Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: We're going to talk about different women in the life of Jesus, special women. Not just the women and about them, but about how Christ dealt with them, how he loved them, how he cared for them, how he ministered to them and with them. In other words, we're going to learn a lot about women just from the way that Jesus talked about them and treated them.

We're going to talk about all sorts of different women, but first of all I want to say this, that Christ had a very special way with women because he had a heart for women. We get into a lot of arguments about Paul and women: did Paul allow women to do this, did Paul allow women to do that? Nobody ever really talks about what Jesus allowed women to do and how Jesus elevated womanhood in a day and age where women were treated little better than cattle.

When the angel came to Mary he said, "Congratulations, you're a woman." The word "hail" means congratulations. "Congratulations, thou art highly favored." I always like to think of the angel saying, "Congratulations, you're a woman." I believe that's what Jesus did for women, that we can be happy in our femininity and womanhood because Christ wanted us to be.

Women were first at his birth, first at his side, last at his cross, first at his tomb, and first to run and tell of his resurrection. Jesus indeed gave dignity to women. Now, I'm going to talk about special women in the life of Christ, and every woman was special. There is no woman that was more special than another, as we will see particularly in our study today.

And yet he had special and unique things for each to do. Each woman that he involved in his ministry or touched with healing had a ministry that no other woman could have. Even Mary of Nazareth could not have the ministry that Mary Magdalene had. Jesus wanted us to know that every single woman is different, every single woman is unique.

So we're going to be talking about sinner women, sorrowing women, sick women, sexual women, successful women, story women, the women in the stories of Jesus, spiritual women, and sublime women. I'm going to start off today by talking about sinner women.

In your mind I want you to try and have a little guessing game with me. Who do you think I've chosen? Sinner women. Well, some of you might say Mary Magdalene. Another might say, "No, the sinner woman that came and broke her little box and needed forgiveness." Somebody says, "No, I know the sinner woman that you're going to talk about, the special sinner woman, the one that was dragged out of bed in the act of adultery. That's the woman you're going to talk about: sinner women."

Well, I'm not. I'm going to talk about Mary of Nazareth, a very special sinner. The best women I believe that ever lived and ever graced this earth were good, so good, but not good enough to get to heaven without the Savior that she bore. I want to talk about good sinners today.

I want to talk about a lady in the life of our Lord Jesus who was from an earthly perspective surely the most precious woman in the life of our loving Lord. So we're going to talk about Mary. I want you to look at Luke's Gospel, chapter 1, verse 38. Follow along with me. I'm reading from the NIV today.

"I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered Gabriel. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. Now, I have started the reading at the end instead of at the beginning, which is what ladies are want to do. I always start and read a book by reading the last chapter just to see if I want to read the whole book.

But this in a sense is the end of a chapter that all of you are very familiar with. "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered Gabriel. "May it be to me as you have said." Gabriel, the one who stood in the presence of God that was sent at his bidding that did the ministry of God, this mighty angel came and said to Mary, "Hail, thou art highly favored, the Lord is with you. Greetings, congratulations."

Now, we know what happened. Mary was greatly troubled, we read in verse 29. She wondered what kind of greeting this might be. The angel went to explain that she would be with child, give birth to a son, and he would be great, would be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God would give to him the throne of his father David. He would reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom would never end.

"How will this be?" Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin." Then the angel answered and said, "The Holy Spirit will overshadow you. That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Nothing's impossible with God, Mary, nothing is impossible with God." At this point Mary looks up and says, "I am," in the KJV version, "the handmaiden of the Lord."

Let's talk about what it means first of all to be a handmaiden of the Lord. Mary had decided to serve the Lord. That is obvious. But what does serving the Lord mean? We hear people say, "I want to serve the Lord." Does it mean going as a missionary? Does it mean going down to the inner city and doing good things for people that need good things done for them? What does it mean to serve the Lord? Does it mean playing the organ in church? Does it mean helping with the food pantry?

Well, one thing it means is knowing who you're serving. You have to have faith and know the person that you're going to serve or you can't serve him. No slave could serve a master unless the slave met with the master, heard the master's command so that the slave would know what the master wanted. The better the slave knew the master, the better the slave could serve the master.

When Mary calls herself a special slave of the Lord or a handmaiden of the Lord, a doulé, a slave girl, she is thinking of someone that she knows very well indeed. She knows God. Of course we know she knows God because in her song, which you can see in verse 46 onwards, she says, "My soul praises the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior."

She begins to say a whole lot of things about this God that she knows. She says he's majestic, he's to be venerated in his purity, his majesty, his glory. She says he's mighty, he's strong, his arm is strong. She says he's merciful. So she knew things about the Master that she served.

It really strikes me that at the age of 14 or 15 this little Jewish girl knew God this way. Now, I believe that she knew the Word of God, and we'll talk about that in a moment, but she knew him, not just about him. She knew him. "I am the handmaiden of the Lord. I'm at his right hand, I'm at his beck and call. I love him, I know him, I serve him."

So to be somebody very special in the life of Jesus, to be highly favored, to be a favorite woman, you have to be a handmaiden. You have to know the God you profess to serve. She says, if you notice, "God my Savior. God my Savior, my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." God she knows: majestic, mighty, and merciful. "My personal Savior."

This of course helps us to realize that Mary recognized herself as a sinner. You don't need a Savior, you don't say "God my Savior" unless indeed you know yourself a sinner. Mary was not sinless. She was not a sexual sinner because when I said to you, "What do you think of when I say sinner women?", all of us thought of a sexual sinner because that's the connotation we think of when we think of sin.

But sin is a whole lot more than sexual sin. Sin is simply not being divine. Sin is simply not being divine. Mary was not divine. She bore God's divine son, but Mary was a Jewish girl, a human being. She was a sinner and she said, "My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior" as much as any sexual sinner might rejoice, as much as any other sinner might rejoice, as much as any creature on this earth created by the hand of God might rejoice.

"My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior," and she wanted us to know that. You know what Mary wanted us to know? She wanted us to know she had a Savior because she needed a Savior, because good though she was—and she did not think of herself as good—but good though she was and good though we know her to be, the best woman that ever worked this earth, she still needed the Lord Jesus to be her Savior.

The best sinner that ever lived, the highest and holiest sinner that ever lived, but anything less than divine is a sinner, anything human that's less than divine. Jesus Christ was human though divine. Mary was human, not divine. Gabriel comes and says, "Blessed, favored of God are you before all other women." Let's no mistake about it, he says all. Elizabeth, greeting Mary, says, "Favored of God above all other women are you."

And so here we are faced with a model. We don't need to go to Proverbs 31. We need to look at Mary of Nazareth to have our model of womanhood at its highest. For from heaven, from the voice of Gabriel, we hear that above all women she shone the brightest and the most beautiful.

Mary's qualities, can you imagine what they could have been that she could be called to be the mother of the Christ? But you know, the best people do need a Savior. If anybody here be as good as Mary, let her teach you this today: you need a Savior. And yet the Bible says she was above all. Now, she was not the source of grace, but the object of it. And that's very important. She was not the source of grace or to be the source of grace, for Christ is the source of our grace and our forgiveness and our redemption.

She was to be the object of grace. "Hail, thou who art highly graced or favored." She was the object. Now, the source in the sense that she brought the Christ to us. In that sense she delivered Jesus Christ through her body to our earth to do his work. The best people need a Savior.

It's so hard for good people to believe that they're a sinner. It wasn't hard for Mary. "Thou hast exalted thy handmaiden." She uses a very demeaning word. She knew in humility the shortcomings of her life. A good person, a truly good person, knows their imperfections. A self-righteous one of course will never know those things, but a truly good person will talk of herself as Mary talked of herself. "God my Savior."

God's favor rested on her, not the source of grace, but the object. Jesus was to be the Son of the Most High, the Son of God, verse 35. He was to be the Lord God, the King of Heaven. He was to be Christ the Lord. And so she knew that holy thing that should be born of her should be her Lord, and her spirit rejoiced. Her soul magnified the Lord, not herself. Her soul magnified the Lord, made him bigger, and her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior.

And her body was lent to be the earthly vehicle of his divine action here on earth. Now, the second thing she said about being a handmaiden: "God is my Savior," she said, first thing. Secondly, "I am his servant." That involved, as I've already said, knowing his will. How do we know his will? Through his Word, knowing his Word.

You know, Mary borrowed Hannah's song from Samuel. 1 Samuel chapter 2 gives us Hannah's song. Hannah sang a song when she gave Samuel away. Mary borrowed it and made it her own in Luke. How could she do that lest she knew of Hannah's song? And how could she do it lest it was memorized and known?

Mary as a young teenager, as a junior high kid who bore the Christ, a junior high child, so knew the scriptures they were part of her, absolutely part of her, his Word. How do you think Jesus Christ knew the Word so well? Well, we know how he learned the things of God. At 12 he was there in the temple asking the questions, wasn't he, of the masters. And yet what happened before he was 12? How did he know what questions to ask? Because his godly mother had poured out of her treasure chest the knowledge of the things that Jesus would want.

So the people would say, "Never man spake as this man spake," and you know, Mary I believe when he was two and when he was three and as she cared and nurtured the infant Christ—which was her holy unique calling, totally unique calling—I believe that she gave to Jesus Christ the knowledge of the Word that she held so dear.

She was a woman of the Word, and you cannot be God's servant without being a woman of the Word. What I can give you is absolutely a drop in the bucket to what you need to know. I am simply here to lay out, to preach, to teach, to expand, to give you some thoughts that I have had as I have been in the Word. And then the little groups are places where you can interact and know and learn and dig and go deeper on your own, and learn how to do that, and not only how to do it, but how to disseminate for other people.

So to be a handmaiden means to know his Word, and that means secondly being a heart-maiden. I want to show you some verses. Look at Luke 1, verse 29, and let me read it to you in the Amplified. When Mary saw him, that's the angel, she was greatly troubled and distressed and confused at what he said. She kept revolving in her mind what such a greeting might mean.

Or in other words, revolving: it went round and round in her mind. Mary was used not only to reading the scriptures and saying, "Well, that's very nice, I've done my duty for the day," as if you've eaten your cornflakes and you forget it. She let what was being said from God, the message, go round and round and round in her mind.

The NIV says "wondered what kind of greeting." Look at 2, verse 52. In the Living Bible it says, "So Jesus grew both tall and wise and was loved by God and man." They had just returned and he was submitting himself to his parents after this traumatic event when he got lost and been found in the temple, if you remember. And the Bible says that Mary treasured all these things that had happened in her heart. What Jesus had said to her when she found him in the temple.

Remember, he had stayed behind and the family had gone with other family, a couple of days' journey. Suddenly thinking him to be in the company, thinking an aunt or an uncle had cared for the child Jesus, Mary and Joseph discovered him gone. They ran all the way back to Jerusalem searching frantically. Who has not lost a child knows what that is like. I remember losing Judy on the beach when she was four years of age on a holiday.

And I still remember now my stomach just turns over at the panic of realizing she'd gone. The beach was very, very crowded. It was in Jersey, just off England. It was terribly crowded, and the little girl had been playing in the water, looked up, couldn't see us. There were so many people sitting on the beach, so started to come towards where she thought we were and had missed us, and so started to walk and walk and walk along the beach crying looking for a mommy.

And it was quite a while. I thought she was with Stuart; he thought she was with me. Exactly the same thing: Mary and Joseph thinking that Jesus was with the other. And of course when we found that she wasn't with either of us, then the panic. And there were constant warnings on that beach, it was a very dangerous beach, and suddenly a warning went out: "Drowning, drowning."

And I will never forget standing there with that siren wailing thinking, "It's my little girl, it's Judy." And then we ran, all of us: David and Peter, Stuart picked him up, and we ran up to where the man was on the big lookout and I said, "What's happening? What's happening?" And they said, "They're bringing someone out of the water." And I said, "Is it a little girl in a blue suit?" And he said, "I can't see who it is." And I'll never forget just standing there really believing of course, knowing me, that it had to be Judy even though there were millions of people on the beach.

And of course it wasn't, praise God, and it wasn't a drowning. They managed to save the person who was in trouble. But just the panic: where were you? And you know, all I had was David was tugging at my hand. Now, what do you think he was saying? Well, he wasn't saying, "Where's my little sister, let's pray to Jesus." He was saying, "You promised to take me for an ice cream."

"Your sister could be drowned!" "Well, you did promise, and she'll come back. She won't be drowned. Take me for an ice cream." Typical child. But that whole syndrome, but I tell you when I got my hands on Judy, I did what Mary and Joseph did. I shook her till her teeth rattled, and she'd only just got them.

You know, mother, what that's like. I just shook her, "Why did you?", and it wasn't even her fault, but my anxiety, my fear, just all spilled out. My relief at having her safe. That's what happened here. Mary and Joseph came back and, "Why have you dealt with us like this? Your father and I were so worried. We've been looking for you for two days."

Jesus said, "Didn't you know I should be in my Father's house, doing my Father's business?" Boy, that hurt. I mean, Joseph was standing there. But Jesus, "You should have been in our house, your father's house, in Nazareth, doing your father's business in the carpenter shop." "No, I have to be in my Father's house, doing my Father's business. Dear heavenly guardian of my life, dear Joseph, you are but my earthly father."

And you know, being a heart-maiden means having a treasure chest for a heart that accepts the hard things that God says to us as well as the easy things, to collect his sayings. And over and over again we see Mary pondering in her heart. I love that word, pondering, pondering, reflective.

This woman was reflective. To be a heart-maiden for God, to be a handmaiden of the Lord means you will be a reflective woman. You will look at the Word of God, you will ponder it in your mind. You will say, "What does it mean? And what does it mean to me? And how can I say be it unto me according to thy word?" Not just the promises, that's what most of us tend to do.

If you underline your Bible in yellow like I do for promises and you flick it through, you'll see there's twice as much yellow as green. The green is for warnings. The blue is for obediences. I don't seem to see those things when I'm having my Bible study. It's all yellow. Why is that? Because I want to hear the promises, don't you?

But you know what Mary did? It was this saying she pondered in her heart: "I must be about my Father's business." Now there are going to be new relationships, mother, father, relationships that belong to the kingdom of God. You must take a place in those relationships. Hard things. To have and to know what it is to be a heart-maiden means you have a treasure chest that you ponder the words of God whether they be hard promises, problems, pricks, whatever they be.

And that indeed was a prick. In fact, let me show you one or two other pricks that Mary had to ponder in her heart to be reflective about. John chapter 2, for example. It's the wedding at Cana. Remember, the wine ran out. Everybody ran to Mary who was organizing the food. She comes to Jesus and she says, "The wine's run out." And he said, "Woman," which is not a put down, that's the way you address dear lady. "Dear lady, what is that to do with me? Mine hour is not yet come."

Was it not I must be about my Father's business? Mary, now you stop telling me what to do and I begin to tell you what to do. Now my ministry has begun with this first miracle in my ministry. Now I am on my own. You let me go. Relinquishment. That was hard. She pondered it no doubt in her heart. Three times we read in the scriptures that Mary pondered in her heart. I believe it was a lifelong habit.

Look at Luke chapter 8, verse 19. Jesus had been very, very busy. The crowds were there, hordes of them, being taught, being healed, being helped. Verse 19: "Now Jesus' mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. Someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside wanting to see you.'"

He replied, he replied, he didn't even go out. He sent a message: "My mother and my brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." The relationships of the kingdom: hard things, but I know that Mary pondered them in her heart. The treasure that she received, the treasure is the word of God, is not always easy to hear. It was not easy for Mary to hear the fact that she was to bear a baby in a miraculous way. Such a thing had never been conceived of before she conceived the Christ.

It was not easy for her to hear the gossip, that Joseph was minded to put her away. Would he put her away publicly or would he put her away privately? If he put her away publicly, then she could very well be stoned to death as an adulterer because her engagement to Joseph stood in as much standing as her marriage. And if she had been found unfaithful and with child, then quite likely she could have been stoned to death, even as the woman taken in adultery could have been stoned to death by their own court.

Shouldn't have happened, but it did happen. And Joseph, what did he do? He minded, he was turning it over, he was pondering it, and he decided not to make a public spectacle of her and expose her to the possibility of death by stoning as an adulteress, but to put her away privately, to have a private divorce which was also legal and it was always up to the man. It was up to Joseph.

And if he decided to go public or to go private, it was known, it wasn't private private. It was known, it just meant because he was a just man and I'm sure because he loved Mary, he decided to go the private way. And it was then the angel came and said, "This child is of me. Take unto thee thy wife." Now, it must have been very hard for Mary knowing what the angel was asking her to do, to take his words and treasure them and ponder them in her heart and to keep them there. Very, very hard.

I remember loving the idea of Jesus being the Lord my shepherd. That's yellow. But the bit about John 10 where it says he wants to lead me out as a little sheep out. I don't like that. It's not colored in anything because out is wolves and out is lions and out is bears. And he says in other places he's going to lead me forth as his little sheep among the wolves and the bears out in the world to tell them about my shepherd.

I don't like that, so I find it hard to underline it as a command to follow him. Mary took all the words of God and treasured them in her heart, laid them up in store in her heart. Are we doing that? To do that means to be a handmaiden and a heart-maiden. And then of course that lends itself to being a hurt-maiden, doesn't it? A hurt-maiden.

Just turn to John chapter 19 very quickly here. John chapter 19, verse 25. Remember when Jesus had been taken to the temple in Mary's arms, Simeon and Anna had come and said, "This child is for the rising of many in Israel." They'd said all these wonderful things about them. Again, we read Mary treasured all those sayings in her heart.

One thing that she had had said to her by Simeon was this: "A sword shall pierce your heart also." She had not understood it. She never understood a lot of the things we read. In fact, it says in the Bible in those early chapters, "They understood not the things he said to them." But she treasured them in her heart.

So even if you don't understand the things in the Bible, you absorb them and you treasure them. They're there for another day. This day she understood something she had treasured in her heart all her life even though she had been puzzled at Christ's seeming rejection of her mothering and she had heard him say other people are just as much my mother as you in the new kingdom relationships.

Even though that had been puzzling and confusing and at another time we read in the gospel she and the family came to take him by force back home because they said, "He's mad, he's beside himself." Mary had been there. All that confusion. What do you mean a sword shall pierce my heart? Perhaps that is the sword, the sword of his his strange ministry that he's doing and the way he's wearing himself out because he hasn't eaten. You can just see the mother heart saying to the family, "Let's go and just make him come home so that we can give him a rest and give him some good food."

But now she stood at the foot of the cross. Now she stood at the foot of the cross and she remembered because she treasured it in her heart that saying: "Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw his mother there and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby he said to his mother, 'Dear woman, here is your son.' To the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' From that time on, this disciple took her into his home."

Now, the word that's used here is for a large sword. There were two words. Simeon used the one that means a large sword, not a small sword, not a little one. And indeed it was the large sword in the shape of the cross that pierced the heart of a mother watching her son crucified.

And you know what she learned? That if you're going to be a handmaiden and you're going to be a heart-maiden, you will be a hurt-maiden at some point in your life. There had been many, many swords, little ones, that had pierced her heart before the big one. But now she stood and the big one in the shape of a cross pierced her heart.

She learned many things about her son that day: that he cares. Even though he was busy being crucified and his hands were tied—or to be more specific, nailed securely down—he still found time to care for her, to care for her well-being, to give her into the hands of John.

And you know the thing that touches me is he said, "Take her home." And John from that moment, it says, took her into his own home, into his own house. She went. Why? Because she was a heart-maiden and because her lifetime habit was "be it unto me according to thy word." "Whatever he says to you, do it," she said at the wedding. Whatever he says to me, I'll try and do it. I don't understand it, I might ask questions, I might be confused, but I'll do it.

And why didn't she go home? Why didn't she go home? Because Jesus gave her to John, and John told her to come with him. And that sweet submission of obedience, which was part of Mary's whole lifestyle, came to her rescue and she went. And I'm so glad she did, and I want to show you why because lastly she was a happy-maiden. I love to see Mary in this case.

And I want you to turn to Acts chapter 1 where we see the last glimpse of Mary of Nazareth, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Where do we see her? Well, we see her in Acts chapter 1, verse 12 to 14. Jesus has gone to heaven in the ascension, verse 10 onward. Verse 12: "The disciples returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city.

When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers."

Sometime between the cross and Acts chapter 1, the brothers, the unbelieving brothers of Jesus, had been converted. And now we see them gathered as believers, united in Christ with their mother. What a wonderful thing, happy-maiden, rejoicing in the resurrection. Because has it ever occurred to you that when John took Mary into his home she became witness to all that was witnessed?

Do you remember the day of the resurrection? Some think Mary was one of the women that went to the tomb though she is not mentioned by name. She was certainly with the women at the cross, wasn't she? With Mary Magdalene, it says she was, and with the other women. Then why not she of all to embalm the body of her son? But we are not told that.

What we are told is she was with John from then on in. And John was making his home in this place and the doors were locked for fear of the Jews and then Mary Magdalene comes running in and says, "I've seen him, he touched me!" Mary was there. "You've seen who?" "Our Jesus. He's risen, he's risen."

Rejoicing in the resurrection news. John, Peter, run out of that room unlocking the door to the tomb, running all the way, the Bible tells us. They looked inside and saw the grave clothes lying as if a body had come straight out of them. That's what convinced them. And the napkin on its own in another place.

They saw Jesus Christ, the evidence of his resurrection. The clothes were just fallen and the body had obviously come right out. And they saw and believed, the Bible says. What did they do? They turned round and ran back to that room where the women and the disciples were waiting.

And John said, I can just see it in my mind. Where do you think he went in that room? I know where he went: to Mary. "Mary, it's true, it's true! I've just seen it. His body's not there! He's risen! Now didn't he say all those things he said to us?" What must she have felt? What must she have known? Rejoicing in the resurrection. Oh happy-maiden!

And the fullness of the Holy Spirit. For Acts 2:16 and 18 talks about Pentecost, and remember that Mary was there. Mary was there. You know, I have never really thought about this until I did this study, but it has just made me so happy for her as I've realized the joy that she had in sharing in Pentecost.

You know, when the Spirit was poured out Peter stood up and said, "These men aren't drunk, this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel," verse 17. "I will pour out my spirit on all people, your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women"—and again I go back to the KJV—"menservants and maidservants will I pour out my spirit."

And one maidservant above all on that day received the Holy Spirit with the other disciples and the women who were gathered, many of them, in that one place in the upper room. You know, I've thought of the flame of fire sitting on the disciples' heads, but I have never realized that everybody in that room received the outpouring of the Spirit.

Once she had received the body of Christ within her body. Now she received the Spirit of her son, the Holy Spirit. Twice blessed maiden, twice blessed maiden. Happy maiden, rejoicing in the resurrection and the fullness of the Holy Spirit, a member of the church because we read that they together with the women joined together continually in the breaking of bread.

Oh, that must have hurt for Mary, the breaking of bread, the remembrance of what he had done and in prayer. I was at a meeting not long ago and somebody said, "You said in one of your books, Jill, that you shouldn't get too pally with God in 'Hush-Hush', in the book you wrote on prayer. What did you mean?"

And I said, "Well, I think what I meant was the difference between John being very friendly with Jesus on earth—John his best friend, he leaned on Jesus' breast at supper, remember—but then on Patmos he saw the risen Christ and he fell at his feet as dead. And the thing that happened to Mary, knowing Christ on such an intimate human level, had to happen to her at some point. We don't know when it did."

The difference between dealing with a Christ who as John said "our hands have handled of the word of life," and the difference between realizing that this Christ she bore was truly divine: the Lord of lords, the God of gods, the King of kings. She'd have to ponder that one in her heart for a long time, wouldn't she?

But I believe she did, and I believe we see her rejoicing in the resurrection, in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, a member of the body of Christ. So I'd like to ask you some questions. What does Mary teach us about sin? That there are good sinners, but that we all need a Savior, however good we may be.

What does she teach me about servanthood? That you need to know his will by knowing his Word, and you need to say, "Be it unto me according to thy word." The good and the bad, the promises and the pricks, all of it. My heart will be a treasure chest and the treasure will be your words.

And what does she teach us about being a handmaiden, heart-maiden, hurt-maiden? That there is no way you can be a servant of the Lord without some hurts in your life, and a sword big or small will pierce your heart as you serve him, for we are to be involved in the fellowship of his sufferings.

But what does she teach us essentially? That those who are handmaidens of the Lord will be happy-maidens indeed, rejoicing in the resurrection, knowing the fullness of his Holy Spirit for empowering and rejoicing in the fellowship of his brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, the family, the forever family of God.