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Anchored Bible Conference: Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary
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Join Dr. Brandt Pitre as he presents insights from his latest book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, focusing on the unique typology of Mary as the new Rachel. In light of the turmoil in today's world, Dr. Pitre explores the profound connections between Mary and Rachel, revealing Mary's role as the mother of the new Israel. Discover how understanding the Jewish roots of Mary enriches our perception of her identity and mission, as Dr. Pitre delves into scriptural parallels and ancient traditions that highlight Mary's intercessory power and maternal care.
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Welcome, everyone, to the Augustine Institute Bible conference. I am Dr. Brant Petrie, and I am very excited to be with you this afternoon to present on the topic of Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary. My lecture this afternoon is actually taken from my most recent book with the same title, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary. And I was pondering and preparing for this afternoon what, which chapter, which topic from the book that I would share with you. And in light of all of the turmoil and upheaval and difficulty going on in the world today, I really felt drawn to one of the chapters that might be in some ways the most unique in the whole book, and that's a chapter on Mary as the new Rachel. So lots of Catholics are familiar with looking at Mary from the perspective of typology. So that if Jesus is a new Adam, Mary is the new Eve. If Jesus is the new King David, Mary's the new Queen Mother, or if Jesus is the new Temple, Mary's the new Ark of the Covenant. Those kind of things are pretty popular and fairly well known. But in this chapter and in this presentation, drawing from that chapter, what I'm going to do is look at a somewhat unique or a little more unfamiliar typology, and that's the idea or the image of Jesus as the new Joseph and Mary as the new Rachel, the new mother of the new Israel. So before we dive into the topic this afternoon, let's begin, as always, with a word of prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to gather together here virtually and to study the Bible together at this conference. I pray that as we turn our hearts and minds to the mystery of Mary's identity and the connections in the old New Testaments between Mary and the figure of Rachel, that you would pour out the grace of the Holy Spirit upon us to open our minds and hearts to anything and everything you want us to learn together. And so we pray, as always, the words your Son gave us. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. St. Augustine, pray for us in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right, so let's get going. One of the things that I tried to show in the book on Jesus and the Jewish roots of Mary. And that I'd like to try to demonstrate at least briefly this afternoon in the short time that we have, is that in order to understand what Catholics believe about Mary, especially in order to understand the scriptural foundations of what Catholics believe, and Orthodox Christians, for that matter, believe about Mary, it's absolutely crucial to look at what the New Testament says about Mary in light of the Old Testament. In other words, to read the Testaments intertextually, to look at them together. And most Christians are familiar with doing this when it comes to Jesus. I've already mentioned Jesus, the new Adam, the new Moses, the new David, and those kind of things. But looking at Mary this way is something that, at least for me, was a fresh and new idea when I first started really looking into Mariology and especially into the biblical theology of the Church fathers with regard to Mary. So in order to understand everything that the Catholic Church teaches and believes about Mary, you really have to understand what the Church teaches and believes about Jesus. And the same thing is true not just about church teaching, but about Scripture in particular. If you really want to understand what the New Testament says about Mary and what it reveals about Mary's person and identity and mission, you really need to understand what it says first about Jesus. So we're going to start before looking at Mary herself, just by a quick overview of the fact that in the New Testament, there are several striking parallels between Jesus and the figure of Joseph, so that a case can be made that Jesus is not just being depicted in the New Testament as a new David or a new Moses, but also as a new Joseph. Right? And you can see this if you look just a few examples. There are many more than this, but this is just a few key examples. Number one, for example, in the Old Testament, the figure of Joseph is betrayed for 20 pieces of silver by his brother Judah, who is one of the 12 sons of Jacob. In Genesis 37, in the New Testament, Jesus is betrayed for 30 pieces of silver by Judas, right? Which is just the Greek form of the name Judah, who's also one of the 12. Right? Second, when Joseph begins his service to Pharaoh in the book of Genesis, he is explicitly identified as being 30 years old. Likewise, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter three, when Jesus begins his public ministry, Jesus is 30 years old. Number three, Joseph, after many trials and tribulations, you recall, is exalted to the right hand of Pharaoh and becomes ruler over the kingdom of Egypt. After Pharaoh, he is second in command. Likewise, Jesus, at the end of his life, after this death and resurrection is exalted to the right hand of God, who rules over, of course, the kingdom of heaven. Number four. This one's interesting. Joseph saves both Israel, meaning his 11 brothers, right? And the Gentiles, the pagans, the Egyptians, from death by feeding them with life giving wheat after they have seven years of famine. Likewise, Jesus saves both Israel and the Gentiles from spiritual death and feeds them with eternal life, giving bread. Think up here of John chapter six and the Last Supper. And then finally, you might recall, at the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph gives special honor to Benjamin, the youngest of the 12, at a banquet that he has with his brothers in Genesis 43. Likewise, at the Last Supper, Jesus gives special honor to the beloved disciple In John chapter 13, when he sits next to him in the place of honor at the Last Supper. And there are other examples of these parallels as well. But in light of such parallels, since ancient times, like for example, in the 4th century AD, Aphrahat the sage, a Persian Christian, wrote this. Joseph was a type of the persecuted Jesus. And then again more recently, Father Bill Kurtz, Father William Kurtz, a Jesuit biblical scholar in his commentary, says Joseph is one of the most striking biblical types, Jesus. So let's just take that then as a kind of a starting point. If it is the case that Jesus is being depicted in the New Testament as a new Joseph who undergoes a betrayal, passion, suffering, and then a miraculous resurrection and ascension into a place of power and kingship after having been betrayed. If Jesus is being depicted as a new Joseph, the implications of that for the biblical portrait of Mary are actually manifold. Because as any first century Jew would have known, Joseph isn't an important figure just in his own right, but his mother is a central figure in the history of salvation. And his mother was of course the great matriarch, the mother of Israel, the figure of Rachel. So what I'm going to argue in this presentation is that if Jesus is a new Joseph, then Mary is a new Rachel. Now, in order to see this and kind of feel the force of it, we really need to go back and just review a few basic points about the figure of Rachel in both Jewish scripture and in Jewish tradition, in order to understand and see more clearly the links between Jewish ideas about Rachel and the figure of Mary in the New Testament. And of course the figure of Mary in Mary in Mariology as well the Catholic theology of who Mary is. So let's just a few key points about Rachel in ancient Judaism. The first and most important point is this, is that Rachel is the Bride of Jacob. Right. And Jacob is Israel. He is the one whose name is changed to Israel. He is the father of the people of Israel and the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. And in particular, Rachel isn't just the mother of Israel as a whole. She's specifically the mother of two sons of Jacob, namely Joseph and Benjamin. Right. So if you look here, I have a chart for you just kind of laying this out. It can be a little confusing because as you'll recall from the book of Genesis, Jacob takes two wives and also two concubines, and through a series of births has 12 children through these four, these two wives, and these two concubines. That's how he ends ends up with the 12 sons of Jacob. But if you look at the chart, you'll see something interesting, that although Joseph and Benjamin are number 11 and number 12 in the list of the 12 sons of Jacob, they are in effect the first and the only two sons of Jacob's wife, the wife that he loved, namely Rachel. So in a sense, then this is very important. Although Joseph is number 11 in the list of sons, a case could be made that because he's the firstborn son of Jacob's wife, the wife he loved, Rachel, that he has the status of a firstborn son. And of course, this, once you realize this, it explains the whole story of Joseph in the book of Genesis and why his father Jacob favors him so. And it's real simple, because Jacob sees him as having a firstborn status even though he's born much later than the other children, because he's the firstborn son of his wife, Rachel. So that's the first point. Rachel is the mother of Joseph and she's the mother of Benjamin. She's the mother of Israel. Now, the second point that's crucial to understand about Rachel in order to understand Mary in the New Testament is that Rachel dies in childbirth when she gives birth to Benjamin, the last of the 12 sons. And her tomb where she's buried is located near Bethlehem, near the city of Bethlehem. So if you turn, for example, to the Book of Genesis, chapter 35, you can see this really clear. This isn't necessarily the most famous passage in the world. Not everybody's familiar with it, but it's very poignant. It's a very powerful passage. And here I'm using the esv, the brand new Augustine Bible, with the ESV Catholic edition. And for the translation, I'll be using that throughout the presentation. So if you look at Genesis 35, 16, 20, it says this, Rachel went into labor. And she had hard labor. And when her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, do not fear for you have another son. And as her soul was departing for she was dying, she called his name Ben Oni, but his father called his name Benjamin or Benyamin in Hebrew. So Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem. And Jacob set up a pillar over her tomb. It is the pillar of Rachel's tomb, which is there to this day. Okay, so notice what's going on here. This is very important, right? In order to give birth to the youngest of the 12 sons, Rachel has hard labor, and she ends up dying in childbirth. And she names the child Ben Oni, which in Hebrew literally means Son of my sorrow or Son of pain. But Jacob, his father, changes it. He doesn't like such an ominous name. So instead of being called Ben Oni, son of my sorrow, he's called Benyamin, which literally means son of my right hand, like son of my strength. Much more positive name. But there's still that shadow kind of cast over the figure of Benjamin, because he comes into the world. He receives life through the suffering and the death of his mother, Rachel. And as a result, she is buried by Jacob in her tomb at the location where this all took place, near, namely near Bethlehem. So keep that in mind. So in ancient Jewish mind, Rachel and Bethlehem are connected with one another. The third aspect of the figure of Rachel in the Old Testament that's really important for understanding the figure of Mary is that in the Jewish scriptures, even after she dies, Rachel is described as weeping for the children of Israel, weeping for the people of Israel. So that whenever Israel goes through suffering or sorrow in this world, even though Rachel has already passed away and been dead for many centuries, she suffers with the children of Israel. The most famous example of this is in the book of Jeremiah, chapter 31, a famous passage that you'll be familiar with. Jeremiah here is describing the Babylonian exile. He's talking about the deportation of the people of Judah from the southern kingdom into the land of Babylon. In Jeremiah 31:15, we have this oracle that actually alludes to the figure of Rachel, and this is what it says. Thus says the Lord, a voice is heard in Ramah lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children. She refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more. Right now. It's fascinating. You remember the Babylonian exile takes place in the 6th century B.C. right? But the time of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is usually dated around 1800 BC and thereafter through the lifetimes of Abraham and then Isaac and then Jacob. So, I mean, many centuries separate, the time of the patriarchs and then the time of the Babylonian exile. And yet Rachel, who is the wife of Jacob and the mother of Israel, she's described as weeping for the Babylonian exiles in the 6th century BC. So this prophecy, this oracle of the book of Jeremiah, becomes the foundation for later Jewish tradition among the rabbis to describe Rachel not just as the matriarch or mother of Israel, but also as a figure who is uniquely connected to the suffering of her people and who intercedes for the children of Israel who are, effectively, I think about it, they're all her grandchildren, her great, great grandchildren. They're all her descendants even after her death. So there's this fascinating tradition in later Jewish theology and the tradition at the time of the rabbis, in the ancient rabbinic commentary known as the Midrash Rabba, the great interpretation, the great commentary, that's what it means in Hebrew, in a book called Lamentations Rabba, one of the rabbis gives this tradition, and what it says is that the different patriarchs, like Abraham and Moses, right, these great figures in the Old Testament, they prayed, they interceded for the people of Israel, but God doesn't hear their prayers until the matriarch Rachel intercedes on their behalf. And when Rachel begins to pray for the people of Israel, then God answers the prayer for deliverance. So this is from Lamentations Rabbah, just to give you an example here. It says this quote, the mercy of the Holy One, blessed be he, was stirred. And he said, for your sake, Rachel, I will restore Israel to their place. And so it is written, thus says the Lord, a voice is heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children, right? End quote. That's from Lamentations Rabba. So this ancient rabbinic commentary, so notice this is really important, the ancient Jewish tradition, Rachel being a kind of supreme intercessor, she's being described as the most powerful intercessor for her people, actually is anchored in Jeremiah's oracle about Rachel weeping for the Babylonian exiles, weeping for the children of Israel many, many centuries after her death. So although all this time has passed, Rachel is not unaware of what's happening on earth with her descendants, with her children. So those three points, Rachel as the mother of Israel, especially the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Second, Rachel dying in childbirth and being buried next to Bethlehem or near Bethlehem. And then third, Rachel weeping for her children long after her death. Those three points, if we keep them in mind. And then we turn to the New Testament, we're going to find several striking. They're subtle, but they're still striking parallels between the figure of Mary in the New Testament and the figure of Rachel in the Old Testament. So let's look at. I've chosen three here that are probably the most important. The first one is the massacre of the infants. The famous story, the massacre of the infants in the Gospel of Matthew at the city of Bethlehem. Right? So I know you all know the story. Well, this is a very famous story, but I want you to read it again. Try to see it through first century Jewish eyes. Try to hear it through first century Jewish ears, and ask yourself, where are the parallels between the figure of Rachel and the figure of Mary? So In Matthew, chapter 2, verses 16 through 21, we read these words, Matthew 2, 16, 21. The ESV says this. Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and he killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old and under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah weeping and loud lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more. But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared and a dream to Joseph in Egypt saying, rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead. And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. Okay, so a couple of points stand out here. First and foremost, notice you have the famous story of Herod massacring all of the male children in Bethlehem. And notice, in the region thereabouts. So this would include the very same territory where Rachel's tomb was located. Okay, because it was near to the city of Bethlehem. And second, Matthew fascinatingly connects this event, this massacre of the male children in Bethlehem and Herod's attempt to stop, you know, to stop Jesus from becoming the heir, the rightful heir to the throne, to taking his throne from him or his descendants. In that act, Matthew sees a fulfillment of the very oracle from the prophet Jeremiah that later Jewish tradition would connect with the intercessory figure of Rachel, the matriarch of Israel. Matthew quotes Jeremiah 31:15 about the voice heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children. But notice what he's doing here, what Matthew's seeing Here is not a predictive prophecy. He's not saying so much that Jeremiah is predicting the massacre of the infants to take place. It's more of a typological prophecy. In other words, just as Rachel wept for the sorrow and suffering of the deportation to Babylon, of her children going into exile at the time of Babylon, so too now she weeps for these men. I mean, not these men. So too she weeps for these young male children who are both her descendants. They're part of the people of Israel, but they're also members of the body of the people of God, of the chosen people of God. That she has a specific role as intercessor, but also as a kind of figure who. Of a maternal figure who suffers with her children, which, I mean, let's be honest here, that's a very natural role. When a woman has children, it's very natural for the mother to carry the sufferings of her children. She suffers with her children, and in some sense on their behalf as well. That's an inescapable bond between mother and children. Even if it's children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, there's this maternal bond. And so what we're seeing described here is Matthew saying that that prophecy is now being fulfilled typologically in the sorrows that accompany this horrific massacre of the infants at Bethlehem. And then the third thing I'd highlight about the passage here is notice the emphasis on Mary and the child. Matthew says, take the child and his mother. Joseph rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. Which, by the way, too, there's another, if you need an echo of the figure of Joseph, the name Joseph is right here in the story. Of course, that'd be a whole other talk on parallels between Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, and the figure of Joseph in the Old Testament. But in this case, we're focusing on the parallels between Jesus and Joseph and then, of course, between Mary and Rachel. Now, what's fascinating to me about this is that it was a contemporary Jewish scholar, David Flusser, who wrote several books that were best sellers on Jesus and Judaism, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. And in one of his essays that he wrote on the figure of Mary, this is what Flusser said about Matthew's account of the massacre of the infants. Listen to these words. David Flusser writes in Matthew, Rachel is a symbolic figure for the suffering mother, in this case, the suffering Jewish mother. And Rachel's pain for the dead children is also symbolic for the suffering of Mary in relation to her illustrious son. Now, that's fascinating that it was a contemporary Jewish scholar, but actually, I don't think unsurprising who saw that Matthew here is drawing a link between the way Rachel suffers for her children and also the suffering of Mary in relation to her son, who is the heir to the throne of Israel. And it doesn't take a lot of imagination, although Matthew doesn't say that. Matthew doesn't explicitly emphasize Mary's suffering. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think about and to ponder the anxiety and the suffering that Mary would have had, not only on behalf of Jesus, who she, with Joseph, is seeking to protect, but also the suffering that she would have felt for all of the innocent young boys in the city of Bethlehem who were put to death for the sake of her son who was spared, at least in this instance. Of course, the cross will be coming down the road, but in this case, he's spared. So it's a beautiful parallel there that David Flusser sees between the figure of Rachel as the suffering mother and then the figure of Mary as the suffering mother. Okay, so that's just one connection. There's so many, many more. Time constraints are always a problem. But in this case, just remember too that in the first century Jewish mind, Bethlehem would be connected with the figure of Rachel because that's where Rachel died, but it's also where her tomb was. Okay. In fact, to this day, you can visit the tomb of Rachel, still a sacred shrine that's venerated by Christians and Muslims and Jews. It's a holy site for all three major monotheistic religions. In fact, if you want to dig into this a little bit more, I've got a book here called Rachel Weeping. It's Jews, Christians and Muslims at the Fortress Tomb. And it's a whole book about the location of Rachel's tomb near Bethlehem and its significance over the centuries as a sacred site, as a place for pilgrimage. There are even stories of contemporary Jews coming to Rachel's tomb and lighting candles and saying prayers, asking Rachel to intercede for them, especially expectant mothers. Prayers, asking Rachel to intercede for them. Now, does that sound familiar? Catholics like the idea of the special mother of the people of God having a special intercessory power and lighting candles and asking her to pray for you. Well, that's what this book documents with regard to evidence about Rachel's tomb. And that book, Rachel Weeching, is by Fred Strickert, by the way. So, in any case, so just the fact that Matthew's Gospel begins with this allusion to the prophecy about Rachel and then Mary suffering with and on behalf of Jesus as she undergoes this trial of the massacre of the infants and the persecution of Herod and the flight to Egypt in order to escape. All of this has echoes of the trials and tribulations of Rachel in the Old Testament, as well as the figure of Joseph in the Old Testament too, who of course, is going to undergo his difficulties in the land of Egypt. We could go on and on here, but let's turn to the second example. The second link between Mary in the New Testament and Rachel in the Old Testament is from the book of Revelation. So if you turn To Revelation chapter 12, most people are very familiar with this passage. Famous oracle of the woman clothed with the sun. And it says this, a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of 12 stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. Right? And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadems. And it goes on. Describe the war between this great dragon, who's identified as the serpent, and Satan, St. Michael. And then the woman gives birth to a child, and the dragon tries to devour it. All this is very famous from Revelation chapter 12. Many Catholics and Orthodox Christians are going to be familiar with the ancient Christian tradition of identifying this woman as not just the mother of the Messiah, but as Mary, the mother of Christ. Again, I don't have time in this particular presentation to demonstrate that fact. So if you want to dig into it more detail, I have a chapter on the new Eve and the Jewish roots of Mary, where I just walk through that passage closely and I show you how. Although many interpreters rightly see this woman as a symbol that both for the people of Israel and even more as a symbol for the Church, there's no doubt that that's true. That symbolic, collective interpretation is actually anchored in a primary interpretation of an individual. Like Revelation is primarily depicting an individual figure here. And you can actually see it if you just read it in context. Right? Because the child that's born is an individual figure, the Messiah, Right. The dragon symbolizes evil, but it also symbolizes an individual figure, Satan. And therefore it's consistent to suggest that the woman who also has a symbolic, collective meaning, namely the Church, likewise symbolizes an individual figure, namely the mother of the Messiah. And of course, Jesus of Nazareth's mother is Mary. So the Marian interpretation of Revelation 12 holds up really well, in context, for our purposes here, what people often overlook, though, and what's really significant is the imagery of the Son, the moon and the stars, right, that surrounds this woman. So this woman is clothed with the sun, she's got the moon under her feet, and on her head is a crown of 12 stars. Well, those images are direct allusions to the dream of Joseph in the Old Testament. So if you go back to the book of Genesis, chapter 37, verses 9 through 11, everyone knows that one of the reasons his brothers were out to get him is because Joseph had this famous dream. And it says this. Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, behold, I've dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me. But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you've dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you? And his brothers were jealous of him. But his father kept this saying in mind. All right, so that's Genesis 37, 9, 11. So notice here it's very explicit that the sun, the moon and the stars represent Jacob his father, Rachel his mother. That's the moon. And then the 11 stars, of course, the 11 brothers who. The foundations of the 12 tribes of Israel. So if you know that biblical language, and now you fast forward back to Revelation 12, what do we see? We see the mother of the Messiah. That is Mary, right. Clothed with the sun, standing on the moon and wearing a crown of 12 stars. So what does this signify? It shows that as the new. As the mother of the Messiah. Right, as the, as the symbol of the church, but as the mother of the Messiah, Mary has been exalted above all Israel. She is the new queen mother. And I've got a whole. I'm sorry, back that up. Let me say it again, make sure it's clear. She's the new queen mother of the Kingdom of Christ. Right? Any first century Jew would have known that in ancient Israel the queen was not the king's wife, but the king's mother. And again, I have a whole chapter on that in Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary. If you want to look at the figure of the king mother for our purposes here, what's fascinating is there's direct allusions to the figure of Rachel, who's the moon in Genesis 37, and to the twelve tribes of Israel represented by the stars. And notice something else. What is the mother of the Messiah doing in Revelation 12, she's crying out in the anguish of giving birth. And that imagery of birth pangs, of excruciating birth pangs, is something also associated with the mother of Israel, namely with the figure of Rachel, because in the Old Testament, Rachel was famous for having died in childbirth through the pangs of birth. Now, and if you're wondering, wait, I thought Mary didn't have birth pangs. How does that work with Mary? Just check out my book, Jesus and the Jewish Fruits of Mary. I've got a whole chapter on the birth pangs and the birth of Jesus in that book, and I'll take you through it step by step and I'll explain it. For now, in a nutshell, though, what I'd like to suggest to you is, following the great work of Catholic biblical scholars like Andre Fouillet, is that what's being described here, this imagery of birth in Revelation chapter 12? Actually, if you go back to the Gospel, John is something that applies not primarily to the birth of Jesus, but rather to his death on the cross and to the sufferings undergone by Mary at the foot of the cross. So in order to see this, we got to turn to the third parallel between Rachel and Mary, and that's the crucifixion, when Mary becomes the mother of the beloved disciple. So In John, chapter 19, very famous passage here, 25 through 27, we read these words about Jesus. It says, standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. And when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own home. John 19:25 to 27. Okay, so what's going on here? First of all, why does Jesus give Mary to the beloved disciple to be his own mother? Right. Secondly, have you ever wondered, why does John refer to himself as the beloved disciple? I mean, isn't this a little conceited to say, hey, everybody, you know, just in case you're wondering, I'm the disciple whom Jesus loved. I was his favorite. I was the one he loved more than all the others. So I don't know if you ever wondered about that, but it's a puzzling statement. And scholars have long pondered, why does John refer to himself as the beloved disciple? And what I would suggest to you is that once again, the key is best. The most likely key is found in Jewish Scripture in the Old Testament. Because if you go back to the Old Testament, there is someone else who had the title of beloved. And guess who it was. It was the figure of Benjamin. It was the youngest of the twelve sons of Jacob. So for example, in Deuteronomy, chapter 33, verse 12, we read these of Benjamin. He said, the beloved of the Lord dwells in safety. The high God surrounds him all day long and dwells between his shoulders. That's Deuteronomy 33, verse 12. So this is one of these blessings in which each of the sons is being given like a title or some kind of name that identifies them. And Benjamin is called the beloved of the Lord. And I'm not the first person to see this. Other scholars have recognized the parallels here between Benjamin, the beloved of the twelve sons, and then John. The traditional identification of John, we can't get into the whole debate about that. The traditional identification of John the apostle as the beloved disciple, the one among the 12. And you can see the reason there's that interpretation is because he's one of the 12 at the last Supper, and he has this position of pride, of place. Now, with those parallels in mind, just look at the implications here for who Mary is. And we have an answer to one of the meanings of Jesus giving John to Mary to be her son and giving Mary to John to be his mother, right? So if you look, I've got a little chart here for you of the parallels between Old New Testament. So in the Old Testament, number one, Rachel is the suffering mother, right? In the New Testament, Mary is the suffering mother. In the Old Testament, number two, Joseph is the firstborn son of Rachel. And in the New Testament, Jesus is the firstborn son of Mary. Number three. In the Old Testament, Benjamin is the son of Rachel's sorrow. She gives birth to him in pain and suffering and death. In the New Testament, John, the beloved disciple, is the son of Mary's sorrow. Because how and when does John become Mary's son? It's not through natural childbirth. It's not through the pangs of natural childbirth. It's through the sorrow and the pain of the cross. It's through what Mary undergoes as she watches her own son, her firstborn son, Jesus, suffer and die in asphyxiation on the cross. And if you have any doubts about this connection between Mary's sorrow and the birth of John, where he becomes her son at the Last Supper, I mean, at the crucifixion, sorry, you can actually, in John 16, verse 21, Jesus compares his crucifixion to a woman's birth pangs. Listen to this. John 16, verse 21 quote. Actually, back up to verse 20. He's talking to the apostles at the Last Supper. He's warning them about the his death that's coming. And he says, truly, truly, I say to you, you'll weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. So he's talking about the cross here. He says, when a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Wow. So what does the hour refer to in John's Gospel? What's the passion and death of Christ? Right, but now he's describing this woman's hour who's going to give birth right through the pain of that hour. And after that hour, she'll have joy. Well, when you bring that back to the cross, what's happening? What is Mary's hour? It's the hour of the Passion. So how does Mary become the mother of the beloved disciple? Not by suffering the physical pains of childbirth, but by suffering the interior birth pangs of the crucifixion of Jesus. Just as Rachel dies in childbirth to give birth to Benjamin, the son of her sorrow, so too, think here about the Gospel of Luke, Simeon's oracle to Mary. A sword will pierce your own soul too, so too Mary suffers an interior martyrdom. She dies and suffers interiorly in order to give birth to the beloved disciple, to become the mother of the beloved disciple. Because as every mother knows, you don't become a mother apart from suffering. And the same thing is true of Mary, the mother of the the beloved disciple. All right, so in light of this, this is fascinating. I've got a quote here. This is from Jacob Neusner, a contemporary Jewish scholar who Pope Benedict actually quotes in one of his books. In light of all this, Neusner says these parallels. That is why I can find in Mary a Christian, a Catholic, Rachel. No wonder that when Rachel weeps godless, how hard then can it be for me to find in Mary that sympathetic special friend the Catholics have known for 2000 years? Not so hard at all. So, yes, if Rachel, then why not Mary? Wow. That's an amazing quote from a contemporary Jewish scholar. He recently passed away, but major figure in 20th century rabbinic scholarship. So in light of this, in short, there are sound reasons for thinking that the New Testament depicts Mary as the new Rachel Just as it depicts Jesus as a new Joseph. So in closing, then, what are some implications? Just a few quick points to think about and ponder. The first thing is this. If Mary is the new Rachel of the new Covenant, then she isn't just the mother of Jesus, and she isn't even just the mother of John the Apostle. She's also the mother of all Christians. And since ancient times, ancient Christian writers have recognized that when Jesus gives Mary to the beloved disciple to be his mother, he, in a certain sense, on a deeper level, gives her to all disciples to be their mother. For example, St. Ambrose of Milan, through whom we got St. Augustine, a very famous figure in the 4th century, said this. May Christ, from the height of the cross, say also to each of you, there is your mother. That's from Ambrose's commentary on Luke. So notice it's not just in the Middle Ages that Christians recognize that Mary is the spiritual mother of every single Christian and that Jesus was speaking to us when he said the words, behold your mother. Second, if Mary's the new Rachel, she's also the Mother of Sorrows, like Mary, has a particular connection to the sufferings of humanity, in particular the sufferings of the Church and of persecution Christians throughout the world. And again, it was a contemporary Jewish scholar, David Flusser, who said these beautiful words. Mary can be understood as a symbol for the Church and also for her own people. But one should never forget that this woman once walked the earth, this woman of sorrows. The Mater Dolorosa, which is Latin for Mother of Sorrows, is not a theological concept, but primarily a real person who was inspired by her joy and never defeated by her unspeakable pain. Wow. I love that statement from David Flusser, because it's so easy for us in the study of theology and the study of the various Marian dogmas, like the Immaculate Conception or the Bodily Assumption, to kind of forget that at the end of the day, Mary, like Rachel, Mary isn't a dogma. She isn't a doctrine. She's a person. She's a real person who understood, underwent, real sorrow and real suffering, sufferings that many of us can't even hardly imagine. The unique role that she's called to play in sharing in the sufferings of Christ, the fruit of her womb, and then the sufferings of all of the Church as she becomes the mother of the beloved disciple and of all Christians, is something that is powerful, palpable. And just like in Jewish tradition, Rachel wasn't regarded as dead. She was regarded as a living intercessor who suffered and sorrowed on behalf of her people. So too, Mary isn't a doctrine. She's a person who's alive. She's a living intercessor for the Church today. And that leads me to my final point. If Mary's the new Rachel, then it's fitting that the Church refer to her as the Mother of the Church, but also as a unique intercessor on behalf of the Church, especially in troubled times. Listen to these words of Vatican II from its document Lumen Gentium on the church. Paragraph 62 reads, the motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. By her maternal charity, she cares for the brethren of her Son who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led to their blessed home. So I love those words of Vatican ii, because what they show us is that like the people of Israel of old, but in, of course, in a special and a unique and a new way, those who are disciples of Jesus today, those who are brethren of the Son of God, who is also the Christ, have a maternal intercessor who did not stop acting as our mother when she finished her earthly journey on earth, when she fulfilled her earthly mission that God had given to her. But even after death and with her entry into the heavenly kingdom to sit beside her Son in the bodily assumption, she now continues, through charity, to care for all of the children of the Church who are still journeying on earth and suffering. And there is so much suffering and so much tribulation in our day, so many difficulties that people face, that it's important to remember that we're not alone, but that we have a mother in heaven who knows what it's like to suffer, who knows what it's like to experience the trials and the difficulties of this life, who knows what it's like to walk through this valley of tears and to be pierced with a sword interiorly, that we have a mother who prays for us, who watches over us, who is not unaware of what is happening to us, and who, in his dying words on the cross, this is the last thing, one of the last things Jesus says to his disciples is given to us to be our mother. So that when we hear the words that Jesus says to the beloved disciple, he's actually, and in a profoundly deep way, saying them to us. He's saying, behold your mother, Sam.