Mary's Example of Faithful Discipleship

Madonna and Child by Giovanni Battista Salvi de Sassoferrato

Hundreds of years before her birth, prophets foretold of “a precious and chosen vessel” (Alma 7:10), “most beautiful and fair” (1 Nephi 11:15), who would be “the mother of the Son of God, after the flesh” (1 Nephi 11:18) and she would “be called Mary” (Mosiah 3:8). Mary, the mother of Jesus, is one of only a handful of women mentioned in the scriptures. Though we get only brief glimpses into her life, those insights provide an example of faithful discipleship that we can learn from and follow today.

Mary was from Nazareth, a small town with less than 500 people located on a low hill about 65 miles north of Jerusalem. You can imagine the village surrounded by modest fields and grazing livestock that the locals used to eek out a living. Mary was a descendant of King David, but there were no riches here and no royal privileges under the Roman occupation (Strathern).

Nazareth didn't have fortifications, monuments, or luxurious architecture with marble and mosaics. The roads were not paved and most of the homes were two-room dwellings with thatched roofs. Later, when word of Jesus Christ of Nazareth spread, Nathaniel would wonder aloud what many must have thought more privately, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).

We don't know anything about Mary's parents or her upbringing, but most likely she would have seemed like an ordinary peasant girl raised in an insignificant, rural Jewish town. “Even as a young girl, she would have worked beside her mother and the other women of the village, weaving cloth, cooking, gathering firewood, collecting water from the household cisterns or village wells, and working in the fields—all to help her family survive from day to day” (Strathern).

The first thing we learn about Mary is that she is engaged to be married to Joseph, a fact that would have been widely known in a small town like Nazareth. We do not know how old Mary was at the time, but she was most likely a teenager. Marriage contracts in ancient Israel could sometimes be arranged even before puberty.

It was to these humble circumstances that an angel was sent to fulfill a prophecy and issue a call to serve. The angel was Gabriel, who was the Old Testament prophet Noah in his mortal life. Joseph Smith taught that “Noah, who is Gabriel… stands next in authority to Adam in the Priesthood,” like a first counselor in a First Presidency to govern all the earth.

Gabriel is also sometimes known as Elias. Elias means forerunner or preparer of the way. In that role, he has been given “the keys of bringing to pass the restoration of all things spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began” (D&C 27:6).

It is important to note that Noah, or Gabriel, is not the only Elias in scripture, but he is the one sent to Zacharias in the temple to proclaim the birth of John the Baptist. Zacharias doubted that his wife, Elizabeth, could bear a son at her age and was struck dumb as a result. Yet, Elizabeth, who was Mary's cousin, did conceive.

Six months later, that same Elias came to Mary, “and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be” (Luke 1:28-29).

Can you imagine the questions Mary must have had in this moment? Why was this angel saluting her, a seemingly ordinary young woman in an insignificant village far from Jerusalem? How was she ‘blessed among women’-- and what does that even mean? She listened as the angel continued.

“And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:30-33).

Mary's response echoes the faith of Nephi, who proclaimed in his youth that he knew the Lord would provide a way to accomplish all of his commandments (1 Nephi 3:7). 

“Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” (Luke 1:34). Zacharias had asked a similar question, “Whereby shall I know [that Elizabeth would bear a son]?” (Luke 1:18), but Mary's question sought clarification rather than expressing skepticism. She already believed what Gabriel had declared and she had already resolved in her heart, likely long before this conversation, that she would do God’s will. “Questions are inevitable when God’s invitations challenge disciples to raise the bar and move out of their comfort zones, and inspired questions lead to revelation” (Strathern).

Gabriel revealed the answer to Mary's question and then shared the news that Mary's cousin, Elizabeth, would also miraculously bear a child. “For with God nothing shall be impossible” (Luke 1:37). 

In the Garden of Gethsemane, our Savior and Redeemer appealed to our Heavenly Father to provide another option before submitting, “nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done” (Luke 22:42). Mary did not know everything she was being asked to do. She did not know that this calling would make her a refugee in Egypt or that she would frantically search for her twelve-year-old son and find him teaching in the temple or that she would watch him be tortured and killed on a cruel cross. She didn't know how Joseph would react to the news or whether she would end up facing public embarrassment for a pregnancy no one else could understand or believe. Simeon would later prophecy to her that “a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also” (Luke 2:35), but all Mary knew in that moment was that God had asked her to be the mother of the promised Messiah, a calling that would last a lifetime and beyond, and that she was willing to do God’s will, just as her son would be willing as he suffered in Gethsemane.

 “And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her” (Luke 1:38).

Just as Eve led Adam to the Fall, whereby they could bring children into the world, Mary led Joseph to raising the child who would save the world from the effects of the Fall. Joseph was also visited by the angel Gabriel, Adam's right hand man, and Joseph, like Adam, had the wisdom to support and follow the example of his wife.

Mary, meanwhile, was required to walk by faith. She received some evidences and confirmations, including the visit from Gabriel and the testimony of her cousin, Elizabeth, whom she visited after learning they both would be mothers by miraculous means. She knew she became pregnant and bore a son, as the angel had prophesied.

But in the midst of the experience, Mary still sought to better understand the calling that had been given to her. When shepherds came on the night of Christ's birth and told her of angels singing praises to her newborn son, Mary “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). When Simeon held the infant Christ child and prophesied he would be a light to the Gentiles and the salvation of all people, Mary and Joseph marveled (Luke 2:25-33). More than a decade after her meeting with Gabriel, Mary found twelve-year-old Jesus teaching in the temple and did not understand what he meant when he said he “must be about [his] father's business,” but “kept all these sayings in her heart” (Luke 2:42-51).

Despite not having a perfect knowledge, Mary did not allow her questions to prevent her from fulfilling the mission she had been given with all her heart, mind, and strength. As a young mother, she fled with her family to Egypt to save her son from a jealous king. Joseph and Mary abandoned plans to settle in the comparatively more prosperous land of Judea because of another king who was a threat to Jesus. They returned instead to Nazareth, where Joseph likely walked four miles to work in Sepphoris six days of the week and then walked four miles home at the end of each day. 

At least at the time Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph were poor and offered the turtledoves or pigeons at the temple expected of those who could not afford a lamb. As many as 4 of every 10 children born at the time did not survive childhood and Mary likely grieved the premature deaths of multiple children. When Jesus was about thirteen years old, Jewish tradition holds that Joseph was killed in a construction accident in Sepphora, leaving Mary on her own with at least seven kids under thirteen years old. Despite her convictions, her four sons who grew up with Jesus did not believe in his divine identity or, by extension, her mission as his mother, until years later in adulthood.

In the midst of challenge, Mary also became the first disciple of the living Christ. In the home of Elizabeth, with the words of Gabriel still ringing in her ears and heart, Mary exclaimed in testimony, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour” (Luke 1:46-47). Her simple faith was tested and expanded with hundreds of small and simple daily experiences that are not recorded, and a few major challenges that are, until it became a firm foundation anchored to her Savior, and her son, Jesus Christ.

Before Christ had performed any public miracle, Mary had complete faith in him. There was a wedding in Cana and Mary was responsible for the wine, which was running out. She turned immediately to Jesus, who even objected a little bit, and then directed the servants, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it” (John 2:5).

Mary followed the Savior's travels at least on some occasions and stood at the foot of his cross as he suffered and died a painful death at the hand of an enemy many believed he was there to defeat. Like the disciples, Mary probably did not understand the victory of that moment as she watched her son pay our debts for sin and overcome all the world. Perhaps it seemed like all was lost or that the plan of God, the plan in which she played a crucial role and for which she had sacrificed so much, had now somehow been frustrated.

There is no biblical record, but it makes sense to me that the resurrected Christ would have appeared at some point to his mother. She was the first witness, a chosen vessel, the handmaiden of the Lord who did the Father’s will so that her son, the Creator of heaven and earth, could descend below all things and then be lifted up as a ruler and a judge over all things. She had prevailed in her mission to bring the Son of God to the world so that he, by love, could save the world.

Even if Christ did not appear to his mother in the flesh after his resurrection, surely their reunion after her death must have been special. Mary’s life didn’t get any easier as her remaining sons were converted to and then also became martyrs for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Surely the Savior was there to greet his mother as she passed through the veil and then, as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and as a son who loved and reverenced his mother and her womanhood throughout his ministry, must have said to her, as to the wise virgins in his parable, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).

Source: Strathern, Gaye. Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Ensign. January 2019.