The humility of Mary
By Jessica Brodie
“‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’” Luke 1:38 (NIV)
Mary, mother of God—in my Bible storybook, she was always lovely and clean, dressed in lush blue robes and the perfect picture of serenity and grace. In fact, perfect is the word that still presses upon me all these years later as I gaze at paintings by Raphael or Botticelli, her cheeks abloom with the flush of youth, her long lashes and soft pink lips set just so as she casts a tender look upon her infant son, the savior of us all.
Of course, it’s a mythologized version of Mary, this picture I have—one based not on reality at all. In real life, Mary was most likely a strong, hardworking young peasant girl, and one not much older than my preteen daughters. Back then, few families let their daughters inch into adulthood. Early marriages were common, for childbirth was difficult and best handled by the healthy and robust, so girls married around 14 or so. For peasant girls like Mary who hailed from Nazareth, a tiny town of maybe 1,600 people, women were accustomed to cooking and cleaning from morning to night, hauling water from wells, gathering firewood, and doing other domestic work that kept them on their feet. Instead of the blonde, pale-skinned Madonna of the paintings, she was likely dark-haired and dark-eyed, and probably darker in complexion.
Still, even after I became a mother myself, while I knew all this about Mary, she still seemed a far-off, fictionalized character of the Bible in my mind… a perfect, holy woman chosen by God to be the perfect, holy mother of His Son, Jesus Christ, the savior of the world.
Lately, though, I’ve been thinking deeper about Mary, about who she really was and what her story really means for us today. We know from Scripture she is “highly favored” and a virgin living in Nazareth, engaged to a man descended from the line of King David (Luke 1:27-28). We know she was “greatly troubled” when an angel paid her a visit and informed her the Lord was with her (v. 29). We know she went on to get pregnant by the Holy Spirit with the Son of God, gave birth to this child in impoverished circumstances in a stable in Bethlehem, and spent several years as a refugee in Egypt on the run from King Herod.
But rereading the Gospel of Luke today, my heart keeps settling on one thing: Mary was a willing participant in all she went through, and not because she knew up front what to expect, either. She was willing to do anything God asked of her—period. When the angel Gabriel told her she would conceive, she had one question, “how can this be,” and then one response: “‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled’” Luke 1:38 (NIV).
I am struck by several things in her response: her obedience, her courage, and her humility, and of these, it is her humility that echoes tonight.
Dictionary.com defines humility as “a modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance, rank.” Counter that with the narcissistic messages we see on television or social media today, people so enamored of themselves they even decide to marry themselves as a way to affirm their own value. Mary heard the news of what would become of her and she had one reaction: God, I’m yours.
Would I have that reaction if it were me? I hope so. At 14, I’m afraid the girl I was then might have argued with Gabriel about my plans to go to college first or how I’d fit in motherhood with my all-important career.
And what about the me today? I like to think I’d hear God’s plan for my life with an open, welcome, and eager heart, but I fear there’s a part of me that might cling to my own plans, as if anything I could come up with would possibly be any bit as good as God’s plans.
Humility. That’s what Mary had—humility in knowing she was God’s servant foremost. That’s what we all need.
Before I am wife, before I am mother, before I am writer, before I am sister, editor, daughter, leader, American, or any other-fill-in-the-blank I could come up with, that’s what Mary’s story teaches me today.
I am the Lord’s servant.
Whatever God wills, let it be.
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