December 19, 2024 - Good Morning! It’s Thursday, December 19.
My daughter was 27 when she got married, my wife was 20 when she tied the knot, and my mother wed my dad at the tender age of 17. The history of my family parallels the changes in our culture regarding average marriage ages. This leads us to today’s focus in our series “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. This leads us to the question - how old was Mary when she gave birth to Jesus?
The Bible does not include Mary’s age in the nativity story. When we find details missing in a biblical story, it perhaps indicates that those details were common knowledge at the time of the writing. In other words, 1st century readers would have been well aware of the average age that Jewish girls were married. And what was that age? History tells us that it was between 12 and 14. We can assume with some confidence, then, that the Mary of Bethlehem, the Mary of Christmas, was a young teenager.
But, despite her young age, Mary exhibited a mature faith. In Luke 1:38 we see an example of that faith, when, after her visit from the angel Gabriel, she responds, “I am the Lord’s servant. Let it be to me as you have said”. And in Luke 1:46 we hear the beginnings of Mary’s song of praise, “The Magnificat” - “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior”.
We hear nothing from Mary in the Matthew story, and nothing more after this in Luke. Perhaps we learn why that is when we read Luke 2:19 - But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Thoughts to ponder and treasure this morning.
Meet you back here tomorrow,
David
cindertex60@yahoo.com
