Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 13:3 (Summer 1999)
Article: Mary, God’s Servant: Her Story Retold
Author: Martha Linda Marion Montgomery

PP 13:3 (Summer 1999) p. 13

Mary, God’s Servant: Her Story Retold

Linda Marion Montgomery

Linda Marion Montgomery has extensive experience in both Christian and secular Education. She earned a Master of Theological Studies from Candler School of Theology (Emory University). Her MTS thesis was on fourteenth-century mystics.

The New Testament is the earliest source for Mary. Galatians, possibly written around 57 AD, speaks of Jesus being “born of a woman” (Gal 4:4); that is our earliest reference to the mother of Christ. All the Gospels, probably written between 70 and 100 AD, testify to the existence of Mary.

Mary, The Witness

In Acts 1, we find Mary with the other disciples waiting in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit. Jesus had told them in Luke 24:46-49,

This is what is written:

The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.

Mary had watched her son die on the cross. She knew that he had risen from the dead as he said he would for many had seen him. Jesus’ friends were staying in an upstairs room in Jerusalem. Waiting there were Peter, John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas (not Iscariot). They all were constantly in prayer, along with the women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them with a sound like the blowing of a violent wind and with tongues of fire.

Mary too was baptized by the Holy Spirit, as the little group was “clothed with power” and experienced the risen Lord.

Mary and the others had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ the Lord, the Messiah. Now they experienced the presence of God in a new way, and were empowered to speak and proclaim the Good News about Jesus.

In light of this new experience, this powerful resurrection faith, Mary was able, with the Holy Spirit’s help, to interpret her memories of her son, the things she had “pondered in her heart” (Lk 2:19). She told her stories about her son to the community of believers.

Luke used this eyewitness account of Jesus to write his gospel. Mary is the most important witness to the truth of the Bible story about her son.

Mary The Virgin

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