And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Luke 1:41-43 (ESV)
Discussions about Mary, the mother of Jesus, can easily become contentious. Especially when the discussion is between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The adoration she has among some seems dangerously close to idolatry to others.
I grew up, and continue to serve in a Protestant tradition. A tradition that almost seems afraid of ascribing anything special to Mary. Talk of Mary as the Mother of God can spin us up pretty tight. But I believe we have gone overboard in response to our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters concerning Mary.
So what does Scripture say about Mary? The passage quoted above tells us a lot. Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, says two things about Mary. The first is that she is blessed among women. Nothing in Scripture tells us that she was any different than many other young women living around her. But God, in His sovereignty and for His own reasons, chose Mary to be the mother of Jesus. She was blessed to be the one chosen to give birth to the Messiah and raise Him to adulthood.
The second thing Elizabeth says is that Mary is the mother of her Lord. The Greek word translated here as Lord is kyrios. Kyrios is sometimes used as a term of respect or authority. But it is often used in the New Testament to refer to Jesus. It is also the word used in the Greek version of the Old Testament to translate the name of God, YHWH.
What did Elizabeth mean by calling Mary the mother of her Lord? Elizabeth surely did not understand the incarnation of Jesus as God in the flesh. But she did realize that the child’s Father was God himself, making Him her Lord.
The Mother of God?
Is Mary the Mother of God? She is the mother of Jesus, who is God in the flesh. So, in a sense, she is. She did not give birth to the eternal triune God. But she did give birth to the human nature of the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, the Son of God.
A humble young woman, living in obscurity in a remote corner of the Roman Empire, was blessed to give birth to the Son of God. She was indeed blessed among women.
