NO82 Look at Mary (Luke and Mary)
After the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost, they became His servants.
And among them was Luke, among the newcomers to their ranks.
Like John Mark who lived in Jerusalem, he spoke Greek and was a diligent student of Jesus' teachings.
So he was tasked with writing a new testimony of Jesus' teachings for the rapidly growing number of believers.
Moreover, he needed to write a report about Jesus to Theophilus in Rome, who was trying to learn the teachings of Christ.
So he went to Mary in Jerusalem one day and asked her about Jesus.
Mary first told him about a strange event that had happened to her in Nazareth.
That is, one morning she was awakened by a strange sound, and when she went outside, she heard the sound of countless harps coming from the sky.
Later, her mother told her it was the sound of waves on Lake Galilee.　
She told him that at that time, she thought of King David praising God before the stormy waves of the Lake of Galilee and prayed with him that a king like him would be born from her to save Israel.
Then, as she had hoped, she told him that she had been betrothed to Joseph, who was of David's lineage as her prayer.
But to her surprise, she told him frankly that God had used His angel to choose her, and that He had sent the Holy Spirit to give her the Son of God directly, not Joseph's son.
Soon after, Mary went to Elizabeth, the wife of a priest living in the land of Judah, to discuss how what had happened to her would be accepted in Jewish society. Elizabeth immediately told her that she had given her blessing.
But Luke said to Mary. “Mary, we must be brief about the matter so that those who hear it will not misunderstand.
In other words, we need to speak plainly to the people to whom we are going to preach the teachings of Jesus.
Most of them are Greeks, so they know what kind of gods their god is. They know that Zeus had come into a human woman and had a son.
It is easy for them to understand that. But this is what I am trying to say: none of the women who gave birth to Zeus’s son did so of their own volition.
It was all decided by Zeus, the god. Not once did they desire it from the human side.
That is the divine authority they recognize and the only way to distinguish between man and God.
Of course, our God is not Zeus. He is a God of compassion and mercy.
But I also discussed this with Paul, and we decided to keep the birth of Jesus to just that He was born of Mary, the virgin of Nazareth.
Paul says that this is the fulfillment of God's covenant with Adam and Eve, the first covenant between mankind and God, in which the husband rules over the wife, and that this is following Jewish society today, so that you may be praised as an example of a woman who is obedient to God for all generations to come.
Again, I say this not to disrespect your opinion, but to prevent people from misunderstanding it.
So, this is a consultation, but I want to ask you to make the words you exchanged with King David a separate sentence, as a reply to her words of blessing when you met Elizabeth, the wife of Zacharias, after you carried Jesus in your womb.
This sounds somewhat abrupt to anyone reading this, whatever the storyline, it doesn't matter because this is the miracle of a woman giving birth to a child of God before marriage.
Reading this, people will see how merciful God is who sent Jesus to us.
They will also see that you, as the mother of Jesus, are a woman blessed throughout the world.
Also, and this is my sincere request, we are short of scribes to transcribe testimonies to help the rapidly growing congregation with their faith.
Some of them are even asked to serve as scribes just by being able to write their names, so we need to make it as easy as possible.
It is difficult to choose what to write among the many testimonies because of the high cost of paper, but we would like your prayer to God to be included in the testimonies for posterity.
However, while words of testimonies guarantee our faith in this ever-changing age, I fear that as they are copied from one writer to the next, some will disappear, some will be added to, and some will somehow fade away into the ages.
We are not all prophets like Moses and Elijah, so our transcribers do not pay as much attention to what we write."
Then Mary smiled and said, “I know your trouble. But do not worry.
When James, my first child with Joseph, was born, I once went with the still-young Jesus to the river near our house and bathed naked because we were alone.
Then, I told Jesus the story of David's slaying of Goliath with a sling.
I told Him that many smooth stones were on the riverbank, and David used them to defeat Goliath.
That stone is now Peter, and he is serving us well.
So, even though your writings may one day lose their corners and become rounded, the core of your writings will remain as an aid to people's faith.
I am a woman, so I cannot stand above the people.
If you and Paul tell me to do so, I will. If a wife should obey her husband, so does it.
But I no longer have a husband. So I obey only God in heaven. All the women after me will do so.
And Jesus told me that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but will be like the angels in heaven.
Therefore, only in this world are we recognized because we are women.
I am called the mother of Jesus by everyone, but not in the Kingdom of Heaven. As a woman, it is sad for me, but I find no way.
So I have been thinking a lot lately about the time Jesus called me Mother.
Once I stopped the young Jesus from giving bread to a puppy by the sea in Phoenicia.
Jesus insisted on giving the puppy bread, so I, with all the dignity of a mother, told Him that Your mother said so and rebuked Him.
He obeyed directly, which is funny now that I think about it. I was scolding a man who became God, albeit a young one.
So He was sorry about it and promised the puppy that he would go there again and help.
And one day He told me that He had fulfilled that promise. It was not a puppy that Jesus saved, but a Gentile woman. "
So saying, Mary gave bread to the puppy that was there. Then she went on to say.　“Jesus left young John with me, so I can be of some help to them as I pass on His word to him.”
Then Mary told Luke some stories about Jesus, but she did not tell him that her husband Joseph came to Nazareth carrying the burden of his ancestor David, that they left Nazareth together as they fled, or how they were received in Bethlehem, moreover, she traveled Tyre with young Jesus and an angel for knowledge of gentile’s culture.
Because she thought those things were better to keep to herself until someone appeared who received her.
Therefore, nobody knows these stories until now except someone who is told that by the Holy Spirit.
Meanwhile, after hearing Mary's story about Jesus, Luke said within himself,
" How wonderful is this woman who gave birth to Christ! I can see in this person that there is no mistake in the eyes of God who chose the mother of the Savior.
How can I convey this in words? Is it good to tell them how wonderful this person is?
If I depict Jesus on a golden tray called Mary, people will not see Jesus, but Mary.
Mary is too attractive to the Gentiles, just as Judas Iscariot was. If I had the skill to shape her as the pagans did, I would do so.
But that would have produced many who would have strayed from the way of the Lord because of her, just as Judas did.
So I shall keep the Mary I see now only in my heart. Because leaving it in writing would produce many more Judas."



January 2024　 Oil 910mm×1167mm
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