Mary's Voice

This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explored manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Other than baby Jesus, the central character of the Christmas story is a woman named Mary. Now, I just read that from the back of a book called Mary's Voice, and I have the honor of sitting down with Dr. Amy Orr Ewing, who's the author of this book. Dr. Ewing, or Dr. Amy Orr Ewing. There's a lot of cool names there. What do you like me to call you? Amy's great.

Thank you. Amy, tell me Mary's Voice. This is just a beautiful, hardback, advent reflections to contemplate the coming of Christ. Of course, His coming is so important that we could talk about this all year round, couldn't we?

Absolutely, yeah. The central event of human history is God coming into our world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and the book is really trying to recapture just that thrill of this truth of the incarnation and doing it through re-centering the perspective of Christianity's most important woman, Mary. And I think sometimes we talk about this in the hall coming down here to this interview, sometimes folks take Mary way too far, like praying to her and worshiping and all that, to the point where then we just don't, as evangelicals, we don't even talk about her. But there is something real there, and she was a real servant of the Lord, a real humble woman of God. Talk about, like, where did she come from? And what kind of led you to, got you excited about these amazing advent reflections in this book, Mary's Voice?

Yeah, so you're right. Catholics obviously overdo Mary, and that makes us underdo her. I once played Mary in a nativity play and didn't utter a word for the entire play, you know.

To us, she's a sort of mute figure captured forever in that moment of just holding a baby. But actually, I discovered through the research that Mary had a voice. Mary was the primary witness to the incarnation of God in human history. And the fact that the Christian faith does that is amazing because in the ancient world, a woman's testimony was not worth anything. It wasn't worth that of a man. So if you were making up this story, you would never position women in this way. And the moment I really realized Mary had a voice, I'd been advocating for a Christian woman who had been horrifically abused as a child.

And I was supporting her in the criminal trial of her perpetrator. This was a really powerful person. And we'd been in court all day, trauma recounted.

It was so hard to listen to. And in the evening, we were in a big city in Britain. I just thought, I need to be with the Lord. And I went into a cathedral.

Okay, I just sat there and it was even song and the choir got up to sing and they sang the Magnificat. And that's the words from Luke's gospel, where Mary has just heard from the angel Gabriel. And she utters these extraordinary words of praise to God and prophecy about who Jesus is. And there's this one line in it where she says, He hath brought the rulers down from their thrones.

It sort of hit me between the eyes. Mary saw what Jesus was going to come to do, which would ultimately be the judge of the wicked and to set righteousness on the earth. And, you know, in our cultural moment where young people really care about justice, it just struck me that this woman saw who Jesus is, that Jesus is coming as a judge ultimately, and that he's worthy of our worship. And it kind of really reorientated my view of who this woman is.

What a great perspective. In a time where the Bible and God's word and Christ himself gave great dignity to women. The thought that of all the vessels he could use, he uses this poor young woman. And then the idea, the scandal of a young lady in the Jewish, the Hebrew culture, the strict Hebrew culture, betrothed to a young man. They'd waited all these years. The parents were involved. There's going to be a big party down the road here and she's pregnant. The scandal. Talk about like that. You've got to give people some perspective here.

We just kind of, we jump in there, we go to the pageant, we open the presents, but we don't want to miss this. Yeah, exactly. This speaks of who our God uses and chooses. So Mary is a teenager living under Roman occupation. My home in Britain, we welcomed Ukrainian refugees after war broke out when Putin invaded, and we had two elderly ladies living with us for a year.

They lived under occupation. What that means for a woman is just extraordinary. So Mary was a teenager living under occupation in a patriarchal society where women's testimony didn't have the same validity as that of a man.

And then where a pregnant person who is unmarried is the sort of absolute shame of the society. And that's who God chooses. And of course, this is all in fulfillment of the promise given in Genesis chapter three, the first messianic promise of the Bible is given to a woman, your seed will crush the serpent's head. So Mary is Eve's daughter. She's the fulfillment of the promise to Eve. And through her is coming into the world, the one who has the power to crush and defeat evil, totally victorious over sin and death, of course, the Lord Jesus. That's the wonderful voice of Dr. Amy Orr Ewing in her book Mary's Voice, Advent Reflections to Contemplate the Coming of Christ. Amy, I may have to read these outside of Christmas. Like I want to go read this book. If I can buy a copy from you or something, I want to go read this book like right now because it's just what an encouraging word, especially to young people like she could have been what 13, 14 years old. Most likely she was 13, 14.

Yeah, a teenager. So whoever you are listening to this, if you know the Lord Jesus, what this speaks to us just as ordinary Christians is we can have a role in God's kingdom. God's got things for us to do to serve him.

None of us are counted out. She gave birth to the one who would give new birth to her. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And she reflects on that. She reflects on the savior of the world. So of all the people to worship Jesus, imagine that his mother bowing in worship to him.

It's remarkable that, you know, while we say we try to communicate to young people that when you receive Christ, you ask him into your heart. And we know theologically, you've got some issues there maybe, but before he was ever changed her heart, he was in her womb. I mean, physically, he was inside of Mary, like, you know, the God man was in the womb.

Like, you know, what a whole beautiful picture that is. And actually, yeah, and actually there's extraordinary evidence that that is the case because Mary was related to another woman called Elizabeth. He was the barren wife of a very well-known priest called Zachariah. And barrenness was a, you know, was a big public shame in that time. So this public couple, elderly couple who'd never had a baby, and Elizabeth is pregnant, miraculously, she's going to have John the Baptist. The whole Jewish community at that time knew that.

That's a public miracle in history to those people. So Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. Elizabeth doesn't know about the angel having appeared to Mary. Baby in Elizabeth's womb leaps with joy. And Elizabeth greets Mary as the mother of my Lord. In other words, Elizabeth, even in her own miraculous moment, recognizes that Mary is carrying the Lord in her womb. So this is a public miracle that takes place, that is witnessed to and attested to by all sorts of people, including an older woman called Elizabeth. In the birth pangs, she experienced delivering the Lord. She experienced that the cross is one of the only ones at the scene of his birth, and obviously there is his mother at the cross watching him die, watching her own son who she delivered being delivered for her to be reborn, and the pain in the words of Christ from the cross to his mom, you know, to take care of her, to give her a son in John, and to give him a mom because he's the firstborn being taken.

Yeah, that's so amazing. We also see, you know, the gospel sort of positioned Mary in a way as the second Abraham watching her son climb the same mountain that Abraham's son climbed. So Jesus is crucified on top of Mount Moriah. Isaac carries the wood for his sacrifice.

Jesus carries the wood for his sacrifice, and he is the lamb that God has provided. So you're right, Mary comforts Jesus as a baby at his birth, and she's there at the crucifixion critically also, though, not just comforting him but also exercising that role of historic witness, and in apologetics the role of the female witnesses, not just to the empty tomb, but also it's the women who are there at the cross. You know, John was the only male disciple to be there present as a witness. So Mary is there publicly as a historic witness to the incarnation, to the atonement, and to the resurrection. And the fact that the Christian faith centers women as public witnesses in this way shows that this is actually true because if you were making this story up, you would never position women in that way in the narrative because women's testimony was not the same as that of men. We're almost out of time, but that famous Christmas song, Mary Did You Know, that is actually, you know, you're going to be quick with the answer.

Like, we give her a little less credit than we should, huh, about that. Yes, I think the answer to Mary Did You Know is yes, she knew. Gabriella told her.

Newsflash. And actually in her Magnificat, she shows us. She knew this is Emmanuel God with us. She expresses prophetic hope in what Jesus is coming to do.

Okay, and we won't tell you too much more because we could talk for hours, but you can get this book and you can read these amazing reflections, Advent Reflections to Contemplate the Coming of Christ. The title of the book, Mary's Voice. The author, Dr. Amy Orr Ewing with Worthy Publishing. And a great book.

I'm so excited about this. I want to read this little last part. Can I, Amy? Okay. In our weary world that is waiting and longing for light, meaning peace and love, we can do as Mary did when she treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. Wow. God bless you.

Thanks for writing this. And what's your Christmas word to everyone out there? Just in a sentence or two, what's your final challenge to everyone about Christmas and really about the gift that keeps on giving all year round? I mean, honestly, for the, you know, you know, one author said for the consumer, Christmas Day is the end. You know, midnight Christmas Day, it's over. It's like, oh my, packages, burn the tree and move on. But for the believer, it's just the beginning.

Guys, give us your challenge, will you please? Yeah, for us as believers, Christmas Day signifies the hinge of history. It's the moment that God actually has stepped into human history in Jesus of Nazareth. God with us, Emmanuel. And what a hope if we're walking through seasons of lament and loss. Often at Christmas, we remember those who aren't here with us anymore. It can be a time of sadness as well as joy. But because of Jesus, because God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, we can step into a new year. We can step into a new day with hope and purpose and meaning, knowing that we're loved by this extraordinary God who came as Emmanuel to be God with us. And that is a Merry Christmas. It's also an M-A-R-Y, Merry Christmas, because God used her, this humble Hebrew maiden, in a mighty way. Thank you so much for blessing us. Thank you so much for having me.