Mary, from the day she was first called the mother of Jesus to the days she prayed with his disciples

The New Testament does not tell us when Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born or what her childhood was like. When Luke first introduces her, she is living in Nazareth in Galilee and is engaged to Joseph, a man from David’s house. They have not yet begun married life. Then the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and greets her as one who has received God’s favor.

Gabriel tells Mary that she will have a son and is to name him Jesus. He says that the child will be called the Son of the Most High, will receive David’s throne, and will reign without end. Mary asks how this can happen when she has not known a man. The angel answers that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and that nothing is impossible with God. Mary calls herself the Lord’s servant and accepts what has been spoken to her.

Mary then visits her relative Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea. Elizabeth is pregnant in her old age, and the child in her womb leaps when he hears Mary’s greeting. Elizabeth calls Mary blessed because she believed. Mary responds with a song about God looking upon the lowly and filling the hungry with good things. Luke says that Mary stays with Elizabeth about three months before returning home.

Matthew tells the same turning point from Joseph’s side. Before Joseph and Mary live together, her pregnancy becomes known. Joseph plans to end the relationship quietly rather than expose her publicly. But an angel appears to him in a dream and tells him that the child has been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that he should take Mary as his wife. Joseph does so, and when the child is born he gives him the name Jesus.

Around the time Jesus is born, Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem to register in response to an imperial decree. Luke says that Mary gives birth to her firstborn son there, wraps him in cloths, and lays him in a manger. Shepherds who have heard an angel’s announcement in the fields come and tell them what they have been told about the child. Mary keeps these things and considers them in her heart. On the eighth day, when the child is circumcised, they give him the name Jesus, as the angel had said.

When the days of purification are completed after the birth, Mary and Joseph take the child to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as the law requires. They offer a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. Luke’s scene shows that Mary and Joseph receive Jesus’ birth as an extraordinary event while also raising him within the practices of the law they keep. The child is the son announced by the angel, yet Mary stands there with Joseph as the mother who brings him to the temple.

Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem in keeping with the law. Simeon holds the child and says that he will be a sign through whom many will fall and rise. He also tells Mary that something like a sword will pierce her own soul. A prophet named Anna sees the child and speaks about him to people waiting for Jerusalem’s redemption. Matthew tells of visitors from the east who come to honor the child, and of Joseph taking the family to Egypt to escape Herod. After Herod dies, the family returns and lives in Nazareth.

When Jesus is twelve, Mary and Joseph go to Jerusalem for Passover. On the journey home they realize that Jesus is not among their group. After three days they find him in the temple, sitting among teachers, listening and asking questions. Mary asks why he has caused them such anxiety. Jesus answers that he must be in his Father’s house. They do not understand what he means, but Mary keeps these words in her heart. Jesus then returns to Nazareth with them and is obedient to them as he grows.

The first clear scene that shows Mary after Jesus begins his public work is a wedding in Cana of Galilee. When the wine runs out, Mary tells Jesus. Jesus says that his hour has not yet come, but Mary tells the servants to do whatever he tells them. Jesus turns water into wine. John calls this the first sign in which Jesus reveals his glory, and says that his disciples believe in him.

After the wedding at Cana, Jesus goes down to Capernaum with his mother, brothers, and disciples, and they stay there a few days. John then follows Jesus’ public ministry and does not continue with Mary’s everyday life. Scripture alone does not tell where Mary lived after Cana, or how often she saw Jesus as he traveled among many towns. This profile does not fill those unreported years with imagined scenes.

The Gospels do not say that Mary traveled with Jesus through every part of his ministry. At one point his mother and brothers come to see him but cannot reach him because of the crowd. Jesus says that those who hear and do God’s word are his mother and brothers. The saying does not explain Mary’s life during those years. The New Testament does not fill that silence with her thoughts or actions.

On the day Jesus is crucified, John says that Mary stands near the cross. Jesus tells the disciple he loves to see Mary as his mother, and tells Mary to see that disciple as her son. From that hour the disciple takes her into his home. The resurrection accounts tell of women going to the tomb, but they do not say that Mary, Jesus’ mother, is among them that morning.

In this scene, John tells us that Mary is near the cross and that Jesus entrusts her to the disciple; he does not tell us what Mary says afterward that day. The one sentence that says the disciple takes her into his home does not give a full account of her life after Jesus’ death. Still, within the Gospels, the woman who bore her son, laid him in a manger, heard words about his future in the temple, and appeared in a few scenes of his ministry is now seen standing near his cross.

Mary is named for the last time in the New Testament after Jesus has been taken up to heaven. The disciples return from the Mount of Olives and gather in an upstairs room in Jerusalem. They devote themselves to prayer together, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Jesus’ brothers are with them. Acts does not tell more about Mary’s later life or death. The last biblical picture is of her praying in the same gathering as the disciples after her son has gone from their sight.