Mary, woman of faith

All around the world, families’ festive celebrations of the birth of Jesus, have mothers on center stage, hugging tightly children coming home from far and wide and laying on the table scented bread after their long  journeys.  The first,  real star of the show for the last two centuries, is Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Yesterday, on Christmas Day, I remembered a column I wrote on Dec. 28, 2004, about the message delivered by Pastor Peter Tan Chi of the Christ’s Commission Fellowship, titled “Mary, Woman of Faith.” Mary, he said, was chosen to be “the very first vessel of Christ.” And she was a poor and simple girl from Israel.

“But what faith did she have to deserve her being ‘exalted?’” Her faith, said Peter, was anchored on several things. Let me reprint what the pastor said they were. 

“Mary’s faith was anchored on God’s Word. Like most Jewish youths, Mary was well-schooled in the Scriptures. She likely knew of the angel Gabriel who had appeared 500 years earlier before the prophet Daniel, and to Mary’s uncle Zachariah, whom he told that his aging wife, Elizabeth, would miraculously bear a son named John.

“Mary’s faith was anchored on God’s character. Even if she felt hardly worthy of her being the earthly vessel, she knew her God well enough to believe that He was a gracious God, known to give His miracles and gifts to the undeserving and lowly.

“Her faith was anchored on God’s promise, one of which was to send a Redeemer, who would give us ‘every spiritual blessing’ – peace, joy, righteousness, with power to overcome.” 

“But we do not avail of these because either we are ignorant of God’s word and promises, or we chose to remain in sin, which blocks the flow of the blessing.”

Mary’s faith, Peter continued,  was “nurtured by her meditation. When Gabriel addressed her as the ‘favored one,’ she was perplexed, which led to her ‘pondering,’ including meditating, repeating and turning things over in her mind.”

“In our busy, noisy world, deep thought and meditation is a lost discipline,” said Peter. “Young people today are into computer games and amusement.” But Mary was “a woman of meditation, Bible-reading, private devotions, or as we call it today, ‘quiet  time’ with God.”

“Her faith was demonstrated by ‘complete surrender,’” said Peter. “After pondering her circumstances, according to God’s word, character and promises, she proved her faith by surrendering completely to God’s will and plan.”

Turning to his  listeners, Peter asked if they were “seriously thinking about the things that are important to God. Do they consider Christ’s words – ‘what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul? Do we plan our lives and activities around gaining wealth, power, fame and possessions rather than the eternal riches of His Kingdom and an intimate relationship with Him?

“Mary proved her faith by surrendering completely  to God’s will and plan – even if she risked losing Joseph by making known her pregnancy, and being stoned to death for fornication. 

“Mary was so overjoyed at what God said would happen – that she would bear the child Jesus – that she sang: ‘From now on, all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me.’

“She so  trusted in God that she experienced present joy for future promises. For when we live our lives at the center of God’s will, we experience fullness of joy. This Christmas, let’s believe like Mary, and be a joyful, yielded vessel for Jesus Christ who came to further His eternal Kingdom within and though us!”

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As I wrote earlier, mothers are at center stage in our lives – beyond Christmas Day. While putting together articles by my siblings  for the biography of our parents, I was touched by my brother Lemuel’s  remembrance of our mother. He was about six years old when he started schooling. Lemuel is now in his late 60s, and lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Read, and be touched, like it did me, his story of a boy’s love for his mother.

“There was something that my mind would drift into in my whole first day of school:  the thought of my mother.

“No, no, not that I was missing her – this I would not admit – since, when one was in first grade, one was supposedly less vulnerable to missing one’s mother. Or father. Or brothers or sisters (I came from a family of nine and I was the seventh-born). We all went to the Protestant school and attended the Protestant church that was on the other side of the river from our house. It was just the thought of my mother. Would she be there where my mind framed her to be when this day was over? What if she’s not… Not in the kitchen? Not in the garden? Not anywhere? As the day wore on, my brain started to attach anxiety to the thought of her. What if she died while I was sitting in this very uncomfortable wooden bench. Also, what if our dog died? These all would be unthinkable!

“So, when the bell rang, I was first to bolt out of the door. Across a field of hay, I half trotted and darted, took the perilous shortcuts. I jumped over an irrigation canal that brought clear water from distant foothills. Right as my feet hit the red clay bank on the other side of the canal I felt my school bag fall in the knee-deep water. I chased after it and recovered just as it reached a strong eddy over the rocks. But by the time I got the schoolbag, everything in it was water-logged. Including the paper with my long name on it.

“I kept running toward the house. And then: there she was. Standing where I thought she would be. In the kitchen, her back turned toward me. I ambushed her and hugged her the tightest I could ever remember and before she knew what was happening, I darted out to the garden.  There where chickens in the garden. And our dog Phil was alive.  The bougainvillea

flowers were blooming, and the edges of the petals were frilly, suggesting they wanted water. Everyone in our neighborhood owned bougainvillea hedges…. Those plants grew all over the country. It was a  popular decorative plant that everybody loved.

“ I was half asleep that night when I felt my mother walk quietly into my room.

I pretended I was asleep. She lay down beside me and in a while, I felt she’d shed on my forehead a single tear. And I felt about to flow from my eyes my own tear but I did not let it fall. She was gone when I woke again. The birds had gathered to greet a new dawn. Our neighbor’s cow called across the field where it was grazing. Far off, a dog barked. A cock crowed and another answered the challenge. They went at it for a while, announcing daybreak for the second day of school.”

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