Page 5 - January 2025 - Truth & Tidings

girl from Nazareth. The lowliness of that history where purity has gone unassailed.
locale is highlighted by Luke’s amazing Mary was pure, not by happenstance but
statement that “the angel Gabriel was sent because she had kept herself pure, and
from God unto a city of Galilee, named her obedience to the standards of God’s
Nazareth” (1:26). Although the angel’s Word was vital if she were to find “favour
journey pales with that of Christ, we are, with God” (v30). Growing up in Nazareth
nonetheless, invited to consider just how could hardly have been easy for a spiritual
great was the distance, and how long the girl, but where she grew up could not
journey “from God unto … Nazareth.” disqualify her for God’s use so long as she
Nor was Mary’s poverty just a function maintained her moral distinctness.
of her address. In her song of praise, she We all live in a world that morally “out-
rejoices that God had “regarded the low Nazareths” Nazareth. Defilement has
estate of his handmaiden” (v48), using never been so easy to contract, or purity
a word that describes not just poverty so difficult to maintain. May God give us
but abasement. Once again, our God of help to be like Mary, to be vessels unto
matchless grace “hath chosen the foolish honour, sanctified, and suitable for the
things of the world to confound the wise; Master's use (2Ti 2:21).
and … the weak things of the world to
confound the things which are mighty” Her Praise
(1Co 1:27). In Mary, we learn again the How did Mary maintain her purity in
lesson that there is no one so little or so a place like Nazareth? The answer to that
low that God cannot use for His glory. question is strongly hinted at in her words

Her Purity of praise. What we sing about is often very
revealing of what fills our hearts, and
God can use little vessels and low Mary’s song is the cardiogram of a heart
vessels; He will not use impure vessels. saturated in Scripture. More than that, it
Mary’s purity was fundamental to her reveals a personal appreciation of God in
usefulness. God had prophesied that “a His greatness, of His faithfulness to His
virgin” would “conceive, and bear a son.” promises and His people, of His power
While it is true that the Hebrew word to do “great things” (Luk 1:49). Amidst
used by Isaiah means “a young woman,” the darkness of Nazareth, one young girl
the Septuagint and, more importantly, had come to know her God through His
Matthew’s quotation of Isaiah’s words Word, and in this moment of crisis, she
(Mat 1:23) make explicit what Isaiah had was strengthened and supplied by what
left implicit. The child who would be she had fed her soul upon. It is still true
born would “be called the Son of God”; that God’s Word renders us “equipped,
He would be the Seed of the woman, having been thoroughly equipped for
untainted by Adam’s sin. It was, then, of every good work” (2Ti 3:17 LSB). Mary’s
no incidental importance that Mary could service was not to preach or to teach, but
ask, “How shall this be, seeing I know not dare anyone read her Magnificat and deny
a man?” (Luk 1:34). For a young woman that she was equipped for service because
to be able to say that was, presumably, she knew her Bible?
more common in Mary’s day than in ours, The knowledge of God through His
but there has never been a time in human Word is still essential for us all. Manifestly,
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