Women in the lineage of Jesus

Mary - invitation into God’s story

Date: December 23, 2024

Dive in and Read: I Samuel 2:1-10; Matthew 1:16; Luke 1:46-53

Opening prayer: Lord Jesus, as we celebrate Your birth this season, we also recognize the humble women who are part of Your heritage. We celebrate all these women who have heard and accepted Your call on their lives even in their lowly and humble circumstances. We have a foreigner (Rahab), a widow (Ruth), the grieving (Bathsheba) and the poor peasant (Mary) women who are the foundations on which You chose to build Your Kingdom! Help us to stand alongside more people in our lives who have the same courage and faithfulness as these pillars of faith.

Discover: Matthew lists five women in the lineage of Jesus Christ in chapter 1. As we study these amazing women together, may we see no matter how we view ourselves, Jesus redeems our stories and they become part of His. Let’s finish with Mary, the mother of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Mary is first listed in Matthew 1:16 as Joseph’s wife; mother of Jesus. There are over 1,000 years between Bathsheba and Mary. No other women are listed in Jesus’ genealogy between these two women. As you re-read her story in Luke 1 & 2, explore it from the lens of a poor, peasant woman fully devoted to God’s call on her life. God connects her humble, gentle story with Jesus’ Kingdom of loyal love and faithfulness.

Mary’s culture was very different from the other women in Jesus’ lineage. The nation of Israel is ruled and occupied by the gentile nation of Rome. Ninety percent of the population lives in poverty and/or enslavement. Mary’s situation was an impoverished peasant woman like the majority of people around her. She could not offer Jesus security or protection from the Rule of Rome. She sometimes could not even offer Jesus daily provision of bread. Why would the all-knowing-God-of-the universe choose this woman/family to place His beloved Son into? What could she offer Jesus? She offered Him everything! She didn’t understand what God was up to in her story or Jesus’ story. However, she accepted His invitation through the angel and then responded/returned all the loyal love and favor she had received.

In her humble, lowly position, Mary reveals the Hebrew scriptures she knows so well as seen in her song (Luke 1:46-53). How do you spontaneously create a song full of references to multiple Psalms and the scrolls of I Samuel, and Habbakuk unless you have those scriptures deeply ingrained in your mind?  Mary shares her community of Jewish faith with Jesus. She grounds Him in the very scriptures she lives and breathes beginning with Jesus’ purification eight days after His birth. Mary was no saint as I am sure she failed and sinned as all humans. Mary didn’t have a secure home and a plethora of provisions to give Jesus. What Mary did have to give Him was all that she had in her trusts in God, knowledge of God’s Word, and an example or model of a human being who walked that faith out in surrender and servanthood. Mary accepted whole-heartedly God’s invitation into His story!

Deeper Connection: How does viewing Mary’s story as an impoverished peasant women steeped in the knowledge of God’s word change our understanding of her? How do we concern ourselves with knowing and walking out the truths and faith of Jesus impact our daily decisions?  How can Jesus transform our impoverished hearts and minds even though we are in positions of relative wealth, security and health?

Closing prayer:

Happy Birthday, Jesus! We are so grateful for the women in your lineage! You have told us in Your instructions that the kingdom of God is for these type of people - the foreigner (those without a place to belong), the widow (those without a family), the grieving (those with traumatic losses), and the poor (those who have nothing to offer but their lives). Help us, hear and respond to the invitation into Your Kingdom just as each of these women did! “Come, all you who are weary and I will give you rest.”

Amen and amen