Where is Mary in the Bible?

[Music] welcome back i'm scott hahn founder and president of the saint paul center and we're going to spend some time in sacred scripture today i'd like to look at the blessed virgin mary and apply what we have been discussing about the relationship between the old and the new testament as saint augustine said the new is concealed in the old and the old is revealed and fulfilled in the new how does that work especially with regard to the blessed virgin mary because if i had any one problem with the catholic faith when i was an evangelical bible-believing christian it was mary mary she seemed quite contrary to everything i found in the bible when i would ask my catholic friends show me a text that proves her immaculate conception show me a text that demonstrates her body assumption of course they didn't know the bible well enough they couldn't show me a text what i had to learn the hard way was you know whenever you go into the bible looking for a proof text that is taking a text out of context and using it as a proof text as one of my professors said that is a pretext so what do you do you read the bible in context what is the context the whole bible well what is the whole bible the old and the new so how do we discover the truth about jesus we spent another episode looking at how jesus is deliberately presented by the four evangelists as a new moses who brings about a new exodus with a new covenant and the new law of the new covenant but what i didn't realize even when i was reading the early church fathers and discovering the riches of scripture was that this applies also to the blessed virgin mary and that this is why you don't go looking for a proof text and wrenching it out of context and using it as a kind of pretext no what you do is you read the bible in context and you discover that jesus was foreshadowed back in the beginning and what you'll see in john 1 and 2 on a later episode is how john deliberately presents jesus as a new adam and then by the time you get to john chapter 2 you'll see that the blessed virgin mary is presented as a new eve so just as in the beginning there wasn't just one man there was a man and a woman and they were the married couple that gave us the old covenant so there's a new adam and a new eve who usher in a new covenant that is a kind of mystical marriage unlike anything else we'd ever seen in history before but what i'd like to look at now is the exodus as the main event that god did through a man named moses by the power of the holy spirit but just as god didn't do it through adam alone so god didn't do it through moses alone there were other humans but there was also something else that wasn't a human person that was the proof of god's real presence in the midst of his people and what was that the ark of the covenant and what was the ark of the covenant well it's the climax of the book of exodus the final chapter exodus 40 shows us how the glory of god came down upon the tabernacle and overshadowed the ark of the covenant and then of course when israel followed the lord through the wilderness it was always the ark of the covenant that led the way even after moses died and joshua took over it was the ark of the covenant that joshua had brought down to the bank of the river jordan and then what happened the river jordan did for joshua what the red sea had done for moses the ark of the covenant was the proof of god's presence his real presence in the midst of israel and when they tackled jericho the first major stronghold that stood in the way of them taking their ancestral inheritance how do they do it the air force then the artillery then the infantry no it was the levites caring you got it the ark of the covenant and so the ark of the covenant was the proof that the battle is the lord's and so the victory will be achieved not by physical weapons but by spiritual warfare and so often it was the ark of the covenant that was remembered or not because when it was forgotten by these proud israelites they were often defeated and humiliated and so the conquest of the promised land that should have taken maybe a generation or two at the most took centuries and when it was finally finished it was finished by a man after god's own heart and who is that king david and how did he do it by rediscovering the ark of the covenant which had gone missing we read all about it in second samuel 6 and i began to discover certain parallels between the account of the ark of the covenant as discovered by david in second samuel 6 and luke's description of the birth of jesus from the virgin mary in the gospel of luke chapters one and two let me just share a few maybe a a half a dozen of these parallels because this is what led me to discover that it was actually the evangelist intention for us to see that the blessed virgin mary is none other than the ark of the new covenant the proof of god's presence here in our midst the first significant parallel that i noticed is that in luke chapter 1 verse 35 we read about how the holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you we've all heard that before but having studied greek i recognize that that word for over shadow episkiod zane is scarcely used in the old testament and even more rare in the new but where you find it is highly significant because in exodus 40 at the climax of the book what do you see god's glory coming down upon the tabernacle and the glory of the lord the spirit of god overshadowing the ark of the covenant the ark of the old covenant and why because that was the sign of god's real presence in the midst of his people well why well it was made of acacia wood for permanence and durability but it was covered with gold kind of symbolizing how mary's humanity is strong but she's overlaid with the divinity of her son her creator you also see that inside the ark was what the word of god in stone the ten commandments were stored inside of there and within the blessed virgin mary what you have the word not in stone but the word made flesh you also have the manna contained in the ark of the old covenant and what do you have in the sacred womb of the blessed virgin the new manna jesus describes himself in john 6 as the true bread of life as the true and the new man so if it was true in the old it's not less true in the new it's even more and so in luke 1 35 the spirit of god is overshadowing the blessed virgin mary in a way that luke wants us to take notice of because that implies what she's kind of like the ark of the covenant but not less more and as you continue reading in luke 1 verse 39 you hear about how mary arose and went into the judean hill country you go back to second samuel chapter 6 and where did david go to find the ark of the covenant which had gone missing for so long he went to the judean hill country the same exact region outside of jerusalem where the blessed virgin mary found her kinswoman elizabeth so geographically it's the same locale as you continue reading in luke 1 43 you hear upon mary's arrival elizabeth is filled with such a sense of awe that she says why is this granted to me that the mother of my lord should come to me when david finds the ark of the covenant in the judean hill country what does he say he basically says who am i that the ark of the lord should come to me whoa and then again you find in luke 1 verse 45 elizabeth pronounces a blessing upon the blessed virgin just like david pronounces a blessing upon the lord for having led him to the ark of the covenant you also see in luke 1 4 luke 1 44 and 45 that the joyful response of elizabeth is matched by john the baptist who does what he leaps for joy in utero you go back to second samuel chapter six and what does david do after blessing the lord having found the ark of the covenant which had been missing for so long here in the judean hill country he begins leaping and dancing for joy as he leads the people of god in song the blessed virgin mary responds to god's grace with song just like david does with his musical song and dance and the thing that really clinched it for me was how long is the ark of the covenant there in the judean hill country it's there for exactly three months how long was the blessed virgin mary with elizabeth her kinswoman there in the judean hill country for three months i mean it's down to the nitty-gritty down to the details luke is sort of nodding at us and winking saying i hope you're picking up on the fact that you have a new exodus you have a new covenant you have a new moses but guess what you also have the ark of the new covenant later on perhaps i will take you on another trip into the book of revelation where we see at the end of chapter 11 something that hadn't been seen for centuries and what is it john the visionary describes how the ark of the covenant is spotted up in the heavenly jerusalem now so what well i'll explain this a little more later on but you remember that the ark of the covenant had gone missing for centuries and it wasn't found until well harrison ford found it in raiders of the lost ark not exactly it's never been found but what john is describing in revelation is what luke is describing in chapters one and two and that's not the ark of the old covenant but the ark of the new covenant because stay tuned the next thing that john goes on to describe after having announced that he saw the ark of the covenant is a woman clothed with the sun the moon under her feet crowned with 12 stars giving birth to the messiah just as she does in luke 1 and 2. so thank you for joining for this little study of how typology is applied to the bible how the new is concealed in the old and how the old is revealed and fulfilled in the new and how the blessed virgin mary is the ark of the new covenant the sign of god's real presence back in the first century and guess what in the 21st century every bit as much then and there and here and now in your life and in mine so go to her and ask her to prove her motherly love because through the power of the spirit she wishes to overshadow each and every one of us god bless you thanks for watching i really appreciate it be sure to hit the like button and then hit the notification bell and subscribe to our youtube channel you'll love it you

Channel: St. Paul Center

Views: 43,450

Rating: 4.9316339 out of 5

Keywords: scott hahn, catholicism, roman catholic, eucharist, sacraments, saints, blessed virgin mary, saint joseph, our lady of guadalupe, pope john paul II, rosary, our lady of the rosary, jesus christ, pope benedict xvi, our lady of fatima, miracles, baptism, priest, priesthood, curtis mitch, eternal, roman catholicism, pope francis, bible study, sacred scripture

Id: qkU016FDSng

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 24 2020