Jesus, Our Greatest Encouragement

One of the ideas we bump into with this passage, specifically from Luke 1:43, is the idea of Mary being the Mother of God. In her joy, Elizabeth cries out, "But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

Our Catholic and Orthodox brothers and sisters speak of Mary, Mother of God, though they mean slightly different things by it. This Wikipedia article does a rather good job of outlining the source of this idea and its various meanings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_of_God

Of course the Bible never uses this language (Mother of God) and as you read in the wiki article, you learn it was not until the 3rd century of the Christian Era that the church began using it. The closest thing we get in the Bible is here in Luke 1:43; Mary is the Mother of our Lord.

Naturally there is no way we can speak of Mary as being the Mother of God meaning that she gave birth to God and thus brought him into being. That would be absurd, and is not part of the theology of any of the churches that use this phrase. Mary is the mother of Jesus, who was fully human and also fully divine. I would guess Mary's DNA shaped the physical life of Jesus, but she did not create God. Jesus is fully God, but God is not fully Jesus. In other words, God exists in three entities, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He exists in all three of these entities throughout eternity. It was the Son who came into Mary and took up residence in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, from his very conception, rendering Him true God and true Man. So Jesus has the fullness of God residing in him; but God is more than Jesus.

Not sure that makes sense. The idea is that Mary was the "bearer of God" (which is the literal meaning of theotokos), not the originator or creator of God.

Mary has caught the attention and imagination of the Christian church ever since its inception on the Day of Pentecost (which Mary attended, by the way). It is very easy to either over venerate her (an error Protestants believe Catholics make) or to under appreciate her (an error Catholics believe Protestants make). Here is a good read that purports to give "just the facts" about Mary and what the church as believed, or at least, considered. http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/beliefs/mary.htm#theotokos


Since the canonical Gospels only give enough information about the infancy and early life of Jesus to wet our imagination, the early church (second and third centuries) saw a proliferation of writings full of speculations about the early years of Jesus. These pseudepigrapha are filled with wild imaginative stories that are clearly fanciful, but make for interesting reading and have in some ways led to spurious ideas about Mary. Here is one of them (written about a hundred years after the Gospel of Mark) http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/infancyjames-roberts.html

I have long since felt that while protesting some Catholic ideas about Mary (specifically her veneration) the Protestant churches sort of "threw out the baby with the bath water" and became as guilty of undervaluing Mary as they felt the Catholics were in overvaluing her. Anyway, as Anabaptists, who supposedly are neither Catholic nor Protestant, we are free to find our own way.

Thank for digging deeper.