Mary awaits the resurrection
“Greetings,
favoured one! The Lord is with you.
And blessed
is she who believed…”
(Luke 1: 28, 45)
(Luke 1: 28, 45)
Can you imagine what it would
be like to have watched your only Son being scourged, nailed and killed on a
cross? Can you imagine the kind of
thoughts going through your head if you were her? One word: WHY? She had no answer. She could only remember that notwithstanding
all she
had remained close to Him always.
Think for another moment. If you were a
pregnant Mary, waiting in anticipation for this special son who would be born,
one who would change the world. Think of
her as she remembered those special moments with Joseph as he lovingly taught
Him to handle pieces of wood. When He was young she had taught Him by example,
by her prayers. She didn’t only talk about prayer with Jesus - or believed in a
prayer time with Him - but she took the time to pray with Him and for Him.
I can just imagine her teaching Him His night
prayers. Every good Jew had to pray a
number of times a day, and she showed Him the way, even though, in the deepest
of her heart she knew He already knew it all.
But He submitted Himself to her completely just the same, obedient to
the end.
All this time of His growth she had stayed in
the background, yet ready to come forward in the thick of things to support and
comfort her Son, as any mother would.
Now He was dead. Or was He? We do not know if
He had ever spoken to her more clearly than is recorded in Scripture about His
resurrection. But as a good Jewess she believed in the teaching of the
resurrection so perhaps she did look forward to His rising again as He himself
had prophesied.
She waited, full of hope. Her confidence must
have been boosted with this knowledge that it would happen…very soon! Did He
say three days? Such a short time to
wait, so she put aside all the things she had to do, the house cleaning, the
mourning she was expected to live and display, the desperation of losing her
son the way she did….and concentrated on the only task that would truly satisfy
her heart….. more time to free herself to be with the Lord Her son..
1 Kings 17: 17-24
Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill.
He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah,
"What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my
sin and kill my son?"
"Give me your son," Elijah replied. He took him from her arms,
carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed.
Then he cried out to the Lord, "O Lord my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow
I am staying with, by causing her son to die?" Then he stretched himself
out on the boy three times and cried to the Lord, "O Lord my God, let this
boy's life return to him!" The Lord heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to
him, and he lived. Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the
room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your son
is alive!" Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a
man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth."
