Mary

The aim of this article
We believe that Jesus is true God who became man for us. His moth­er, there­fore, can­not remain unim­port­ant for us. It is our desire to attain an object­ive image of the moth­er of our Lord on the basis of the only reli­able sources con­cern­ing her per­son, i.e. the Gos­pels and the Acts of the Apostles. In this art­icle we want to show our respect for the faith of the woman who called her­self “the ser­vant of the Lord” (Luke 1:38), but we also want to express cri­ti­cism of the “ven­er­a­tion” of Mary that neither cor­res­ponds to the will of God nor of His servant.

Mari­am, the Moth­er of Jesus

A new chapter in God’s his­tory with man­kind opened in the year 7 or 8 BC when a girl called Mari­am^[1] from the Galilean vil­lage of Naz­areth was unex­pec­tedly con­fron­ted with God’s call to become the moth­er of the Saviour (Luke 1:26–38). Mari­am said “Yes” to this task that God entrus­ted to her. She became the moth­er of the Saviour of man­kind, Jesus, the etern­al Logos who became man. In her Son, the infin­ite God united Him­self with a cre­ated being in one person.

Mari­am, being the moth­er of the Mes­si­ah, was included in her Son’s humi­li­ation from the very begin­ning. At His birth she had to suf­fer home­less­ness (Luke 2:7). A short time later she had to emig­rate with her hus­band and her child (Mat­thew 2:13–15). When her Son was twelve years old she saw that she had to sub­mit her mater­nal feel­ings to her Son’s rela­tion­ship with His etern­al Fath­er (Luke 2:48–49).

In the begin­ning of Jesus’ pub­lic min­istry Mari­am was con­fron­ted with a prob­lem. When she asked her Son only indir­ectly to solve it, Jesus told her rather dir­ectly that God isn’t depend­ent on her inter­ven­tion to ful­fil His plans:

O woman, what have you to do with me? (RSV) Has not my hour already come? (John 2:4)^[2]

Mari­am under­stood this admon­i­tion and left everything else to Jesus. We should under­stand the last word uttered from her mouth which has been recor­ded and handed down to us as the prin­ciple of her life from that time on:

Do whatever he tells you. (John 2:5)

She had to go through the split of her fam­ily caused by the pub­lic appear­ance of Jesus, as Jesus’ broth­ers did not believe in Him (John 7:5). They wanted to inter­fere in a situ­ation described in Mark 3:20–35. As the moth­er of the Mes­si­ah, we assume Mary’s trust in Jesus was nev­er shaken. But in this con­flict Jesus explained clearly—not only to His oth­er rel­at­ives, but also to her—that spir­itu­al rela­tion­ships have pri­or­ity over bio­lo­gic­al ones:

But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my moth­er, and who are my broth­ers?” And stretch­ing out his hand towards his dis­ciples, he said, “Here are my moth­er and my broth­ers! For who­ever does the will of my Fath­er in heav­en is my broth­er and sis­ter and moth­er.” (Mat­thew 12:48–50)

From that time on Mari­am remained in the back­ground. Although she often did not under­stand her Son’s beha­viour she remained faith­ful to Him till His death on the cross. In this situ­ation Jesus chose to entrust her rather to His dis­ciple John than to His unbe­liev­ing rel­at­ives (John 19:25–27). After the resur­rec­tion and ascen­sion of Jesus we find Mari­am among His dis­ciples when they were gathered togeth­er in pray­er (Acts 1:14). That is the last thing we know about her. We can sup­pose that she remained with John for the rest of her life and died as faith­ful dis­ciple. The fact that the remain­ing chapters of Acts and all let­ters of the New Test­a­ment^[3] fail to men­tion her again shows that Mari­am did not see her­self in a lead­ing role. Instead she con­trib­uted to the edi­fic­a­tion of the church in sub­mis­sion and humility.

Ven­er­a­tion of Mary?

Mary her­self said,

For behold, from now on all gen­er­a­tions will call me blessed. (Luke 1:48)

Surely then, it must be right to turn to the Moth­er of Jesus trust­fully in pray­er, must­n’t it?

We con­sider Mary blessed in the same way as Eliza­beth her rel­at­ive expressed it:

And blessed is she who believed that there would be a ful­fil­ment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. (Luke 1:45)

In the same way, in agree­ment with the words of Jesus, we con­sider every believ­er blessed:

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. (John 20:29)

When Mary said the afore­men­tioned words she was fol­low­ing the example of Leah who, at the birth of Ash­er, the ancest­or of one of the twelve tribes of Israel, said,

Happy am I, for the daugh­ters will call me blessed! (Gen­es­is 30:13 KJV)

The import­ance of the birth of Jesus sur­passes the import­ance of the birth of a pat­ri­arch by far. The birth of Jesus has sig­ni­fic­ance for all gen­er­a­tions. There­fore all people of all gen­er­a­tions have enough reas­on to rejoice over Mary’s faith. But Chris­ti­ans do not have any more reas­on to pray to the Moth­er of the Mes­si­ah than the daugh­ters of Israel had to pray to Leah. Only God is worthy of receiv­ing our pray­ers! When Mary expressed her joy and grat­it­ude in a pray­er because she had been elec­ted to be the moth­er of the Saviour, she was totally con­cen­trated on God, whom she called her Saviour (Luke 1:47). Neither in the words of Mary nor in any oth­er pas­sage of Holy Scrip­ture do we find the least reas­on to wor­ship Mary in our pray­ers, or to ask her for her inter­ces­sion. The Bible is full of pray­ers. But all pray­ers are dir­ec­ted to God or Jesus. There is not a single pray­er dir­ec­ted to a mere human being, as per­fect as they might have been dur­ing their lifetime.

You shall wor­ship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. (Mat­thew 4:10)

“Ven­er­at­ors” of Mary fre­quently say that they do not wor­ship Mary; they simply ask her for inter­ces­sion on their behalf, sim­il­ar to how we can ask every oth­er Chris­ti­an to pray for us. This reas­on­ing fails not only because of the lack­ing Bib­lic­al base, but also because of the fact that Mary does not live among us any longer but she lives in God’s pres­ence. The lim­its between this per­ish­able world and the etern­al world of God exist now as before. The fol­low­ing state­ment made by an Old Test­a­ment proph­et about Abra­ham and Israel (= Jac­ob), the ancest­ors of the people of Israel is val­id for Mary as well:

For you are our Fath­er, though Abra­ham does not know us, and Israel does not acknow­ledge us; you, O Lord, are our Fath­er, our Redeem­er from of old is your name. (Isai­ah 63:16)

Of all the dis­ciples, who knew Mary bet­ter than John, who took care of her after the death of Jesus? In all prob­ab­il­ity John sur­vived Mary by sev­er­al years and fin­ished all his New Test­a­ment scrip­tures only after her death. If John had asked Mary for inter­ces­sion after her death we should find traces of it in his scrip­tures and also in the tra­di­tion of the second cen­tury. As it is we can­not find any men­tion of this prac­tice. Who are we to think that we know bet­ter than the Apostles? Every­one who has real rev­er­ence for Mary will fol­low her example and mag­ni­fy the Lord and rejoice in God their Saviour (Luke 1:46–47).

Mary: Our Mediator?

The Bible makes very clear state­ments on the ques­tion of mediatorship:

For there is one God, and there is one medi­at­or between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5)

Con­sequently, he is able to save to the utter­most those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make inter­ces­sion for them. (Hebrews 7:25)

“Ven­er­at­ors” of Mary agree form­ally with these state­ments, but they make Mary the “medi­at­rix to the medi­at­or”, as “Pope” Leo XIII. claimed:

Thus as no man goeth to the Fath­er but by the Son, so no man goeth to Christ but by His Moth­er. (Octo­bri mense, Encyc­lic­al of Pope Leo XIII on the Ros­ary (1891))

If, how­ever, our access to Jesus is again only via Mary this the­or­et­ic­al agree­ment turns into a prac­tic­al deni­al of the unique medi­at­or­ship of Jesus.

But did not Jesus, whilst hanging on the cross, present His own moth­er to man­kind as the moth­er of all men (John 19:25–27)? Is this not reas­on enough to hasten to Mary full of trust? Who could ever know us bet­ter than our own mother?

The fact is that we can­not find any­thing about this in the Bible. Jesus, being a respons­ible Son, pre­ferred to entrust His moth­er to His closest dis­ciple than to His “broth­ers”^[4] who did not yet believe in Him at that time. Even on the cross Jesus showed His respons­ib­il­ity for His moth­er whilst at the same demon­strat­ing that spir­itu­al rela­tion­ships have pri­or­ity over fam­ily relationships.

But does not Jesus listen espe­cially to His moth­er? How could a Son dis­dain the sup­pli­ant requests of His mother?

Who­ever thinks in this way denies the love of God who turns to all people without respect of per­sons. If I approach God with a pure atti­tude he will listen to me. If I do not have this pure atti­tude not even Mary can help me. It is Jesus who calls us, saying,

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my bur­den is light. (Mat­thew 11:28–30)

All that the Fath­er gives me will come to me, and who­ever comes to me I will nev­er cast out. (John 6:37)

Mary: Without Sin?

Accord­ing to the testi­mony of the New Test­a­ment Jesus was without sin:

Which one of you con­victs me of sin? (John 8:46)

Who­ever speaks in such a way must either be a mega­lo­ma­ni­ac or he is jus­ti­fied in what he says. In uni­son with the first Chris­ti­ans we believe that Jesus was the only man who had the right to say this sentence.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sym­path­ize with our weak­nesses, but one who in every respect has been temp­ted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

For it was indeed fit­ting that we should have such a high priest, holy, inno­cent, unstained…. (Hebrews 7:26)

He com­mit­ted no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. (1 Peter 2:22)

Con­cern­ing Mary, how­ever, no such state­ment can be found any­where in the Bible. That is why the angel’s greet­ing in Luke 1:28 is usu­ally quoted as Bib­lic­al proof of her sinlessness:

Greet­ings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you!

“Ven­er­at­ors” of Mary build the whole doc­trine of Mary’s sin­less­ness on this one expres­sion, “favoured one”, which is incor­rectly rendered in the Vul­gate^[5] as “gra­tia plena”, i.e. “full of grace”. How­ever, even mod­ern cath­ol­ic trans­la­tions do not use the expres­sion “full of grace” any more. Nev­er­the­less Mary is still ven­er­ated with these words. The expres­sion “favoured one” is actu­ally much more an indic­a­tion that she her­self is in need of grace, hence it can­not be taken as an indic­a­tion of her sin­less­ness. Con­cern­ing Steph­en, how­ever, we do find the fol­low­ing statement:

And Steph­en, full of grace and power, was doing great won­ders and signs among the people. (Acts 6:8)

In his case nobody draws the con­clu­sions as in the case of Mary. Even in Steph­en’s case we can­not speak of sin­less­ness, although we highly respect the obed­i­ence and devo­tion of the first martyr.

The eccle­si­ast­ic­al writers of the first cen­tur­ies were also aware that Mary sinned. Let us have a look at John Chryso­stom’s com­ment on Mat­thew 12:46–50:

For in fact that which she had essayed to do, was of super­flu­ous van­ity; in that she wanted to show the people that she hath power and author­ity over her Son, ima­gin­ing not as yet any­thing great con­cern­ing Him; whence also her unseason­able approach. (John Chryso­stom, Hom­il­ies to Mat­thew, Homily 44)

Chryso­stom over­rated the situ­ation depic­ted in Mat­thew 12. Nev­er­the­less his example shows that even for this 4th cen­tury Cath­ol­ic “saint” Mary’s sin­less­ness was not dogma.

Like­wise, in unity with Clem­ent from Alex­an­dria we confess:

…where­fore also He alone is judge, because He alone is sin­less. (Clem­ent from Alex­an­dria, Paed­agogus (The Instruct­or) I,4,2)

Mary: The Moth­er of God?

The coun­cil of Eph­esus (431) coined the term “theo­tokos” (God’s bear­er) for Mary. This expres­sion is cor­rect as far as the one born to her is true God and true man. Of course it is clear that God, the etern­al Cre­at­or of the uni­verse, is without any ori­gin. It is impossible for Him to have fath­er or mother.

In the same way as Paul could write,

…they would not have cru­ci­fied the Lord of glory. (1 Cor­inthi­ans 2:8)

which effect­ively means that they cru­ci­fied God, we too, can say that Mary gave birth to God. This is, how­ever, a state­ment about Jesus’ nature and not about Mary. Unfor­tu­nately though basic­ally cor­rect, the wrongly accen­tu­ated teach­ing of the coun­cil of Eph­esus led to a strong emphas­is on unbib­lic­al Mari­olatry. At that time masses of pagans were integ­rated in the church with the effect that the pagan cult of the Magna Mater—a cult Paul was already con­fron­ted with in Eph­esus (Acts 19:23–40)—was finally accep­ted into the ranks of Christianity.

The term “bear­er of God” (or still more sim­pli­fied: “Moth­er of God”) is fre­quently mis­un­der­stood, espe­cially by people without any theo­lo­gic­al edu­ca­tion, in whom the image of a moth­er com­monly evokes cor­res­pond­ing emo­tions. The “Heav­enly Fath­er” receives the “Heav­enly Moth­er” at His side. Mono­the­ism is form­ally retained, but prac­tic­ally poly­the­ism is intro­duced. The major­ity of their pray­ers are dir­ec­ted to the “Queen of Heav­ens” (Com­pare Jeremi­ah 7:18). The fath­erly God is far away. Mary has to restrain the pun­ish­ing hand of her Son.^[6]

The Bible, how­ever, teaches us about a dif­fer­ent God. The God the Bible speaks about is not far from us:

…that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way towards him and find him. Yet he is actu­ally not far from each one of us, for “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:27–28)

The God of the Bible can­not be pressed in the frame­work of man and woman, father-god and mother-goddess. The infin­ite Cre­at­or of the uni­verse is above these cat­egor­ies. There­fore we find in the Bible not only many pas­sages show­ing us God as Fath­er, but also state­ments com­par­ing Him to a mother:

Can a woman for­get her nurs­ing child, that she should have no com­pas­sion on the son of her womb? Even these may for­get, yet I will not for­get you. (Isai­ah 49:15)

As one whom his moth­er com­forts, so I will com­fort you. (Isai­ah 66:13)

We want to serve Him alone, who for us is much more than fath­er and moth­er. We want to serve Him, our sole God and Saviour, in the same way Mary did, with­in the fel­low­ship of the dis­ciples of Jesus.