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Mary, the Mother of Jesus
A young woman from Nazareth whose willingness to bear the Messiah changed the world — and whose grief at the cross is one of the most searing images in Scripture.
Mary was a young Jewish woman from Nazareth in Galilee, betrothed to a carpenter named Joseph. According to Luke’ s Gospel, the angel Gabriel appeared to her and announced that she would conceive a son by the Holy Spirit — and she answered with the words that have echoed through Christian history: “ I am the Lord’ s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.”
The Annunciation and the Magnificat
Mary’ s response to the angel was not passive acceptance. It was active obedience — an act of faith in the face of enormous social cost. She was unmarried. A pregnancy would bring shame on her and her family. She said yes anyway.
Her song, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), is one of the great poems of Scripture. It praises a God who “ has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble,” who “ has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” These are not the words of a passive girl. They are the words of a prophet.
“ My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.”
Luke 1:46-48At the Cross
Mary appears at the foot of the cross in John’ s Gospel (John 19:25–27). She had followed her son through his ministry, watched him be arrested, watched him be beaten, watched him be executed. There is no scene in all of Scripture more human than this: a mother watching her son die.
From the cross, Jesus entrusted her to the care of the beloved disciple. She appears one more time in the New Testament, in the upper room at Pentecost (Acts 1:14), waiting with the apostles for the Spirit.
Sources
- Luke 1–2; John 2:1–12; 19:25–27; Acts 1:14.
- Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Fortress, 1995).
- Raymond E. Brown et al., Mary in the New Testament (Paulist, 1978).