tend to obscure the fact that the Holy Mother of Jesus was an unwed teenager.
Gabriel’s visit to Mary is called the Annunciation, the announcement foretelling the birth of Jesus. (The Feast of the Annunciation is observed by some Christians on March 25, which was also the birth date for Jesus calculated by the Greek monk Dionysus; add nine months and you get December 25!) There is no record of Joseph and Mary discussing their respective angelic vis its. Imagine it for a moment, though: Joseph says, “Mary, about that little problem of yours. Well, I had the strangest dream last night.”
Surprised, Mary says, “You had a dream? Me too. Six months ago an angel said I would be the Mother of God.”
Unlike the other biblical women whose children are predicted by angelic messengers, Mary is told her baby will result from the “Holy Spirit” coming upon her. While all of those older women, from Abraham’s wife Sara to Elizabeth, were miraculously foretold of their pregnancies, all conceived by the old-fashioned method. But the presumably teenaged Mary does not conceive as they did; the Holy Spirit comes over her. Mary sets off to visit her miraculously pregnant relative Elizabeth. When Elizabeth sees Mary, Elizabeth’s unborn child “leaps in the womb,” and the older Elizabeth exclaims, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Mary’s response to Elizabeth takes the form of a song that is familiar as the hymn. “The Magnificent.”
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me
blessed.” (Luke 1:46-48)
Being the Mother of God is not a matter to be taken lightly, and Mary’s position throughout Christian history has been intriguing. After the two biblical birth accounts, very little is said about Mary in the Bible, and even less is said about Joseph, who becomes a missing person in the biblical account after Jesus is twelve years old. Jesus later speaks of his mother in several verses that seem to contradict the commandment to “honor they mother.” On one occasion, his family comes to a house where Jesus is meeting with his followers and asks for him, but Jesus says, “Who are my mother and brothers and sisters?” Continues Mark, “And looking around at those who sat beside him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers and sisters. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.’” (Mark 3:31-35) In Luke, Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and cares about his father or his mother or his wife or his children or his brothers or his sisters or even his own soul, he can’t be my student.” (Luke 14:26) Jesus’ words, which have struck some readers as rather coldhearted, were an unambiguous message that faith in him, which brings a person into his heavenly “family,” must be complete and unequivocal.
In spite of the tremendous reverence for Mary and the elaborate mythology that has sprung up around her—thousands of people report “Marian Visions” every year—there are few references to Jesus’ mother in the Bible. In John, Mary is said to be at the wedding at Cana and at Jesus’ Crucifixion, and she is present with the disciples in Acts after Jesus ascends into heaven. The virginal conception of Jesus isn’t mentioned in Mark or John, nor does Paul explore the question of the miraculous birth of Jesus to a woman who hasn’t had sexual relations. Paul merely states in a single letter that Jesus was “born of woman.” Some biblical historians take this to mean that Mary’s virginity wasn’t an issue for the earliest Christians, but the authors of the later Gospels were compelled to address the question of how a flesh-and-blood man could also be a divine