What I Can Learn from Mary's Faithfulness to God's Cause
Although born-again Christians do not pray or venerate Mary as their spiritual mother but she's indeed someone who deserves honor. Honor doesn't mean you pray to the person or ask intercession from the person. Instead, this is all about giving proper respect by learning what Mary was as a Christian woman, as Jesus' earthly mother and a humble servant of God. I could see how Mary is a good example to me as a sister in Christ.
Here's what I read from Arthur W. Pink said in "The Seven Sayings of the Savior on the Cross":
Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother (John 19:25).
His disciples may desert Him, His friends may forsake Him, His nation may despise Him, but His mother stands there at the foot of His cross. Oh, who can fathom or analyze the mother-heart.
There she is: she does not crouch away, she does not faint, she does not even sink to the ground in her grief - she stands. Her action and attitude are unique. In all the annals of history of our race there is no parallel. What transcendent courage. She stood by the cross of Jesus - what marvellous fortitude. She represses her grief, and stands there silent. Was it not reverence for the Lord which kept her from disturbing his last moments?
Mary was there grieved but she stands firm because she knows that Jesus who is her earthly son was also her Creator and Lord. She understood her role as Jesus' earthly mother and His role as the Son of the Father. She can be commended for her faithfulness for standing by God's will even in the toughest of times. But I would dare believe that there is something more than just seeing her Son in the flesh that grieved her. She fully understood that Jesus though she was her son in the flesh but He was already there before her. She was faithful to the cause of Christ even to follow Him to the foot of the cross.
Here's some words that I remembered reading from an old edition of "Why I Believe" by Dennis James Kennedy from page 127:
The Virgin Birth is obviously something of a subjective nature - a very personal private matter - known ultimately only by Mary. Mary could have stopped the crucifixion. Very simply, she could have stopped the torture and the agony of her son's death on the cross. How? He was crucified for one reason: He claimed God was His Father.
If that were a lie, if Mary would have been unchaste, she wold have had to admit that she was immoral, but she could have stepped forward at any time and said, "Stop this horror! I'm ashamed! I confess! I will tell you who His real Father is." She could have destroyed His whole pretensions and saved Him from the cross.
No mother, to save her own reputation, would allow her son to be horribly mutilated and killed. Mary could have and would have stopped her son's horrible's death, as any mother would have, except that she knew who His Father was.
She knew Jesus' Father was God.
Mary knew there was something higher than her. As a child, Jesus learned obedience from his stepfather and mother. But as an adult, Mary understood why Jesus had to refuse her in public. She only gave her one command in John 2:5 to the people, "Do whatever He tells you to do." In contrast, that was no act of intercession between the people and Jesus. A proper reading of John 2:1-11 would tell us this fact that Mary wanted people to understand that they were to go to Jesus alone. She wanted people to understand that only Jesus saves. She did her job and now it was His turn to do His job. Mary is the mother of Jesus in His humanity but not in His divinity otherwise the worship goes from Trinity to Quartet.
She knew that Jesus' Father is God the Father. She knew all the pain was there but she let it happen because she knew it was the mission. She fully understood that Jesus was to die for the sins of man including her own. Her faithfulness can be seen that she was there even when her son in the flesh but Lord in His divinity was nailed to the cross. It certainly hurt her heart and the apostle John. John was soon tasked to take care of her as if she was his biological mother. She could have stopped the crucifixion but she knew that Jesus did the will of the Father. She let God's will be done even if it hurt her heart so much to see her Lord and her son in the flesh die for the sins of mankind.
I guess what hurt Mary more was not that she was Jesus' mother in the flesh but that the Son of God was to die for humanity's sins. She could have said within her that it should have been her. She could have remembered when she first said in Luke 1:47 that her soul rejoices in God her Savior. She acknowledged her need of a Savior and she's seeing the same Savior die for her. Now she's seeing God in the flesh dying for the sins of mankind. She may have thought it hard to believe that not only has the Son of God humbled Himself and became her obedient son but as her Lord that He would give His life for unworthy sinners. I could learn from her example that she didn't take God's mission lightly and that she cared less for what she felt and more for what God's will to be done. She even gave a sin offering in Luke 2:16-24. That alone should tell me that I should always be reminded that the changed life is by the grace of God.
Just because Mary is a good example to Christians, just because Jesus honored her and the apostles don't mean that prayer to them isn't idolatry. Roman Catholics may go ahead and say and that they are praying to Jesus through her but that isn't in the Bible. The only prayer that reaches God the Father is through God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Nowhere is the salvation message requiring people to pass through Mary. In fact, here's what the Bible says:
2 Timothy 2:4-6
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.