(Ancient) Israel & Ethnic Cleansing

  The Water of Life Discourses Between Jesus & the Samaritan Woman- Angelika Kauffman 

....So the five men went on and came to Laish. They saw the people there living securely after the manner of the Sidonians, quiet and trusting, with no lack of any natural resource...
...they marched against Laish, a quiet and trusting people; they put them to the sword and destroyed the city by fire. No one came to their aid, since the city was far from Sidon and they had no dealings with the Arameans..
Judges 18

 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus
Galatians 3:28

The Old Testament authors describe many events without commenting upon them. One consequence of this is that modern readers may fall into the error of supposing that where an action is not condemned therefore the writer must approve of it. This results in some critics, superficially familiar with the Bible, attacking the God of Israel for things for which He is blameless and some over-literalist Christians rushing to defend something indefensible. What constantly needs to be borne in mind is that Scripture is the product of a living tradition and requires to be understood in the context of that tradition. The first readers of the Book of Judges would know things about the history of the Tribe of Dan (the aggressors in this incident) and the history of Israel which readers today would not learn from the Scripture texts alone.

In Chapter 18 of Judges we see an unprovoked assault,motivated by greed and land hunger, on a peaceable, trusting civilian population . What the original audience for this story, probably not written until many centuries after the event, would be aware of is that the Tribe of Dan is not only one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel but quite possibly the most lost of the ten. In the seventh chapter of the Book of  Apocalypse (vv1-8) Dan is omitted from the list of the Tribes of Israel which would have members sealed with the sign of God and this no doubt reflects a long standing Jewish tradition. Given their geographical position at the northernmost post of Israel it is likely enough that they were among the first if not the first of the Tribes to go into exile, never to return, due to the depredations of the Assyrian armies.

Chapter 18 then becomes a morality tale, it explains why the Danites became so comprehensively lost. In my previous blog, God, Genocide & Good Neighbourliness, I suggested that the Israelites could only justify their assault on Canaan and the utter destruction of the Canaanites on the basis that they had a divine mandate to create a monotheist society firmly differentiated from their idolatrous neighbours. The account in Judges records the Danites kidnapping an idol and bringing it with them to establish as their object of worship in the newly conquered territory. 'The Danites set up the idol for themselves, and Jonathan, son of Gershom, son of Moses, and his descendants were priests for the tribe of the Danites until the time the land went into captivity. They maintained the idol Micah had made as long as the house of God was in Shiloh'. (Judges 18:30-31) So, from the get-go the Tribe of Dan were without a solid claim to their land. No doubt the author(s) of Judges was more concerned with the idolatry than with the ethnic cleansing but both taken together were recorded for the purposes of explaining the disappearance of Dan not in order to justify their, to our minds, criminal assault on the poor Sidonians.

                                                                Brick Testament

This still stands as a morality tale in the 21st Century. To envy what your neighbour possesses, to drive them away or destroy them and to do so under the spurious guise of installing a new god which is a thing of human fabrication is not only a wicked thing in itself but is something that will have serious consequences in this world as well as in the next. You put yourself at a distance from the only true God there is and you transform the survivors of the people you dispossess into enemies for generations to come. Some of you may think that I am making a (not very) veiled reference here to the situation as regards modern Israel and the Palestinians. What I am actually seeking to do is to establish a universal principle which applies as much in Honolulu as the Holy Land, in Gujarat as in Gaza.

For Christians the New Covenant has redefined the People of God which no longer consists of blood related tribes policed by a written law living in a single country. The Church is united by faith, strengthened and guided by the Spirit and in but not of the world. Conquest has similarly been redefined, no longer is it just a matter of fire and sword, gun and bomb. To envy those who live in a neighbouring housing estate largely composed of Pakistani Muslims, to look greedily on the factory mostly employing Polish workers, to be angry at a shop run by Koreans is to put yourself on an evil path. Seeking to drive them out through inciting people on the grounds of difference emphasising questions of race, culture, language and religion and to justify this in the name of a spurious idol, Judeo-Christian values, Hindu civilisation, whatever, is to commit the sin of the Danites. What you sow with an evil seed will yield an evil crop.

This Orthodox Christian blog from AncientFaith.com has some interesting thoughts on the conquest of Canaan- Departing Horeb

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Sense & Sensuality

                                     Allegory of Modesty and Vanity by Bernadino Luini

And the servants of the goodman of the house coming said to him: Sir, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it cockle? And he said to them: An enemy hath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up?  And he said: No, lest perhaps gathering up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it.

Matthew 13:27-29

In the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit

Jude 1:18-19

Because I have a short attention span I've always had a soft spot for the Very Small Books in the Bible. I'm especially fond of the Old Testament books of Ruth and of Jonah. They are good stories and, apart from their religious content are full of little vignettes of human emotion from tender love to extreme crabbiness. The Very Small Books of the New Testament are more 'difficult' since they lack narrative and touch on deep spiritual and theological themes which you can't really get to grips with unless you have a good working knowledge of the ideas contained in the rest of the NT. Nonetheless the Catholic Epistle of St Jude the Apostle has several things going for it, its only 25 verses long, it illustrates the wheat and tares parable of our Lord and it is attributed to the patron saint of lost causes who is an appropriate patron for this little cottage blog that dreams of international stardom.

Essentially the letter concerns the presence within the body of Christ of those who do not truly belong to it. While it hints that there may be doctrinal disputes involved ("denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ" v4) it firmly lays the blame for those disruptive tendencies at the door of disordered desires. Like the Didache but less explicitly it presupposes that there are two ways, that of life and that of death the former rooted in the spirit and the latter in sensuality. St Jude gives a list of historical precedents for this kind of thing finishing with a threefold peroration-

Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain:

 and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves,

 and have perished in the contradiction of Core

(Jude 1:11)

This echoes the first verse of the Book of Psalms

Blessed is the man

    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

    nor sits in the seat of scoffers

(Psalms 1:1)

Except that St Jude casts in a negative way (woe unto them) what David had cast in a positive one (blessed is the man.) It is significant that the three examples which he highlights relate examples of human vices specifically and directly to religious actions. The story of Cain (Genesis 4:1-16) displays anger and envy which leads to murder, this stems from the fact that the sacrifice offered to God by Cain's brother Abel is more pleasing to God than Cain's own offering. Balaam acts as a prophet-for-hire, that is although he has received a great gift from God, that of prophecy, he is willing to misuse that gift on behalf of the enemies of God if they pay him enough (Numbers 22.) Greed then is one of the traits that can lead us onto the way of death, doubly so perhaps if we abuse our God given charisma in the service of wickedness.

The episode of Core or Korah is probably less well known these days but it serves the author as a useful hinge since it illustrates both ways, that of life and that of death, thus giving us an early preview of his later positive prescriptions. Basically Korah leads a rebellion against the divine ordinance that reserves the priesthood to Aaron and his family "They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” (Numbers 16:3) So Korah and his followers stood with censers swinging to offer incense to God and Aaron and his sons did the same with rather unpleasant results for Korah et al. Here the sin described is envy (again!) aggravated by pride. This example was and is much to the point insofar as it relates to the Church. There are different roles within the body of Christ, the priesthood of all believers does not mean that each believer is called to fulfill the same function as each other believer. Some are called to be Apostles, some presbyters, some prophets, some teachers and so on. To aim at exercising a charism which God has not gifted you with is not obedience unto life but rebellion unto death.

                                                    Allegory of Chastity by Memling

St Jude's prescription for life is twofold, right belief (orthodoxy) as a necessary foundation for right action (orthopraxy.) While history and, no doubt, our own personal lives clearly evidences that there is often no real connection between what we profess to believe and what we actually do the theory here is that what we really and truly hold as our heart-beliefs is reflected in our outward actions, for better or for worse. Thus if we internalise orthodoxy we shall externalise orthopraxy. At this point the non-orthodox among you will begin to get red or purple in the face and evince a desire to jump up and down yelling irately that one does not have to be a Christian to 'do the right thing.' This is both correct and wrong, but not in equal measure. The correctness consists in the fact that heart-belief, to the extent that is good and virtuous, is always and only prompted by the grace of God. When your heart is aligned with His promptings and cooperates with them in your outward actions then you can to a greater or lesser extent be credited with orthopraxy. However, there are limitations to this if your response to grace is made while unconscious of the presence of grace since you attribute its promptings either to yourself, your sound reason, your innate goodness, or to the effects of the good example set by others, perhaps beginning with your parents. This means that the good actions you perform are limited to what, say, your reason finds to be a suitable response to the partly understood promptings of God felt in your heart. What you don't offer then is gratitude and praise to Him who is the source of both your will and your actions, nor can you strengthen yourself in continued good doing through a personal relationship with Him, through faith, in prayer and in the sacraments. Heartfelt orthodoxy is the only basis upon which consistent orthopraxy can be based which is not the same thing as saying that orthodoxy is the only basis for a life of good and generous acts.

So how according to St Jude can we know of what right belief consists? He gives us two hints firstly by talking of the faith once delivered to the saints (v3) and then later where he says be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. (v17) It is worthy of noticing that in a short letter saturated with references to the Old Testament he does not suggest that Scripture alone should be the source from which orthodox belief is derived. In part this might be because as well as the biblical sources he uses our Apostle also quotes or refers to apocryphal or non-canonical sources such as The Assumption of Moses, the Book of Enoch and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. It is as if he is saying to the Christian community that there are a wide variety of written sources from which we can draw nourishment some of them contain this or that element of God's revelation to Man and some contain material which is edifying or useful but not revelatory and thus non-binding. The only sure fountain from which we can drink the water of salvation in all its purity is the teaching of the Apostles and the traditions which they have handed down (or for his contemporaries are still handing down since, of course the Epistle he was writing was part of that deposit of faith then being laid down.) In short, the Christian faith is Apostolic before it is scriptural.

Some one thousand eight hundred years later Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman reflected on this very question. In Apologia pro Vita Sua he wrote  the sacred text was never intended to teach doctrine, but only to prove it, and that, if we would learn doctrine, we must have recourse to the formularies of the Church.  His argument being that the complex, multi-layered, multiple genre containing Bible is not a thing which any individual can safely use to deduce the entire structure of belief from. We require to understand it in the same way that the Apostles guided by the Holy Spirit understood it (and in part wrote it) for which purpose the only available source to us is the continuous understanding of the Church which those Apostles founded and which continues in unbroken succession to this day. More than that in a sermon Faith and Private Judgement he described the process by which the contents of the Christian religion were received by the Church in its epoch of foundation. ...either the Apostles were from God, or they were not; if they were, everything that they preached was to be believed by their hearers; if they were not, there was nothing for their hearers to believe That is one did not analyse their words accepting this and rejecting that, this was a straightforward either/or choice. One cannot describe a religion based on Scripture Alone in the same way that one can describe that religion based on the Apostles because in the former one uses one's private judgement and the final arbiter of doctrine is personal opinion while in the latter it is the opinion of the Apostles which is to say the Holy Spirit to which one submits.        

So, having received the Apostolic faith what do we do with it, how does it express itself in action? St Jude gives us this description You, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ (vv20-21.) Here the Apostle touches lightly upon a sequence of actions which to fully expound would take more space than this blog has and more knowledge than this blogger possesses. You can discern the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love in what St Jude says and of these three the greatest is love so perhaps the most effectual commentary on St Jude's prescription comes from St Paul-

Love is patient and kind; 

love does not envy or boast; 

it is not arrogant or rude. 

It does not insist on its own way; 

it is not irritable or resentful; 

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, 

but rejoices with the truth. 

Love bears all things, 

believes all things, 

hopes all things, 

endures all things. 

Love never ends

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

The sensual man (meaning man or woman) whom our Apostle talks about in verse 19 is one whose love is primarily directed towards himself and restricted to the realm of material things and sensations. Over against this is the way of life, the way of good sense, grounded in the spirit and lived out as a life which is primarily directed outward to God and neighbour. For it is a fact that love of necessity is never a solitary thing, it always requires to overflow from the individual, it can only exist by being shared. To hoard it is to lose it, to spend it is to increase it. To the extent that the Church contains both wheat and tares one of the functions allotted to each grain of wheat is, by love, to transform each sensual seed into a new grain of wheat which will flourish and give forth some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold and some an hundredfold fruits of love and life.

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Some of my blogs are collected as a free ebook on Wattpad as This Contemplative Life

Read my ecofriendly Christmas fable of the Nativity "Adoration of the Pangolins" also on Wattpad

This Contemplative Life

I have collected together some representative posts from this blog and turned them into a free, downloadable ebook on Wattpad This Contemplative Life which includes-

• Christian Meditation
• Who Needs #Buddha?
• The Bible and the Virgin
• Controversies and Random Thoughts
• Mary, Mother of Christians, and Her Daughters

And much more besides.

Also, for reasons too complicated to go into, I have written a short (1500 words) Christmas fable about two scaly anteaters, Harum and Scarum, a happy donkey and the Nativity of our Lord. This is the Adoration of the Pangolins also in downloadable form.

The result of all this is that you can now take me with you wherever you go. Surely an offer you can't refuse.

The Bible & The Virgin Come To A Conclusion

Why Bible-believing Christians should honour Mary

In this series I have been looking at what the Gospels say about the mother of Jesus. I have argued that on the basis of these scriptures alone Christians of all traditions have an explicit warrant, if not a mandate, to give great honour and praise to Mary. In this conclusion to the series I propose to look at references to our Lady in other parts of the New Testament and to demonstrate the cumulative effect of the undisputed biblical references to the Virgin.

All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers
Acts 1:14 (NRSV)

The "all these" referred to are the Apostles. This passage is significant for many reasons. It tells us that Mary was a woman of prayer. It tells us that she formed part of the core group of believers gathered together in Jerusalem at the beginning of the life of the Christian Church. And once again, as I have highlighted in the previous parts of this series, it shows that the mere presence of Mary is something that the Holy Spirit wishes to draw out attention to. This verse is situated between the Ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The probability is that Mary was present at both occasions but we cannot be certain of this. However, so far as Pentecost goes St Luke writes When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place (Acts 2:1 NRSV) The "they" in this case referring to all the believers, about 120 in all, which certainly included Mary. Pentecost marks the birth of the Church as the body of Christ and the presence of the mother of the head of the body at this event clearly is no accident but a deliberate act of Divine Providence.

Throughout this series I have been pointing up the fact that the Virgin was present at a number of key moments in salvation history the time has now come to summarise these moments and allow their cumulative effects to speak for themselves. I will also look at what we learn about the personality of the Mother of Jesus from these references-

-The Archangel Gabriel tells Mary that she has "found favour with God"
-Mary is the first person in the world to hear about Jesus.
-Immediately she becomes the first person to have faith in Him, i.e. Mary is the first Christian.
-She gives her joyful consent to God's plan
-She is (necessarily) present at the Incarnation of the Son of God which takes place in her womb.
-The sound of the Virgin's voice is the agency which God uses to cause St John the Baptist (and St Elizabeth) to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
-The divinely inspired St Elizabeth declares our Lady to be Blessed among women.
- Mary was (necessarily) present at the birth of the Son of God
- The shepherds and the Magi found Jesus with Mary
-Mary treasures and ponders all these events in her heart.
-Mary was present when Jesus was offered, in accordance with the Law, as a symbolic sacrifice to the Father in the Temple.
-The Virgin was the subject of a prophecy by the inspired Simeon which specifically refers to her and to the closeness she will have to the sufferings of her Son.
-Jesus, Mary and Joseph become political refugees seeking asylum in Egypt in order to save the life of the Saviour.
-Mary's suffering for three days while Jesus is missing, hidden in the House of His Father, prefigures the events of the Passion.
-Jesus willingly subjects Himself to the authority of Mary and Joseph
-Mary displays a delicate and charitable sensibility by being distressed at the potential humiliation of the newlyweds at Cana.
-Prompted by this she prays to Jesus and by her prayers brings about the first public miracle of Jesus' mission.
-In giving her counsel to the servants 'do whatever He tells you' Mary anticipates the words of Jesus at the Last Supper 'if you love me you will keep my commandments'
-Mary accompanies Jesus from Cana to Capernaum where our Lord begins His public mission of preaching, teaching and healing.
-Mary accompanies Jesus to the Cross and stands steadfastly at its foot sharing in His agony.
-Jesus, in the final depths of that agony, takes thought for His mother and gives her into the care of His beloved disciple and gives the beloved disciple into her care. Until He had done this, St John suggests, His mission was incomplete.
-Having been present at the birth of her Son in the flesh at the first Christmas Mary was also present in the birth, as it were, of her Son in the Spirit as the the Body of Christ appears in the world at Pentecost.

Taking all of these things into consideration a Christian would have to be hard hearted indeed not to frequently offer up thanks to God for the gift He gave us in Mary. And if that is not enough one other consideration should be borne in mind, Jesus Himself undoubtedly loved His mother and what is good enough for Him is surely good enough for us.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law 
Galatians 4:4 (NRSV)

One of the title which Catholics give to Mary "Mother of God" often  causes Christians from the Reformation traditions (also called Protestants) to wince. They seem to think that it was a title invented with no other purpose than to elevate Mary into a position for which there is no scriptural warrant. This stems, I think, from a misunderstanding. The title was agreed at a council of the then undivided Christian Church at Ephesus in the 5th Century in order to defend against an heresy which attacked the divinity of Jesus. In its original Greek it is Theotokos which can also be translated as 'God bearer' or 'birth-giver of God.' The point about the title is that it primarily tells us something about Jesus, that from the moment of His conception we was both fully God and fully human, and only secondarily something about our Lady, that she was the mother of the Incarnated second Person of the Trinity. What it does not do is suggest that the second Person of the Trinity had no existence until He appeared within Mary's womb. I am always slightly puzzled by Protestant objections to the use of "Mother of God" since they are willing enough to acknowledge that St Elizabeth was perfectly correct to call her "the mother of my Lord" (Luke 1:43 NRSV) and that it is quite orthodox to refer to Mary as the mother of the Son of God. It is almost as if the idea of conceding anything to Mary is some sort of surrender to Rome.

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars
Revelation 12:1 (KJV)
      
This text, sadly, does not come under the heading of undisputed references to Mary. While Catholics certainly accept it to be such most Protestants prefer to see in it a reference to Israel or the Church. It is not my purpose in this series to enter into such matters of controversy so I will not insist upon this interpretation but I will make a couple of points in regard to it. Firstly, it is in the nature of divinely inspired Scripture that it contains multiple levels of meaning not all of which are instantly understandable at first reading. This means that for some texts at least we are not faced with the choice 'either it means this or it means that' but can instead say that 'it means both this and that.' Catholics take the view that this is one such scriptural passage arguing that it certainly does refer to the Church/Israel as well as Mary the mother of God. Protestants do not have to accept this interpretation but I would argue that they should at least acknowledge that it is a plausible understanding of it. Which leads on to- Secondly, Reformation tradition Christians react with something akin to horror to the title of 'Queen of Heaven' being applied to Mary. Yet, if this scripture can reasonably be understood to refer to her then a woman in the heavens possessed of a crown can equally reasonable be understood to be a Queen and her realm clearly is heavenly.

As an aside, a further reason for such strong reactions to the title lies in the previous use of it in reference to a pagan deity Ishtar. It seems specious to me, however, to argue that because pagans used a title therefore it becomes forever barred for use by Christians. The pagan king Nebuchadnezzar, for example, is referred to in Daniel (2:37 KJV) as King of Kings yet this does not prevent the same title being applied to our Saviour Jesus. Similarly the pagan god (or gods) Baal are frequently referenced in the Bible but the word itself simply means 'Lord' and if we disallow pagan title in Christian usage then it would be a sin to say that Jesus is Lord which is manifest nonsense.

In conclusion I would simply say this, Christians of all traditions have in the Scriptures a common treasure and treasury. Part of that common heritage is Mary, the mother of Jesus. By honouring her we do not dishonour Him in any way but by ignoring her we do dishonour Scripture and the clear purpose of the Holy Spirit.

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The Bible & The Virgin- Part 3

Why Bible-believing Christians should honour Mary

In this series I am looking at some of the New Testament verses which refer to Mary and considering what a reasonable Christian might deduce from them about her character and her relationship with God. Parts 1 and 2 have been on the receiving end of harsh criticism in some social media. Interestingly none of this relates to anything I have written but only to the things about which I have not written. A few Christians seem to have a fear that if we spend time considering what the Holy Spirit wants us to know about the Mother of Jesus then somehow this opens the very gates of hell. I can only say to them be not afraid and consider in your hearts in case you be found to be resisting the Spirit.

At the end of Part 2 we left our Lady with the Magi. St Matthew then records that the Holy Family spent some time as political refugees seeking asylum in Egypt before eventually making their way to Nazareth which was to be their home for many years. The next significant episode is recorded by St Luke when our Lord was 12 years old and became detached from his mother and foster father after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Eventually they find Him in the middle of discussions with the learned sages of the place;

When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, ‘Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.
Luke 2:48 (NIV)

It is characteristic of Mary that the first thing that she does is to seek to understand why her Son as acted as He has done. She does not scold Him or display anger. She knows that what He does is always the right thing to be done but that knowledge, that faith, does not tell her why it is the right thing and so, in faith, she seeks that greater understanding from the only source from which it can come, her Son and God's Son, Jesus Christ. Faith is always a process of growth since we who are finite are growing in knowledge, understanding and love of God who is infinite. It is also characteristic of our Lady that she mentions St Joseph before herself. Mary's humility was such that her concern about her lost and found Son did not mask or obscure her sympathy for the anguish of her husband. She humbly named his concern before her own and her own anxieties could not prevent her empathising with the anxieties of others.

Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart
Luke 2:51 (NIV)

This tells us that Jesus was obedient to Mary and Joseph. What does this tell us about the kind of home in which the perfectly sinless one was raised? It tells us that the life that Mary and Joseph lived was one of purity and virtue, work and devotion to the God of Israel, had it not been so then Jesus, the sinless one, the Son of His Father in Heaven, would have been a rebel but with Mary and Joseph He had no cause for rebellion. It tells us too, I think, that Jesus loved His parents on earth. If Jesus loved them can we do any less? And if Jesus showed His love for them should we not do so also? In an earlier post, Mary and Christian Meditation, I reflected on the fact that our Lady treasured these things "The temptation for us here is to say 'she did not understand but she treasured it anyway.' There is no but however. She did not keep the words of Jesus because she understood them nor because she failed to understand them. She kept them because they were the words of Jesus, she needed no other reason". Mary loved her Son and knew very well what His origin was. When these facts were the only ones she had to go on they were more than enough for her as they should be for us also. Understanding may come, indeed it is right to hope that it will come and to seek out all knowledge that will help us to come to it. Nonetheless, where understanding fails us love can still find a way to the truth. Mary is our example in this as we can see from this Scripture.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
John 1:1-2 (NRSV)

In Part 2 I mentioned that the Gospels often compact an awful lot of information into a very few words. Here we have another example of this. St John seems to go out of his way to tell us that Mary was at the wedding before mentioning Jesus. The obvious deduction is that Jesus was invited because He was the Son of Mary and that St John records this because it is a fact that the Holy Spirit wants us to know and consider. Christians of all traditions are clear that where Jesus goes Mary follows; from this we can learn also that where Mary goes Jesus too follows. Those who are wary of giving honour and praise to our Lady because they think that it somehow separates them from our Lord and detracts from the glory of God should learn from this that it does nothing of the kind. Mary goes nowhere that Jesus would not be happy to follow her to.

When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 
John 2:3 (NRSV)

I would suspect that we could read this account dozens of times before asking the question 'why did the wine run out?' It is reasonable to suppose that the cause is to be found in the poverty of the newlyweds. Had they been well to do then either they would have been well stocked to start with or they could easily have bought in extra supplies when they needed to. That Mary was invited to a wedding of the poor tells us something about her and her life. That she noticed that the wine had run out and sought to do something about it straight away tells us something too. Our Lady was concerned that this lack would shame those who invited her and she cared a great deal about this. Mary was one who fulfilled the commandment 'love your neighbour as yourself.' It should also be noted that wine is not a necessity at a wedding (although many of us might think that it is) neither is it a luxury, it is one of those little extras that make life pleasant. Mary was concerned that the guests should enjoy the wedding and be glad and in that she shows us that she is kindly and very human.

Many Christians, particularly those in the Reformation traditions (also called Protestants), think that the word 'prayer' has a specific connection with worship, that is all prayer is also worship. Flowing from this is the belief that prayer should, therefore, only ever be addressed to God. Words do change their meaning over time and it may be that prayer will one day come to have that exclusive idea firmly attached to it. It was not always so and even yet it is not entirely so. 'To pray' can simply mean 'to request'. We can see this, for example in a 2014 episode of Sherlock where "pray silence for the best man" is said just before Holmes makes an ass of himself and solves a crime at the same time. What all this is leading up to is that Mary here is praying to Jesus in that sense of the word. In doing so she gives us a model for all prayer directed to Him. She makes no demand. Her words are short and to the point. She draws His attention to the fact, they have no wine, and leaves to Him the disposition of the situation. And of course having heard His mother's prayer Jesus answers it. It is sometimes argued by Protestants (and New Atheists) that His apparent reluctance to respond is somehow a rebuke to our Lady. Yet, surely, the whole point of prayer is to effect a response from God that we feel would not have been made had the prayer not been uttered. Strict justice would leave the bride and groom to suffer the consequences of them inviting too many guests and providing too little wine. Mercy flowing from the prayer of Mary and the graciousness of Jesus' response leads to wine of superlative quality in eye-watering quantity. Prayer works and the prayer of Mary works very well indeed.

His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’
John 2:5 (NRSV)

It is, perhaps, easy to overlook the fact that the servants obeyed Jesus because they were obedient to Mary. However, it does seem to be so and again it is worth reflecting on why the Holy Spirit might want to inform us of this. Be that as it may we can learn certain things about our Lady from these few words. Firstly, she knew that Jesus was bound to answer her prayer without Him having specifically said that He would. Mary not only had perfect trust in her Divine Son but she knew that He loved her so much that He could not refuse a request from her. Second, she counsels those who listen to her, and all the subsequent generations who have read the Gospel according to St John, to do what Jesus Himself later says is a mark of His true disciples ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments'. John 14:15(NRSV) At the beginning of His mission Mary intuits what Jesus reveals to His closest followers only at the Last Supper.


After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples
John 2:12 (NRSV)

I think there is a tendency for Christians to think that after the Baptism in the Jordan and the 40 days in the desert that Jesus cut loose from home and became straight away the 'Son of Man who has nowhere to lay His head.' Here the Evangelist lets us know that Mary is still important to Him she, through her prayer, brought about His first public miracle and she accompanies Him to Capernaum where the Synoptic Gospels tell us He began His public preaching, teaching and healing mission. I said in Part 2 that the Scriptures take the trouble to record the presence of our Lady at key moments in the history of salvation and here are two of them in Cana and Capernaum. There will be more.

End of Part 3


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The Bible & The Virgin- Part 2

Why Bible-believing Christians should honour Mary

In this series I am looking at the evidence from Scripture Alone that shows why Christians have the duty and great privilege to give the Virgin Mary honour and praise. What I am not doing is looking at those Catholic doctrines about our Lady which cause Christians in the traditions of the Reformation (also called Protestants) to get fidgety. It seems to me that all traditions of Christianity could, if they chose, unite around the plain sense and literal meaning of Scripture where it shows to us the outstanding qualities of Mary and agree that here indeed we find an outstanding Saint of God. In Part 1 I  looked at the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel and the Visitation to St Elizabeth (and Zechariah.) Here I will begin by looking at the events around the birth of Jesus (traditionally referred to as the Nativity.)

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: his mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit
Matthew 1:18 (NIV)

The words 'found to be' in this context are one of those compact expressions which occur frequently in the Gospels. Because the words are few the temptation is to skim over them as being of little significance. If, however, we unpack them then we see that they cover quite a complex series of events. We know from the Visitation that St Elizabeth discerned the pregnancy of Mary because she had been inspired to do so by the Holy Spirit; our Lady herself did not tell her. Three months later she returned to Nazareth. By this time her condition was probably visible but, again, it seems that she did not tell anyone the cause, preferring to allow people to think what they would. This must tell us something about the personality and character of the Blessed Virgin. I think that we can deduce several major things about her from this episode. Firstly, she did not seek to make public what had been revealed to her in private, Mary was discreet. Secondly, she did not wish to make it known that she has been selected and granted the privilege, becoming mother to the promised Messiah, that all women in Israel desired to have, Mary was humble. Thirdly, she trusted that the God who had given her her unborn child would make sure that both she and He would be provided for, Mary had perfect faith that nothing was impossible with God. It might be argued that she kept silence for fear of not being believed but given that the penalty for adultery was death by stoning she had more to lose by silence then she had by speech unless God intervened, which of course He did.

she gave birth to her firstborn, a son
Luke 2:7 (NIV)

It may seem like, in the words of a fine old English saying, a statement of the bleedin' obvious to say that Mary was present at the birth of her Son. And of course in one sense that is exactly what it is. As the series progresses, however, we will see that both the Virgin is present at a number of crucial moments in the history of salvation and that the Scriptures take the trouble to record the fact. What the Holy Spirit thinks worth including in the Bible Christians ought to think worth paying attention to. Mary was present when the Saviour entered the world or, to put it another way, the Saviour entered the world because Mary was present. We would know nothing about Mary were it not for Jesus but there would be no Jesus were it not for Mary. That is not to say that God could not have effected His purpose in some other way it is to say that the way He chose to effect His purpose was through and with Mary, the mother of the Son of God.

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger
Luke 2:16 (NIV)

If we believe that Scripture was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and those who hold that the Bible is the final authority can believe nothing else, then it behoves us to pay close attention to what it actually says. In most of Scripture when husbands and wives are listed the mans name comes first. Abraham and Sarah were already very old Genesis 18:11 on the (sexist) assumption that the man is the more important of the two. Moreover, the principle of listing the most important person first is followed in the Gospels where all the lists of the Apostles begin with St Peter and end with Judas the traitor. So, on that basis it is clear that the Spirit considers Mary to have precedence over St Joseph. If we hold, as some Protestants do, that the Virgin was simply a vessel to carry the unborn child Jesus and that her significance pretty much ended there then this listing would make little sense. If Joseph were to hold primary responsibility for raising the child and educating Him in the faith then Joseph would be first on the list. Clearly his male prerogative is secondary to the privileges granted to Mary.

Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart
Luke 2:19 (NIV)

St Luke makes several such references to our Lady and no such references to anyone else. Mary treasures these things and contemplates them in the very centre of her being. The Evangelist shows her to be a model of gratitude to God (she counts these things to be a treasure) and a model of one who meditates deeply on the things of God. Moreover he shows us that she is so to an unusual degree. We may have wondered why, in the Annunciation, Gabriel said that Mary had found favour with God here surely are some of the reasons. Mary's character has not changed because of pregnancy and childbirth, as she is now so she was before. Her grateful, prayerful way of being in the world is part of the reason why she has been chosen out of all of the daughters of Israel to be the mother of the Son of God.

When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 
 Luke 2:22 (NIV)    

Here we can note that it has become 'Joseph and Mary' because when it come to fulfilling the requirements of the old law St Joseph has the privileged position, Mary's privileges depend entirely upon her Son. Also we can see that the Holy Family is scrupulous in fulfilling the requirements of that law despite the fact that it doesn't really apply to them, Mary does not require to be purified because she is pure, Jesus does not require to be circumcised or presented to the Lord because He is the Lord. Nonetheless, they show obedience to the law to avoid causing scandal and because the hour has not yet come to supercede it.

Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
Luke 2:34-35 (NIV)

Simeon blesses 'them' and then addresses Mary exclusively. We have moved again from old dispensation to new dispensation and once more Mary is foregrounded and St Joseph backgrounded. Crucially Simeon prophesies that a sword will pierce the soul of Mary. We learn from this just how greatly our Lady will suffer because of the Passion and agonising death of her Son. And we learn this about no one else. Certainly we can assume that St Mary Magdalen, St John the Evangelist, St Peter and many others were affected by the death of Jesus but the Holy Spirit, as it were, goes out of His way to inform us that Mary above all others will be afflicted with the afflictions which fall upon Jesus. And if the Holy Spirit wants us to know this then we should follow the example of the Virgin herself and treasure this knowledge pondering over it in our hearts.

On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him  
Matthew 2:11 (NIV)

This refers to the visit of the Magi. It might be considered that it is simply recording a fact and that Mary's presence is an incidental detail. However, it is recorded not that the Magi saw Jesus alone nor that they saw Him with St Joseph but that they saw Him with Mary. Seeing Jesus with Mary they worshipped Jesus. This is a clear sign surely that the presence of our Lady does not in any way detract from the glory of God. We can give Mary honour and God glory and it robs God of nothing to honour Mary as it robs Mary of nothing to worship God. What the Magi were able to do these two thousand years and more ago surely Christians can still do today.

End of Part 2

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