37For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

– Luke 1:37-38

Luke never knew Mary the mother of Jesus or any of his direct followers, although it is estimated by the facts we do know that he was a real person who lived during the first century. He was either an Hellenized Jew or Greek from Antioch. He was a well educated physician, a friend and disciple of the Apostle Paul, and he accompanied Paul on his ministry throughout Judea and the surrounding Roman controlled lands. Luke wrote roughly 27% of the NT. He is the author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles. His account of the life of Jesus is literary in a way the other four gospels are not; scholars give high regards to his writing as historiological in nature and intent, with the additional written flare of Greek literature of his time that he likely had much familiarity with. Luke gives special affectionate and respectful attention to Mary, more than the other gospel writers.

Mary is a central figure in the New Testament as a key part of God’s overall plan that began before the birth of her son, who’s presumed to be God’s son by immaculate birth through God’s spirit sent to her. She was chosen before the conception and is forever exalted in God’s heaven thereon into eternity; above all other deeds and accomplishments of man, there is the mother first. It began and ended with the mother. Mother is literal for all life on Earth, perhaps in all of the Cosmos it can be argued, if we deem Mother to mean “the source”.

God is father and God is mother, or God is neither, despite us calling Him father. Father can will but only mother can give birth. It is not new the concept of God as mother, but it is still not any more popular. Even Jesus said that we are neither male nor female in heaven, but spirits; such is the same for God and all spirits. As humans we have both father and mother so our perspective is indelibly skewed to that literal and metaphorical foundation.

Mary was not the first mother, but she may be the most important, simply because she gave birth to someone who had a radical effect on the course of humanity that will likely last forever; it was that cataclysmic, as it single-handedly destroyed a trajectory that could have equally lasted forever. All by God’s plan, that is the essence of Christian faith, although the Jews had it already set in motion from the beginning of time, and for them it is still on going today.

My personal take is that it’s not important if Mary had immaculately conceived or not, nor if she was hand picked by God, nor if she died by ascending to heaven in bodily form, and so on; these are inconsequential in the twenty first century as no matter how it all went down Jesus was in fact born on Earth of a mother named Mary, and the rest is history. The details do matter, but since many are ‘sketches of history’ and hard to verify we must absorb the teachings with grains of salt, as I continually preach, get the gist get it all.

If we didn’t have a theological need to white wash Jesus as sinless because God is sinless and hence His son must also be as well as his mother, we’d celebrate Mary more for being a real mother; raising a real boy to manhood, witness with pride as her son preached concepts never heard before, and who suffered immeasurable pain and loss as she watched her precious baby tortured and killed in public for crimes that didn’t exist.

For that alone Mary should be venerated as a real mother, like many of you out there with children, including those who cannot conceive but raise adopted children with all the same joys and love, worry’s and tragedies; there is no difference, certainly not to God, each mother receives His blessings.

Mary doesn’t have to be the symbol for all motherhood, but for each person there is someone who does. 

God’s blessings on you…

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