Do We Understand What Mary Experienced?

“(yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 2:35 NKJV)

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. (John 19:25 NKJV)

The Silent Sword

What must have been the burden that Mary, the mother of the Lord, carried after hearing the prophecy of Simeon in Luke 2?   We read very little about Joseph, the carpenter and the father of the Lord by adoption.  Did he share in the burden of knowing what was going to happen to the Lord?  Apparently, he took his responsibility to the Lord seriously and married Mary at the divine direction of God.  We know he was one who searched for the Lord when He was twelve years old and had stayed behind in Jerusalem after celebrating the Passover with His family.  However, we read very little about his relationship with his adopted Son after 12 years of age.  But Mary took an interest in Him throughout His life.

What Did She Understand?

Did she understand that as the chosen vessel to bring the Lord into the world, she would have her heart broken?  Did she understand the prophecies dealing with His rejection by the Jewish leaders and did she understand the prophecies predicting His suffering? I don’t know what she fully understood, but she got to experience the grief that comes from seeing her child being bullied, and ultimately being crucified.  She witnessed Satan doing his best to discredit and to destroy the Lord.

She was there when He was born, she was there when she thought He had gotten lost, she was there when the scribes charged Him with having an unclean spirit.  She was at the cross when He was crucified.  For her this was not a myth, or an academic story, or something that happens to others.  This was reality and it must have hurt.

The Upper Room

Mary was one of those 120 people that met in the upper room after the resurrection. She must have been relieved to know that the suffering of the Lord was over even though it was just beginning for His followers.

Mary experienced grief.  But she also experienced the joy of knowing that her Savior, her Son, was now in heaven having finished the work of redemption.

What About Us?

Do we appreciate the cost of our redemption?   Do we appreciate His suffering?  I am sure that Mary fully understood her role in the Lord’s suffering and ultimate glorification on the resurrection side of the cross.  She got to experience joy where she had once experienced great sorrow.

I think the story of the cross can become so commonplace that it no longer moves us.  We no longer tell our friends, “He did that for me!”  I am sure that what Mary experienced at the cross was the sword that Simon spoke of 30 years before.  I am confident that the wounds she saw that day were always fresh in her mind.  And they should be fresh to those of us who are saved because of what the Lord experienced in order to save us.

Bruce Collins

Meditation for the week of June 16, 2024