The Mother of God and Evangelicals

Timothy George has written a helpful article on the proper place of the Virgin Mary within Protestant piety.

It seems to me that only the question of Baptism (and maybe apostasy ...and drinkin', and...) trumps this issue as an indictment of the sincerity of modern evangelicalism's commitment to Sola Scriptura. I can remember sitting through a sermon "based" on Luke 1:39-45

39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” ESV

The speaker felt the need to point out that it was the unborn Jesus- to the strict exclusion of anyone else-who was being honored by Elizabeth. This led into a lengthy exposition against the ugly idolatry of Mary worship.

Now, I don't want to argue for Mary worshipin'. I'm not for that. But how...(I'm hesitating to rub my face anew)... how can you look at this passage and not see that it was the visit of the "mother of our Lord" that caused the old woman to dance about? Of course it was because she was the mother of OUR LORD that Elizabeth's excitement was justified, but...well, that's the point.

It's a precious thing that God allows us to participate in his work. Our Lady is the clearest and fullest image of that.

I've often longed for the time when Christians can say positive things about alcohol without the inevitable disclaimer of "Don't get me wrong. I'm against drunkenness, you know." I think we will know that we have grown up a bit when we can proclaim "Man, I love beer" and leave it at that. We will have "gotten past something that needed to be gotten past." That will be a good day. Just so, I pray that God hastens the time when we can praise Christ's mother, when we can declare "Blessed art thou among women" and the only response will be a thankful "Amen."