Lessons from the Ladies: Mary, the mother of Jesus.

We will be doing a series of lessons throughout the year from some of the ladies in scripture. Since Mother’s Day is this Sunday, we thought we would kick off the series with lessons learned from Mary the mother of Jesus. As we jump into Mary’s story there are plenty of things we can learn from her, one is that she loved being a mom because she had many children. Yes, children because Jesus had brothers and sisters as written in Matthew 13:55-56 NIV. She obviously was a good peacekeeper between the siblings because Jesus’ brothers didn’t believe in him as written in John 7:1-5 NIV. She treasured and stored things in her heart as found in Luke 2:19 NIV and, again in Luke 2:49-51 NIV. Continue reading as we discuss 3 distinct lessons we can learn from the mother of Jesus:

OBEDIENCE

The birth of Jesus is documented in the Gospel of Luke 1:26-37 NIV as follows:

26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” 34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”

It is verse 38 where we see Mary’s obedience as she says 38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. How overwhelming all of this must have been to young Mary but when the angel finished speaking, her response was that of obedience. She did not worry about what people would think, how this was going to be explained to her betrothed Joseph, or the fact that this child was the Son of God. This isn’t the only time Mary was obedient; she remained obedient through Jesus’ entire life. Even through his death and resurrection as she did not step in and try to take control over Jesus’ life. Her focus was obedience to the God she served, through a wonderful time caring for Jesus as a baby, a difficult time as he left to begin his ministry, and a sorrowful time as she watched him die on the cross. So, the first lesson comes with a question which applies to all of us whether you are a mom or not. That question is: are we being obedient to our Lord and saying yes to what He desires for us or living for our own selfish desires?

GUIDENCE

For this lesson we are going to take a trip to Cana for a wedding feast as we catch up with Mary, Jesus, and his disciples in the Gospel of John. This is where Jesus performed the first miracle as he turned the water into wine. However, we are going to focus on the conversation Mary had with her son Jesus instead of the miracle. John 2:1-4 states that on the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.” 4 “Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

In ancient times Jewish weddings would last for seven days with plenty of dancing, eating and drinking. In this culture, if you were the host of the party or feast and ran out of food or wine it was considered disgraceful and the bride and groom would have suffered great humiliation and would've been looked upon as outcasts. Mary was very concerned for this family and went to Jesus with the problem that they had run out of wine. Now some might think that Jesus was being disrespectful in his response to his mother’s statement, but let’s dive a little deeper. First, he didn’t respond to her as mother, he said woman. Upon researching this passage through several Bible Commentaries, we agree that Jesus spoke to his mother with a term of respect when he called her “Woman” and that this was now indicating a new relationship between Jesus and Mary. There was now a separation from the maternal bond. He told her that His time had not yet come, and it seemed as though he was not going to do anything to help the situation. However, it was that Jesus had to consult with his heavenly Father. He must have prayed and sought direction in how to handle this situation from his heavenly Father because later on we see that he says he does nothing by himself. John 5:30 NIV Jesus says “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

Getting back to Mary, in the next verse John 2:5 NIV His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” It is important to understand a couple of facts here, Mary understood that Jesus was the Son of God not just her son. Also, there are other references to her in scripture after this but her words in John 2:5 are the last recorded words of Mary the mother of Jesus. How important were those words? Mary’s last recorded words are pointing us away from herself and toward Jesus the Son of God! It is Him who we are to follow and do whatever He tells us. Let’s stop and think about that for a minute…those words are so powerful! Mary knew that Jesus is the way. The rest of the story continues, and we see that Jesus did in fact turn the water into wine. The second question in our lesson is do we offer guidance to our families, friends, co-workers and strangers so that they too can be pointed to Jesus and receive the gift of salvation, or do we remain quiet leaving their spiritual destination unknown and risk them forever spending eternity apart from their Creator, the Lord our God?

STRENGTH

This lesson is going to take us to the site of Jesus' crucifixion in John’s Gospel Chapter 19:17 NIV

17 Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).

We will skip down to John 19:25-27 25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

It is here at the foot of the cross where we find the ultimate strength of Mary the mother of Jesus. As she stands looking at Jesus, we can only imagine the flashbacks she must have had. From her initial encounter with the angel Gabriel who told her she would become pregnant with the Son of God, then the pregnancy and birth of Jesus, then to watch him grow and develop through the stages of life, then an adult who leaves home and sets out on his ministry which led her to where she stood that day. Watching her son go through the horrific, cruel, and unimaginable pain and suffering of the crucifixion and she, Mary the mother of Jesus, standing in such strength knowing this was the will of God so that all mankind would have the opportunity to be saved through Jesus Christ the Son of God. She had strength to refrain from trying to stop any or all of it, strength to let him go, strength to see him for who he truly was, the one and only Son of the Most High. As she stood suffering her own emotional pain, grief and loss our God is oh so good because when Jesus sees his mother and his disciple, he said to her this is your son and to John his disciple this is your mother. In Jewish tradition the oldest son was to take care of his mother and even though Jesus had step-brothers. They were not believers at this time, so Jesus put her in the care and trust of his beloved disciple John, and he took her into his home. This brings us to the last question for this lesson. Do we have the strength to do what God calls us to do and be different from the world, set apart and a true representative of Jesus Christ in our homes, schools, workplaces, public places and, in our churches?

As you can see there is a lot we can learn from Mary the mother of Jesus and this applies to all of us not just those who are moms. We hope that you will take time to reflect and apply these three key lessons of Obedience, Guidance and Strength to your personal walk with Jesus and share it with others. We want to wish all the moms a Happy Mother’s Day!

The references used:

Enduring Word Bible Commentary

Tony Evans Bible Commentary

Andrew Womack’s Living Bible Commentary