Scripture Study for
The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God
Numbers 6:22–27 / Psalm 67:2 / Galatians 4:4–7 / Luke 2:16–21
<< Back to LECTIONARY RESOURCES
Understanding the Word
By Br. John R. Barker, OFM
A significant aspect of the priestly role in ancient Israel, as today, was to ask for God’s blessing for individuals and the entire community. In this passage from Numbers, God gives the priests a specific prayer of blessing to call down divine favor on Israel. Divine blessing is an all-encompassing concept, with material and spiritual aspects. It involves protection, fecundity, well-being, personal and social harmony—in a word, shalom. The holistic nature of the blessing is captured in a number of ways. To keep means to guard and protect, while to “shine his face upon you” means to have a generally favorable disposition. Graciousness implies the divine generosity, as does the notion of divine kindness.
In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul emphasizes both the divine and human origins of Christ, both of which bring blessing on those incorporated into Christ through baptism. Born of a woman, Jesus is fully human, sharing in our human condition and subject himself to the law. At the same time, as God’s Son, he has the power to save, which the law cannot do. This salvation is effected by making Christians the children of God by adoption, a legal and familial metaphor that means that they are heirs, along with Christ, to all of God’s promises. This selection features the work of (what would eventually be understood as) the Trinity: God the Father, who through the Spirit, brings Christians into “sonship” along with Christ.
The shepherds have been informed by the angels that the child born in Bethlehem, although poor and unknown, is in fact the Savior (Luke 2:8–15). Finding the child in a manger, they announce what they have heard to Mary and Joseph. While the onlookers are amazed that such a child could possibly be “Messiah and Lord,” Mary is unsurprised, and subsequently reflects on “these things.” The shepherds, among the first believers in this gospel, now go back out into the world to glorify and praise God for what has been done in Jesus.