Significance of the Virgin Mary . . .

A VISION OF THE CHURCH
WARREN LEWIS

In the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, John sees a glorious sign in the heavens. His vision is of a splendid woman who dazzles with the light of the heavenly luminaries and who in a kaleidoscopic fashion changes her appearance from glance to glance. In a few short psychedelic verses of scripture, John captures the entire eschatological mystery of ancient Israel, the incarnation of God in human flesh, and the future of the church of Jesus Christ in the image of one woman. Who is this magnificent woman?

The early church was slow to recognize that the virgin Mary, the mother of our lord Jesus Christ, was the single human figure in whom the abovementioned truths are drawn together. Only later doctrinal development called attention to the fact that Revelation 12 should be understood as referring to Mary, the daughter of Zion; to Mary, the mother of our lord; and to Mary, the mother of the church.

In the following reflection on the significance for Mary of these verses, we want not only to let the words teach us their meaning but also to consider the very practical, immediate benefit to be realized by Christians whose vision of the church causes them to fulfill Mary’s own prophecy concerning herself. We want here with all generations to rise up and call her “blessed!” (Lk. 1 :43)

Mary, the Daughter of Zion

The first apparition of the woman of Revelation 12 is described in this

“Now a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman, adorned with the sun, standing on the moon, and with the twelve stars on her head for a crown. She was pregnant, and in labor, crying aloud in the travail of childbirth.” (Rev. 12:1)

This is the woman who had been prophesied in the hopes of Israel:

Writhe, cry out, daughter of Zion, like a woman in labor. (Micah. 4:9)

Sing and rejoice, 0 daughter of Zion; for lo, I am coming and I will dwell in the middle of you; It is the Lord who speaks. (Zech. 2:10)

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion!

Shout with delight, O Israel.

Rejoice and exult with all your heart,

O daughter of Jerusalem.

The Lord has taken away the judgment against you.

He has thrown down your enemies.

The Lord, the king of Israel, is in your midst.

Do not fear anymore . . .

He will exult with joy over you.

He will renew you with his love.

He will dance with shouts of joy for you, as on a day of festival. (Zeph. 3 :14-17)

One has only to compare the powerful imagery of rejoicing and childbearing in these lines with the words both of the angel Gabriel in the annunciation to Mary (Lk. 1:26-38) and in her own prophetic song in which she magnifies the lord (Lk. 1:46-55) to see that these words and thoughts have been taken up out of the Old Testament into the gospel of Luke to describe the conception and birth of the Messiah.

Mary is the Daughter of Zion, the one in whose “middle” the lord has tabernacled for a while in order that he may be born from the womb of Israel, to live in her midst. Mary is the representative of the whole historic people of God. She is the heiress of Eve, Sarah, Tamar, Ruth, and the maiden of Isaiah 7:14. (Mt. 1:1-25)

Mary is the true remnant, the faithful Israelite who bowed in obedience and humility to the mysterious and scandalous will of God that she should bear, unwed, the Saviour of her people, Israel.

This is the woman whose image is seen in Revelation 12:1. A splendid woman, dressed in the glory of Jehovah’s creation, the queen of the Jews, crowned with the twelve stars of the twelve tribes of Israel. She cries out in pain, the pangs of childbirth. She is bringing forth salvation. She has become by the grace of God the first human temple in whom the Spirit of God takes up his residence. She has contributed to the incarnation of God himself in human flesh. From her humility and obedience and willingness, she has cooperated with God in the creation of health and holiness in the midst of his people. She has given the Lord his body and in so doing, she has provided the bridge of continuity from the ancient congregation of Israel through the flesh of herself and her son to the congregation of the new Israel, the body of Christ.

Mary, the Mother of our Lord

The second apparition of Mary in the Revelation describes her in this way: “The dragon stopped in front of the woman as she was having the child, so that he could devour it as soon as it was born from its mother. The woman brought forth a male child into the world, the son who was to rule all the nations with an iron sceptre. But the child was taken straight up to God and to his throne.” (Rev. 12:4-5)

Whereas in the first third of the vision, Mary was the representative of the Israelite folk, in the second third she represents no one but herself. Here she is the maid of Galilee, Joseph’s fiancee, chosen by God to be the mother of God, the Son of God. She is opposed by the hideous red demonic dragon who makes a nuisance of himself throughout the book of Revelation. Here he is found opposing Christ.

In these few words, the whole life of Christ is recapitulated: Christ the Lord is born of Mary, but the dragon (in this case, using King Herod) seeks to take the life of the child. The male child who is brought forth is Messiah, Lord, and Saviour, King of kings and Lord of lords, and Mary’s little boy Jesus. But the dragon is not yet satisfied. Again he seeks to take the life of the child. This time (through Caiaphas, Annas and Pilate, the religion of the Jews and the law of the Romans), he is seemingly successful. But no, the child is caught up to God: resurrected, ascended and now enthroned specifically upon the seat of Godhead.

Mary, the mother of our Lord, the one who accompanied her son throughout his life, interceding with him for others, (1 John 2:1-12) and at last, when almost everyone else in faithlessness and fear had fled the horror of his death, stood by. (John 19:25-27) Mary, the staunch mother of our Lord, stood by, suffering with her son, bearing his burden with him, herself feeling the rending of his soul for the sins of the world: “And a sword shall pierce your own soul, too!” (Lk. 2:35) Of such stuff are mothers made. Mary, the mother of our Lord, was no different.

Mary, Mother of the Church

The last, fleeting vision of the marvelous woman describes her thus:

“ . . . but the woman escaped into the wilderness where God had made a place of safety for her to be cared for during the twelve hundred and sixty days . . . As soon as the devil found himself thrown down to the earth, he sprang in pursuit of the woman, the mother of the male child. But she was given a huge pair of eagle’s wings to flyaway from the serpent into the desert, to the place where she was to be looked after for three and one-half years. So the serpent vomited forth water from his maw, like a river, after the woman to sweep her away in the current. But the earth came to her rescue; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river thrown up out of the dragon’s gorge. Then the dragon was enraged with the woman and went away to make war on the rest of her children, that is, on all who obey God’s commandments and bear witness for Jesus.” (Rev. 12:6, 13-17)

Who is this woman clothed with the sun? At first, she is the daughter of Zion. Next, she is Mary, mother of Jesus. But now, as John peers forward into the darkness of the future, the lasting image he glimpses is of a persecuted, fleeing woman, assisted by the earth and God. She is a woman who with her children is engaged in an eternal battle against the Evil One. She is Mary of Israel, the mother of the Lord, who is now as well—and quite naturally—seen to be the mother of the Lord’s brothers and sisters. She is Mary, mother of those who obey the commandments of God. She is Mary, mother of those who bear witness for Jesus. She is Mary, mother of the church of Jesus Christ.

What does it mean for Mary to be the mother of the church? It means that the woman who was the faithful handmaid of the Lord is now the type or image of faithfulness in whose likeness the bride of Christ, the church, is to be fashioned. It means that the woman from whom our Lord took his body, at whose breasts he sucked, on whose knees he was handled, and from whose mouth and perfect love he learned the Law and the Prophets—this woman is the mother of any brothers or sisters whom the elder brother is to have. It means that Mary, present on Pentecost, takes her place with the apostles in the rule of the church. (Acts 1:15f) It means that her personality and her way of life, now taken up for use by the Holy Spirit, are one definition of holiness. It means that if God is our father and Jesus is our big brother, then Mary is our mother in the faith. It means, therefore, that we should look to her as children look to their loving mother.

Mary, Our Mother

There are certain very practical, immediate benefits to be realized in the life and spirituality of the Christian who reveres Mary as his mother. Among the many which could be mentioned, these three are especially important in our present situation.

1. A little girl looks to her mother as the ideal of womanhood into which she hopes to grow. To whom should the little girl Christian look to find an ideal type after whom to pattern her attitudes and spirituality? The little boy Christian has plenty of heroes from which to choose: Jesus; Peter, the robust fisherman; Paul, the Christian Pharisee; John, the loving visionary. But in our present American culture, little girls have no one held up before them as worthy of imitation—unless, of course, Mrs. Onassis or Mrs. Burton or the Playmate of the Month be considered imitable figures.

But there is a source of spiritual vitality and an image of chaste purity, ready-made and beautiful, in scripture: Mary, the daughter of Zion, the obedient handmaid of the Lord, who in her virginity and humility was of greater use to God than all the rest of womankind taken together.

We have a three-year old daughter named Phoebe. We want her to grow up sweet, chaste, faithful, and ready to do God’s bidding. We want Phoebe to be like Mary. Because of this, we are teaching her to say, with Gabriel: “Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. . . “ (Lk. 1:28f.)

2. Mary stands out in the gospel of Luke as a woman full of the Holy Spirit. She prophesies, she sings, she prays, and she is full of an abundance of the virtues and fruits of the Spirit: humility, obedience, grace, love, suffering, virginity, to mention a few. She leads a spiritual life second only to that of her son. As a result, she is led at last with him to Calvary where she dies a spiritual death that parallels the physical death her son is suffering on the cross. The prophesied sword has pierced her soul, too.

She is chosen as worthy to suffer with Christ, the greatest honor one can be given in this life by the Holy Spirit. In so doing, she helps to fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. (Col. 1:25) She has had a share in the redemption and salvation and mediation of the world to God. She stands before us as an example of holy living, worthy of imitation by any Christian. She can define a person’s spirituality in such a way as to open him to the activity of God in his life through the Holy Spirit. She receives the gifts and graces of God in perfect reliance on the will of God to do what is good regardless of the personal consequences for the one whom he has chosen. Mary is our mother in that she has gone the way of the Spirit before us, fleeing and fighting the Evil One, and winning. Loving children want to follow their mother.

Mary, Vision of the Church

3. Our times are times of religious division and of attempts at religious reunion. Ours are times of confusion, of giving up the faith, of finding new faith, and of hoping for a future that will be better than the past has been. We are seeking to do away with war and poverty, with international misunderstanding and backyard hatreds. We are seeking to control the creation with technology and one another with sociology. We stand in the vestibule either of something which closely resembles the millennial dawn or hell.

The church is the human agency of the Almighty in whom he declares his will and his kingdom before the assembly of men and angels in this world. How is the church of the future to be equal to the tasks set before her? The simple answer of scripture to this all-important question is this following affirmation: the church, who is the body of Christ, derives her essential nature not only from Christ, her head, but also from Mary her mother. This happens to be my deep personal conviction.

When we look to Mary, we catch a glimpse of the church as God would have her. When we see the vision which John saw, the vision of the sun-robed, star-crowned queen of heaven who, in all her glory and brilliance, nonetheless cries our in pain and travail, we see in her single holy person a perfect picture of the bride without spot or blemish, ready for the bridegroom.

As Jesus derived his flesh and bones, his psychology and his human mental powers from Mary his mother, so we, the spiritual children of Mary, derive our spiritual nature from our mother. If we are brothers and sisters of Christ, then we are born from Mary’s womb. If we are united to the suffering and glorious body of our Lord Christ, then we are flesh and blood descendents of the virgin from Nazareth. And if we thus derive our spiritual nature from her, we will be like her.

The church, to be the church, must be like Mary: humble, open to the grace and gifts of God, a handmaid who says a simple “Let it be so” to whatever the will of God decrees, whether it be the scandal of illegitimacy or the rending and tearing of that which is most precious. Mary, mother of our Lord and the queen of heaven, was the simple little girl from northern Palestine who cooperated with God to bring Jesus Christ into the world. The church, those obedient to God witnesses of Jesus, are the children of this frail Struggler in the wilderness. Her children are called on to do battle with the demonic dragon. They, like their mother, are to struggle until Christ be formed in them and, with her, to suffer to bring forth Jesus Christ into this world.

This is our vision of the church; this is what we want to be; this is where we are going. It is only in Mary’s spirit that a truly ecumenical church is possible. Only the church graced by her presence and motherhood can fulfill the prophecy of the vision of the church which John saw. Only the church which has Mary for her mother can have Christ for her brother.

The promise to us who follow where Mary has gone is that we, too, out of the suffering servanthood to the world which God has chosen for us, will be exalted above the moon, clothed with the sun, and given the stars of heaven for a crown. John, the seer of the Apocalypse, has cast the image of ourselves eternally against the heavens: through suffering to glory; through Mary to Christ; through the church to God. Amen.

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Warren Lewis is currently a doctoral candidate in the Institute for Late Mediaeval and Reformation Studies, the University of Tubingen, West Germany.