Photo credit: Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
I’ve been working through the Gospel of Luke, reading and translating from the Greek into English. It is a slow and difficult process. Getting this close to the text allows me to see things that are not easily seen when reading English translations.
On the Holy Saturday, as the orthodox church calls it, during Paschal week I began working through chapter two. Working through the text at that time seemed to me to be nicely timed, as on Resurrection Sunday I could recall the death and resurrection of Jesus, but also experience the tragic depth of a mother’s loss of her first-born son.
Below I share my thoughts on Luke 2: 25-35 and Mary’s encounter with Simeon at the Temple.
Simeon, a God-fearing Gentile, & Mary
In Luke chapter two we meet Simeon, a Holy Spirit inspired, God-fearing elderly man (Lk 2:25). He tenderly embraces baby Jesus in both arms and blesses God (v. 28). Next, he speaks words of prophecy to his mother Mary. Your son will be the downfall of many in Israel as well as the rising of many he tells her (v. 34). What ever could she have thought this meant for her weeks-old baby! Did she regret placing her infant into the old man’s arms, determining to hold Jesus ever closer to her own breast?
Simeon’s prophecy to the new mother seems to be untimely given, inappropriate even. At the time when parents anticipate words of promise that paint a bright future, should Simeon have dashed those dreams of this young mother at that precise moment of Mary’s purification (v. 22)?
How often did those words play over and over in her mind? Did she attempt to thwart the words of doom? Did she attempt to anticipate when the sword-piercing of her heart would take place?
Did she try to stand in the way of its fulfillment – as Peter did (Matt 16:33)? Or how many times did she hasten it along – as she did when prodding Jesus to remedy the lack of wine at a wedding feast, a cultural failure of such great proportions that anyone’s soul would be pierced with humiliation (John 2:1-5)!
How many times did she rely upon Jesus to remedy all sorts of issues, especially when Joseph was no longer alive?
Mary’s Call to Suffer
Did Mary walk resolutely to her own fate — a path her own son journeyed when pressing on to Jerusalem against the warnings of others?
How many times did she, while raising the Son of God, utter to herself, not my will, but yours!
Was she resigned and aware that her calling as mother was so extraordinarily different than any mother before or after her?
Did she live with a renewed determination, with strength and power, now that she was aware she would face excruciating pain?
Did she draw upon the strength and presence of the very One who Is, and Was, and Who will be? Did she recognize the I Am of Exodus, the one who is Emmanuel, the One who is Life Eternal, the One who never leaves nor forsakes?
No Ordinary Mother
Simeon’s words – painful, tragic, and untimely given as they may be – prepared a mother’s heart for the years ahead. In this closing section of the birth narrative, Luke’s gospel reveals that she alone will share in her son’s pain on the cross at the precise moment when the sword pierces his side.
This son, uniquely born (Jn 3:16), born of a woman (Gal 4:4,5) and mothered by Mary, is intimately joined with his mother, through whom he is incarnated and receives his humanity. Luke quietly writes Joseph out of the Gospel, leaving behind a young mother who is responsible to provide for her son after Joseph died.
Ah, but she was not alone. She would experience the Lord as her Shepherd, receiving every morning and evening the Manna from heaven.
No. Mary, the mother of our Lord, was no ordinary mother. It’s a shame to reduce her to just that.