167: Bible Questions: What did Mary know?

EPISODE 167.  Bible Questions:  What did Mary know? 

It's Christmas Eve morning across America today, radios will play and church soloists will ask a musical question. Mary, what did you know, what did you know about Jesus power over nature, over sickness and death? What'd you know, about his existence before the manger and the finale of the song. Did you know his essence that he was the great, I am the God who spoke to Moses from the burning Bush. I think I can come pretty close to answering that question in this Bible question. What did Mary really know? And the answer is not very much when I was a kid back in the sixties, I fondly remember the magazine highlights.

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That magazine was in our little school library and in the waiting room of every unpleasant office I ever visited, like the dentist or doctor inevitably I'd grab the highlights magazine and turn to my favorite section, hidden pictures. It would be a very busy scene along the side. And bottom margins would be pictures of common items hidden in that very busy scene, a paintbrush, a skeleton key, or a bar of soap. The goal was to find each of those symbols embedded in that very busy picture today. Many people answer our Bible question. What did Mary know with? She knew a whole lot, many would say Mary knew a lot, or at least should have known.

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They point to what the gospels tell us. She was told directly Matthew and Luke tell us she and her fiance were in the line of David. It's likely that most young women with king David in their family tree mused. I wonder, could I be the mother who bears the promise king? Luke tells us she knew from an angelic visit, that she was special. The angel introduces himself to Mary as Gabriel in Luke chapter one and calls her favored. One stating the Lord is with you. That could only have fanned Mary's flame. She knew what Gabriel said though. I can't imagine she could get her arms around the implications.

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His name shall be Jesus, which means God saves in the songs lyrics. He will save our sons and daughters. Gabriel continues. He'll be very great. The son of the most high he will be given the throne of his ancestor. David, he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end. The baby. Born will be holy called the son of God. And that's a lot to know though, again, I can imagine she could wrap her arms around it. Those statements are like those drawings down the margin of hidden pictures. Wow. A throne, a king. I'm not sure how you draw the symbol.

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Wholly, maybe a bar of soap or forever. Gabriel ends by saying something's up with your relative. Elizabeth Baron. Elizabeth is now ending her second trimester, Mary scurries off to visit Elizabeth. When she enters the room, Luke tells us the baby leaped in Elizabeth's womb. Elizabeth cries out. You are blessed. You're the mother of my Lord, Luke. Then reports Mary going off. We call it her Magnificat. She says, generations will call me, bless it. And continues. God is fulfilling his promise to Abraham and his children through me to be merciful and mighty promise, merciful and mighty draw those symbols in the hidden pictures margin.

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Luke tells us she stayed three months with Elizabeth, which means she could have been there to hear Zachariah Elizabeth's husband go off. When his son John is born, Zachariah says God has visited his people and redeem them again. In the songs, words saved our sons and daughters. God has sent a mighty savior and David's line rescuing us from our enemies and helping us to serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness. She may have heard Zachariah go on to say that his little boy John would tell people how to find salvation and forgiveness for their sins through the light. That was about to break upon them from heaven.

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00:04:20

Mary also likely heard from Joseph her fiance, what he had learned in the dream reported to us by the gospel writer, Matthew, that she would fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. A Virgin will bear a son. You shall call his name, Emmanuel God with us. Mary also knew what the angels had told the shepherds. When they visited her at the stable, the savior, the Messiah has been born in Bethlehem tonight. And there was something about her son, the Messiah that would bring peace to those on whom God favored. Eight days after his birth. She knew what Simeon at the temple had said. When they presented her son for circumcision and dedication, she heard ages, Semyon, pray.

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I can die. Now I've seen the savior. You've given to all people, a light to reveal God to the nations and the glory of your people. Israel, then Semyon turns and looks her in the eye and says, this son of yours will be rejected by many, but be the greatest joy to many others. And through it, all your soul will be pierced. Maybe up to a year later, Mary learned more three wise men visit her following a special star that appeared these three match. I fall before her son, Jesus, who may have been at that point, toddling around Luke tells us they worshiped him and presented him gifts, normally reserved for royalty.

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00:05:46

She also knew what an angel had told her. Now, husband Joseph in a dream get out of town. Now the existing king Herod has a contract out on your son. Luke tells us as this young man grew. Mary saw that God's favor was on him. And at age 12 in that biblical version of home alone, Luke tells us upon finding twelve-year-old Jesus at the temple after a three-day frantic search, Jesus states. Did you not know? I would be in my father's house for all those reasons. Preachers and theologians believe Mary knew a whole, whole lot, but I don't think she got much of that at all.

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00:06:29

They were closed down the margin, but they were pretty hidden in the big picture. And here are my reasons. First here's what we know about Mary Mary was probably about 15 years old when she gave birth to Jesus. We know this because the boys were treated as men and began learning a trade at age 12. Girls may have been betrayed as soon as they were mature enough to bear a child. We also know from history girls were not normally given the same religious education as the boys. What Mary knew she would have had to pick up at home from the males at the house or at her weekly time at the synagogue we learned in episode 85, growing up, Jesus.

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00:07:16

She also lived in Nazareth. Nazareth was seen as a little town in the Hills and Nazarites hillbillies little town synagogues in the sticks. Don't normally get the valedictorians of seminary classes. So what she learned in Nazarus little synagogue, probably wasn't real deep. Just the basics. Also, as we learned in episode seven, the teachers she might've had at that synagogue read and taught the meaning of those old Testament scrolls in the little synagogue in Nazareth, through distorted lenses. Mary really didn't know very much. It's very unlikely. She would have known about the numerous passages in the old Testament that vividly declare that one day one would come, who existed before the patriarchs, who would rule over nature, who would save our sons and daughters from their sins and who would be much, much more than simply a great man.

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00:08:13

It's unlikely. She would have known the implications of passages like Genesis three 15. We looked at this in episode 21, speaking to the serpent in dwelt, by Satan, in the garden of Eden. God makes the Bible's first promise. Someone would come from Eve who had stomped Satan and the curse of sin. That's quite a person while she knew Abraham was special. It's very unlikely. She understood the implication of God's promise to Abraham that someone coming through him, then through Isaac, then through Jacob would bless all nations. She probably wouldn't have understood the promise to Jacob's fourth son, Judah, that someone would come from him who would hold a sector.

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00:08:57

And that sector would not depart from Judah until one came from the line of Judah who had the right to rule being from the line of David. She probably knew about God's promise to David in second, Samuel seven, that God one day would restore his dynasty and secure someone on the throne forever. We looked at that in episode 55, but forever as a long, long time. And I don't think Mary really understood that either Jeremiah comes along and describes the time Israel would flourish and God would raise up a descendant of David, a righteous one, one who is just, and who had saved Judah and Jerusalem.

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00:09:39

I bet she knew about that one at the time Jesus was born. That was a big sermon in Israel. After being under the boot of Babylon, the Medes and Persians, the Greeks and the Romans for 600 years, the Jewish people were hanging on to hope that they would be delivered politically by a great king, a righteous one, one who would take the throne and rule. And I don't think there's a chance she would have understood the Daniel's prophecy in Daniel chapter seven. We're told one like the son of man will come on the clouds of heaven and be handed by the ancient one, God, all rule and authority over all nations forever.

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00:10:21

And we haven't even touched on the many passages that talk about the prophecies of how this descendant of Aviv in the line of David who had stomped Satan and the power of sin would suffer and be put to death. Look up on Google messianic passages. Talk about amazing pictures in the margins of this hidden picture of the Messiah, saving them from the Romans. Mary had an idea about that, but saving us from our sins. I don't think she had a clue and here are a few reasons why the religious leaders at the time didn't have a clue. They were looking for a rescuing political leader.

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00:11:01

They were clueless about a suffering Messiah. Second, the disciples didn't know that even after three years of being the apprentices of Jesus, they were clueless about this part of his mission to give his life a ransom. For many, they tried to keep Jesus from going to the cross third during Jesus' ministry, Mary and Jesus brothers didn't know that mark tells us during his ministry, they came to take him home for a little rest, thinking all this son of man must suffer and be crucified and be raised on the third day. Or I came not to be served, but to serve and to give my life a ransom. For many, they thought this was a sign he'd gone off the rails and needed some R and R.

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00:11:45

I could add the prior to his conversion, the brilliant old Testament, theologian and law expert, Saul of Tarsus, the one who will write most of the letters of the new Testament. Didn't see those saving our sons and daughters as the suffering lamb of God passages either. I don't think Mary knew very much at all. They were hidden in the hidden picture of the old Testament. Mary didn't have the key, the symbols to find all those things in the hidden picture of the Messiah. In the old Testament, the key came in the 27 books of the new Testament. Mary didn't know much. Maybe that God was raising up a rescuer for his people, much like he did Moses the midwife when they were slaves in Egypt.

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00:12:33

But what she did know, she submitted an offered herself as a vessel to bring about this Messiah, this anointed one, the Christ, the Christ we celebrate today and tomorrow, born in a stable Mary knew more as time went on, I'll tease you by referring you to acts chapter one. If Mary were here today, this Christmas Eve, she might ask us, what do you know about the Sanai bore? You've got the symbols, the gospels, where the savior is introduced and the new Testament letters where it is explained, give you much more information than I ever had about the sun. I bore in a manger.

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What do you know about him? May I give you an assignment? Listen to episode 1 21 where Jesus asks us the question. Who do YOU say that I am?

Merry Christmas.?