What kind of blessing was that? A man and his young wife (tradition says Mary was just a teenager) bring their son to the temple to dedicate him, and they are met by some old man "blessing" them by saying the child would destroy people, and people would speak against him, and something would happen to him that would break Mary's heart.
You call that a blessing?
That was surely no way to talk to a young mother. And yet Mary was no ordinary young mother. God had chosen her to bear his son, the Messiah. The angel who brought her that news declared her to be blessed among women. Even though the news that she would have a son while still a virgin was hard for her to understand, she accepted it in obedient faith: "I am the Lord's servant; may it happen to me as you have said." (Luke 1:38).
This, I believe, is an important lesson I can learn from Mary. She was ready to obey even if the thing she was being told did not look easy, even if she may not have completely understood how it could be possible, even if obedience and acceptance of God's will would likely cause her pain.
That pain did not start just with the birth of Jesus. She was a young woman in a society where a woman having sexual relations outside of marriage was punishable by death. And, of course, people would only laugh at her if she said she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
"When Jesus had said this, a woman spoke up from the crowd and said to him, 'How happy is the woman who bore you and nursed you!' But Jesus answered, 'Rather, how happy are those who hear the word of God and obey it!'" (Luke 11:27-28) Mary was indeed blessed, and who would deny that a large part of that blessing was being chosen by God to bear his son. But Jesus' answer shows that Mary was blessed because she was one who heard the word of God and obeyed it. That same blessing is for all of us who obey.
- 26 DECEMBER -