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IV. Reading Like Jesus

A. Literal, Historical, Divine

What do we learn from our literary reading of these Marian texts from Matthew and Luke?

First, the literary reading gives us knowledge of an historical truth - the birth of Jesus through the Holy Spirit to a virgin named Mary.

This historical truth at the same time conveys to us a divine meaning.

That is to say: the historical events, and the manner in which these events are written about, communicate far more than factual information. They reveal the existence of a plan of salvation that God is working out in human history.

Matthew and Luke’s accounts assume the existence of a divine economy, in which the covenant oaths God swore to Abraham and David centuries earlier are meant to find their ultimate fulfillment in the future coming of Christ.

Indeed, Matthew and Luke seem to envision a sort of golden thread connecting the events, figures and institutions of the Old Testament with those of their New Testament.

The reason for the evangelists’ careful use of quotes and allusions to Israel’s past is to reveal that unity between the Old and New Testaments - to show how what happens to Mary is a continuation and culmination of what has gone before.

B. Typology and Mary

This way of reading and writing is broadly known as typology. And typology is critical to understanding what the Bible has to say about Mary.

Typology is the way Jesus taught the Apostles to read the Old Testament.

He referred to Jonah (see Matthew 12:39-41), Solomon (see Matthew 12:42), the Temple (see John 2:19) and the brazen serpent (see John 3:14) as "types" or "signs" that prefigured Him.

On the first Easter night He said that, "Everything written about Me in the Law of Moses, and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled" (see Luke 24:44-45).

What He showed them was that the persons, places, things and events of the Old Testament were written to prepare us for Him.

Jesus and the Apostles were already familiar with this way of reading from the Old Testament and the liturgical readings they heard in the synagogue. In the writings of the prophets and psalmists, often we find typological readings of earlier events, deployed to prepare Israel for its coming savior.

Isaiah spoke of a new creation (see Isaiah 65:17) and a new exodus (see Isaiah 11:10-11,15-16; 43:16-22; 51:9-11).

He and others, notably Ezekiel and Jeremiah, spoke of the coming of a new Davidic shepherd-king and the restoration of the kingdom (see Isaiah 9:1-7; Jeremiah 23:5-6;Ezekiel 16:59-63; 34:24-30; 37:23-28).

The New Testament writers saw each these great "types" - creation, the exodus and the covenant-kingdom of David - gloriously reprised in the New Covenant of Jesus.

Jesus was the New Adam, the first born of a new creation (see Romans 5:14; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; 45-49). His Cross and Resurrection mark a new exodus (see Luke 9:31; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4). His Church is the new Jerusalem and the new Kingdom of David (seeGalatians 4:26; Acts 1:6-9; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6).

As we will see in the lessons ahead, the New Testament writers also developed a typological understanding of Mary’s role in salvation history - as the new Eve, the new Ark of the Covenant, and the new Queen Mother of the Kingdom of God.

What we will find is that Mary is depicted as mysteriously inseparable from the saving mission of her Son. We see this already in Matthew’s repetition of the phrase "the Child and His mother" (see Matthew 1:18; 2:11;13,14,20,21).

This is how Mary is portrayed in one of the earliest biblical confessions of the faith: "When the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law to ransom those under the Law, so that we might receive adoption" (see Galatians 4:4-5).

What the New Testament has to say about Mary fills only a few verses. But it tells us all we need to know: Mary was made holy, destined from all eternity to give the Word flesh, to bear God’s only begotten Son, and to be crowned mother over all who enter into His kingdom.

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