Mary was indeed blessed by God for Gabriel told Mary she had been chosen by God for a special task, to conceive in her womb a male child that would be called ‘the Son of the Highest’.  Gabriel told Mary to call him Jesus, for he would be ‘great’ and God would give him ‘the throne of his father David; and from that throne, Jesus would reign over the house of Jacob (Israel) for ever; and his kingdom shall never end.’

History confirms Jesus has not yet sat upon the throne of King David.  Therefore by applying simple mathematics, that event is yet to happen!

Because Mary was the earthly mother of Jesus Christ; does that make Mary the mother of God? Christendom quite rightly proclaims ‘Jesus to be fully God’, existing in eternity prior to his birth on earth.  As our ‘kinsman redeemer’ Jesus had to be fully God and fully human at birth.  Anything less would have meant Christ’s death was an exercise in futility thus sentencing mankind to a hopeless eternity separated from God the Father.  This is why Mary had to be a virgin otherwise Jesus would have inherited the sinful nature of an earthly father.

“So was it Mary or ‘God the Holy Spirit’ who gave Jesus his divine nature?”

According to the Laws of Moses both the Gospel of Luke and the Old Testament book of Leviticus claim Mary was ‘unclean’ for seven days after giving birth.  On the eight day Jesus was circumcised.   Then for another thirty-three days (forty in total) Mary continued her days of purification.  

Afterwards, Jesus was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem and Mary sacrificed two turtledoves as a sin offering.  Jesus would later declare anybody who obeyed the will of God to be his brother, sister or mother.  Mary was certainly highly favoured by God but she was never divine.  To venerate her as such distracts our eyes from the hope of humanity, Jesus the only mediator between man and God!

Let’s live our lives in such a way that we too might be ‘highly favoured’ by God.