- Who is she, called blessed?
- Why is she blessed?
- Where in the Bible do we come across this?
At the outset we need to understand that Luke’s records found in chapters 1 and 2 are unique to his gospel. He was a devout convert of the first century and a close associate of St. Paul. In three of his epistles Paul is making a mention of Luke. He was a medical doctor by profession and Greek by nationality. Luke’s accounts are historical and very orderly. As he himself points out he has ‘carefully investigated everything from the beginning’. The preamble he gives in the book of Acts, indicates that Luke must be well known to the governor Theophilus. Scholars believe that he would not have known Jesus personally and the account of the angelic visitation of Mary in Nazareth of Galilee would have been arrived at, by Luke’s personal interview with Mary the mother of Jesus of Nazareth and other eye witnesses.
As I was studying the narrative of the angelic visitation of Virgin Mary, I could find a good comparison and contrast between this and the satanic visitation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. The first one reported in the Old Testament is the satanic visit of Eve and the first one reported in the New Testament is the angelic visit of Mary. Both women had been all by themselves at the time of visitation. One resulted in a ‘fall’ and the other in ‘redemption from the fall’. How? Eve never ‘personalised’ the word of God while Virgin Mary though single, ‘personalised’ the Word when it came to her. This act of submission to God’s Word made her a channel of blessing to the whole world. Yes, from then on ‘all generations all over the world have called her blessed Mary’. There are a lot of lessons to be learnt from Virgin Mary .
Angel Gabriel visits Mary at Nazareth
The angel Gabriel greeted Mary,
and announced,
“ Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”(Lk1:28).
Compare the
greeting with the scenario at the garden of Eden. A perfect place but
the couple God created, entertained and indulged in conversation with
the Devil. They disobeyed and rebelled against God’s command. His
glorious Presence left them. They hid from His Presence and chose to
live without Him. In the Bible, the grace or favour of God is
synonymous with the Presence of God. When someone finds favour in
God’s sight, the Presence of God is with that person. For example,
Moses asked the LORD, how he would know that he has found favour in
God’s sight. The LORD replied, ”My Presence will go with you and
I will give you rest.” ( Exo 33: 13,14).
As Mary was wondering and troubled
at this greetings by the angel of God, the angel told her that she
need not be afraid since she had found ‘grace’ in God’s sight.
Mary is informed about the Son of God, who will be born of her, by
the power of the Spirit of the Most High God. (Lk
1: 34,35). Then came the promise that is loved and claimed
by Christians throughout the ages, “ For nothing is impossible with
God.” ( Lk 1: 37 ). How did Mary react to this? She though
bewildered about this angelic messaage from God, since she is still a
virgin, ‘personalised’ the Word that came to her within the four
walls of her house. The act of submission to the will of God was a
result of this ‘personalisation’ of the Word of God.
What a contrast from
Eve? Obedience to God’s word brought a blessing in the form of
Jesus, the Saviour of the world, for whom Mary was the chosen vessel
of God! How wonderful! The presence of God that left the first couple
of the Old Testament, came to stay permanently with the believers,
consequent to the obedience of a young woman Mary. Is she not a
channel of blessing to humanity? What Eve could not give to the
world, was given by Mary,the mother of Jesus! What lessons do we
learn?She said , "I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said."( Lk 1:38).
“Faith comes by hearing the message, and the message comes by hearing the word of Christ.” ( Rom 10: 17).
Only when
‘personalisation’ of the Word takes place, can faith bloom in our
hearts.
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” ( Heb 3: 15).
The author of the letter to the Hebrews, reminds the Jewish
believers in Christ, the necessity to absorb the word of Christ in
their hearts to inherit the eternal blessing and the ppromised
‘rest’. It applies to believers all over the world and through
all the ages. The parable of the Sower told by our Lord Jesus, brings
home the point that the the seed fell on good soil, came up and
yielded crop because the ‘noble and good hearts that hear the word,
retain it, and by preserving produce a crop.’ ( Lk 8: 15). Jesus
at the end of telling this parable said ,”He who has ears, let
him hear.”(Mt 13: 9). Therefore what we ought to do? As
the Lord speaks to us, we should listen, retain, and preserve it in
our inner being so that it brings forth the desired result in our
lives.
I believe the message to the seven churches from
the Risen Lord, keeps repeaating the statement,
“ He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Rev 2:7,11,17,29;3:6,13,22).The church of Christ all over the world, has to take this exhortation very seriously! Only then it can serve as an effective witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, in a world that is to a large extent seems to become commercial nowadays. If Virgin Mary could accept such a great challenge, and receive the blessing that came with it, how much more we need to do so, since things are made much easy for us by faith in Jesus Christ, a gift from God by His abundant grace!
Joseph the Just
Matthew’s gospel serves as a link between the Old and the New Testaments. The gospel writer traces the genealogy of Jesus and tries to drive home the point that Jesus, is the king, descended from Abraham, then David and ended the long wait of a Messiah. He came to establish his kingdom in a way no one at that time expected! Matthew relates the maximum number of Old Testament prophecies to Jesus, than any other gospel writers. As Luke narrates Mary in detail, Matthew narrates Joseph, her husband in detail. He is proved to be a ‘just’ man who obeyed God’s words, and ‘personalised’ the angelic instructions to him all through. He cooperated with Mary, his proposed wife, in bringing the Messiah to the world. He preserved the ‘holy seed of the woman’ by abstaining from any unwelcome acts. That is why, the family as such is called the ‘holy family.’
The
Bible records the life of Joseph the husband of Mary, the childhood
father of Jesus, in the first two chapters of Matthew’s gospel
and the second chapter of Luke’s gospel only. We
understand throughout that Jesus was called the ‘son of David’
because of the descent of this Joseph from the lineage of king David.
The name being given to Jesus as the ‘son of David’ is
justified because of the acceptance of child Jesus as Joseph’s own
son and given the inheritance of Joseph, physically in this world.
‘Joseph was a righteous man and he did not want to disgrace Mary publicly, but quietly wanted to divorce her. After he was considering this, an angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream.’(Mt 1:19,20).
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Joseph
was instructed to take Mary as his wife, since what is going
to be born of her was of the Holy Spirit. He obeyed the angelic word
and did what was right and acceptable in the sight of God. The cost
of the obedience was pretty high, and Joseph had to change his
decision, closely connected to his reputation as the son of David. We
can very well contrast his deeds with that of Adam, who simply heeded
to the Devil’s words!! Again we read that the angel of God keeps
on instructing Joseph,
“take the child to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”(Mt 2:13).
The angel told him so, after the visit of the wise men from the east. We see that Joseph listens and obeys without
question or doubt. Not easy! He could have decided to quit at this
point. He remained glued to the Word from God. How many of us would
do that, I wonder!
After Herod died, again there was an
angelic visitation with instructions to Joseph. He immediately
followed the instructions to the letter.
“ Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” ( Mt 1:19).
Joseph
got up and did as the angel told him to do. When he heard that the
son of Herod was ruling in Judea, he was afraid to go there. Once
again he was warned in a dream by God and he withdrew to the
district of Galilee and lived in Nazareth.
The
life of the Son of God was protected as a child on the earth, by the
godliness of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Joseph
was prompt in discharging all the religious rituals laid down by
Judaism, for any new born child. We find that until the age of
TWELVE, he was doing all that a father should do, to Jesus as an
‘earthly father.’ What a blessing and costly obedience, simply
because of ‘personalising’ the Word of God, that came to him so
personally!!
Immanuel: God with Us
The promised Messiah, the holy son
of God, Jesus the savior of the world, ‘God with us’, was born of
virgin Mary, the ‘woman’s seed’ as promised in the Garden of
Eden, ably and devotedly assisted by Joseph ‘the just.’ The Holy
son of God, the ‘image of the invisible God’ came into the world,
for which one of the important steps taken, was ‘personalisation of
the Word of God’ by the holy couple, Mary and Joseph.
Cain the first born of the ‘first
parents’ brought murder into the world. Abel’s blood cried out
from the face of the earth for ‘punishment.’ The sinless blood of
the lamb of God, spoke things better than Abel’s blood. The shed
blood of Jesus on the cross of Calvary, called for forgiveness to
every person on the earth. Calvary became a place of redemption and
restoration of the presence of God among humanity. The curse of the
‘great fall’ was turned into a blessing due to the sacrifice of
the spotless lamb of God on the cross . The fig tree in Eden could
only cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve. The tree on mount Calvary
washed away the sin, and clothed every one who believes with the
‘robe of God’s rightness(righteousness).’
Hallelujah to the
Lamb of God!!
A chorus I learnt as a
child comes to my mind:
Only believe, only believeAll things
are possible,Only believe;Lord I believe, Lord I believeAll
things are possible, Lord I believe.
Amen and Amen!!
P.S: The
blog post is a continuation of a previous post, the link of which is
given below. Readers may click on it to view that post.
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