Honored Read online

  © 2003 by Roberta Kells Dorr

  Published by Fleming H. Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Data Dorr, Roberta Kells.

  eISBN 978-1-4412-3938-9

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  For my husband,

  Dr. David C. Dorr, S.A.C.S.,

  who like Luke was a physician.

  He believed strongly enough

  in the good news of the gospel

  to give seventeen years of his life

  to medical missions in the Middle East.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter

  A Word from the Author

  About the Author

  Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

  Proverbs 31:29–30

  stood on the deck of the small sailing vessel and looked down at my dear friend Theophilus on the dock. He had warned me against making this trip. “Those people are unfriendly,” he’d said. “We’re Greeks—they don’t like us. Here, you’re a physician with a popular clinic helping many people. What possible good can you do there?”

  He knew that for a long time I had been eager to catch every bit of news from Jerusalem that told of a healer and prophet whose name was Jesus. Theophilus had scoffed at the very idea that these stories might be true.

  “They’re just fables told by poor peasants,” he’d said. “Who would take seriously a story of angels appearing or a virgin giving birth? And didn’t you tell me you’d heard about miraculous healings and even water turned to wine at a wedding?”

  Before I knew it I had challenged him by insisting that I would travel to Jerusalem to discover the truth. Many of the people who had known this man, Jesus, were still alive, and I was determined to make every effort to find them. Theophilus was appalled that I had taken all of this so seriously.

  As the ship pulled away from the dock and the figure of Theophilus grew smaller and smaller, I began to have second thoughts about my quest. What if I found it was all an invented story? What if I was viewed as an intruder with no right to be asking questions? I wanted, above all else, to see the mother of Jesus. I wanted to ask her about the angels and the strange story that she was still a virgin when she conceived this child. I, a physician, couldn’t imagine such a thing.

  The ship stopped at a port on the island of Cyprus and then sailed on down the coast of Palestine until it came to the port of Joppa. Here, to my surprise, two young men were waiting for me. One was dressed quite casually in a robe tied at the waist with a piece of hemp and sandals made of coarse leather. He had a thick beard and wore a head cloth wrapped carelessly around his head. He came forward, saying, “You must be Luke.”

  The other man was younger and had a friendly, almost shy demeanor. “I’m John,” he said, “and this is Peter.”

  I didn’t know what to say. They spoke rather clumsy Greek. I felt uncomfortable and even a bit foolish. They obviously were not scholars. Theophilus would have enjoyed the scene. He would have pointed out that I, an educated, sophisticated Greek, couldn’t possibly have much in common with these men. I did have a moment of indecision when I even contemplated getting right back on the ship and returning to Antioch and my familiar world. But just then John pointed out that the ship had hoisted its sails and was moving away from shore.

  “Come,” Peter said, “we’ll spend the night with my friend Simon the tanner, and then tomorrow we’ll go to Jerusalem.”

  I immediately forgot about the ship and remembered why I had come. “Will the mother of your master see me?”

  “Of course,” John answered. “She is pleased that someone wants to hear her story. There have been many who want to know about her son, but they don’t think to ask her.”

  So I went with them to the house of this tanner of Joppa. I remember little of the conversation or the food I was served, since I was preoccupied with the questions I would ask this woman who was the mother of the man known, even in Antioch, as Jesus of Nazareth.

  Two days later John took me to the house of Jesus’ mother, Mary, in Jerusalem. It was near the pool of Bethesda on the north side of the temple area. He knocked at an ancient door set in a stone wall that opened into a courtyard. It was some minutes before the door was opened by a young serving maid. She smiled shyly as John told her, “The Greek physician is here to speak with your mistress.”

  She motioned for us to come in, and John led me over to a couch beneath a massive grape arbor. I sat down on one of the mats and leaned on the armrest as I studied the pleasant, rather homey courtyard. There were banks of flowers growing in wild abandon in one large plot beneath an ancient almond tree. Near the couch was a smaller plot of herbs that gave off a fresh, even invigorating, fragrance. From somewhere beyond the open door that led into the living quarters, there came the sound of singing.

  John motioned for me to stay where I was and then hurried through the door toward the source of the singing. I was surprised that the song was a rather simple, playful tune one would sing to a child. Abruptly the singing stopped, and a moment later a woman appeared at the door, carrying a birdcage with a small songbird inside.

  “You must be Luke, the Greek physician,” the woman said, smiling as she set down the birdcage and grasped one of my hands in her two outstretched hands.

  “And you must be the mother of the man I have come to admire so much.”

  “Yes, I have the honor of being his mother,” she said.

  I noticed that she hadn’t said, “I had the honor,” as most would have said, but, “I have the honor,” as though she were still his mother.

  She motioned for me to sit down again and then reached for a large cushion and sat down across from me. As she adjusted her blue mantle, I noticed that her dark hair had streaks of gray. She was not young, but neither did she seem old. There were smile lines around her eyes and a gentleness about her that made me feel comfortable in her presence. And for just a moment a look of infinite patience—or perhaps sorrow—crossed her lovely face.

  “You have come a long way,” she said. “I think they said from Antioch.”

  I nodded, and for a moment I was so caught up in the excitement of actually sitting across from her that I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was terribly frustrated. I had come so far with so many questions, and now I couldn’t think of any of them.

  “Even in Antioch you have heard of my son?” she asked with a touch of wonder in her voice.

  “Yes, there are many stories, but no one knows what is true and what has been exaggerated.”

  “I understand.”

  For a few moments she sat quietly and then changed the subject as she looked down at the birdcage. “I suppose you heard me singing that silly little song. The bird likes the song and joins in enthusiastically. It is the song one sings to a small child. I used to sing it to my son when he was a little boy, and he would clap with happiness.”

  For a moment we both sat quietly, she with an air of contentment and I with growing frustration as I tried to form a question. Finally I broke the silence.

  “I h
ave heard that an angel appeared to you in Nazareth.”

  “Does that seem strange to you?” Her gaze was steady but puzzled.

  “Very strange.”

  “It seems less strange to me now than it did when he appeared beside the well in our garden. After all that has happened, all the miraculous things that have happened, how could it have been otherwise? The prince of heaven, the Messiah, was coming, so it is not strange that Gabriel himself would make the announcement.”

  “Gabriel?” I asked.

  “Yes. He said he was the angel who stood continually in the presence of God.”

  “Could you see him?”

  “Oh yes.” She clasped her hands and spoke with enthusiasm. “It was wonderful. He was strong and powerful, surrounded by a great light. There was a fragrance like flowers in the air and a sound of many harps.”

  “Were you afraid?”

  “Not really afraid, just in awe,” she said, speaking slowly and deliberately now. “There was such love—you can’t imagine. I felt love, almost unbearable love, for me. I couldn’t understand it.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Then he said my name. He knew me. ‘Fear not, Mary,’ he said. ‘You have found favor with God.’ ”

  “Did he bring some message?”

  “Yes, of course. He said I would conceive in my womb a son, and I should call his name Jesus.” Her hands flew to her stomach, and she paused before speaking again. “He said many other things that I didn’t understand then. I did ask him one question. I was betrothed to a man named Joseph, but I had not been with any man. So I asked him how I could have a son.”

  “And what did he tell you?” I leaned forward and waited for her answer.

  “He said it would be of the Holy Spirit that I would conceive, and the child would be called ‘the Son of God.’ ”

  I was stunned into silence. There was no doubt in my mind that she had seen an angel—but that the angel had told her she was to conceive without a husband, and that the child would be called “the Son of God”? This was very difficult for my analytical Greek mind to comprehend.

  “I know you must find this difficult to believe,” she said, as if sensing my skepticism. “I understand. I myself found it almost impossible to believe. If it hadn’t been for what the angel told me after that, I suppose it would have been even harder.”

  “What could he possibly have said that made this easier to understand?”

  “He told me that my aged cousin Elizabeth, who had never been able to conceive a child, was already six months pregnant. I must have looked astonished, because he added, ‘With God nothing shall be impossible.’ ”

  We both sat very still thinking about the strangeness of it all. I could see that this was all as fresh in her mind as though it had happened the day before.

  “Then did he leave?” I asked.

  “No. He waited for an answer from me.”

  “What could you possibly say?”

  “You must understand; all of us had been praying, pleading, crying out to God to deliver us from the oppression of the Romans. Herod was bent on killing anyone who opposed him—especially those like my family, who were of the house of David. ‘O Lord God,’ we prayed, ‘send your holy Messiah to rescue us.’ ” She spoke with great animation. “None of us ever thought about how he would come. I suppose we thought he would come like Gabriel had come. But that was not what God had in mind.”

  Even in Antioch I had heard of the hope for the coming of a messiah. “Do all of your people believe a messiah will come?”

  “It has been prophesied since the very beginning.” She adjusted her mantle with a strong, sure movement.

  “How strange.”

  “We believe . . .” She hesitated and studied my face as though remembering I was a Greek, “. . . that in the beginning, our God gave a curse and a promise. The curse was because of evil and deception, and the promise was for blessing.”

  “And this blessing . . .”

  “Eve, our first mother, was deceived and had to be punished. At the same time, God gave her a promise that through her seed the deceiver would be crushed. The one who was promised we call the Messiah, the Anointed One, a Savior.” She glanced at me with a questioning look as if checking to see if I understood.

  “And Gabriel came to tell you that you were to be the mother of this Promised One?”

  “He told me I was to bear a son who would be called the ‘Son of the Highest.’ His name was to be Jesus, which means ‘savior.’ ”

  “He gave you a chance to refuse?” I leaned forward, determined to understand.

  “Yes. I didn’t have to accept. But with tears of joy running down my face, I answered, ‘Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be unto me according to all you have spoken.’ And he disappeared from my sight.”

  “How could you accept so willingly? Did you realize the problems this would cause when you tried to explain to your parents how you had become pregnant?”

  “Of course, I had no idea of the problems. I was so excited that at last the Messiah was coming and that I had been chosen and had been found worthy of this trust. I thought everyone would rejoice with me. Our prayers were about to be answered.” She smiled, a lovely, wistful smile.

  “And then, of course, there were problems.”

  “Oh yes. My parents explained to me that very few would believe my story. I could be stoned as a harlot. Joseph would find it hard to believe and probably wouldn’t marry me. I could see right away that they doubted my story. My mother paced the floor crying, and my father couldn’t even look at me but began to moan and clutch his heart as though he were dying. ‘I must go tell Joseph this bad news immediately,’ he said.”

  “And Joseph? What did he say?”

  She didn’t answer right away but worked a fold into the edge of her mantle. “In the end, my father couldn’t bring himself to go to Joseph. ‘Let’s wait,’ he said. ‘We’ll think of something.’ ”

  “Was there no way you could convince them of the truth?”

  She took a deep breath and then said, “Finally I remembered what the angel had said about my cousin Elizabeth. She was old and had been barren all her life, but he said she had conceived. I begged them to let me go visit her and see if what the angel had told me was true. My father agreed to take me. ‘Whether it is true or not, Mary will be spared the prying eyes of the village,’ he said. ‘And that way we won’t have to tell Joseph right away.’ ”

  “So no one believed you?”

  “No one—until I came to the house of my cousin. Gabriel had visited her husband and told him that his wife was going to have a child and that they were to name him John. He was in the temple at the time, officiating at the altar of incense. He didn’t believe such a thing was possible, and Gabriel told him he wouldn’t speak until the baby was born. We could see that my cousin was pregnant and that her husband couldn’t speak.”

  “Did that convince your father?”

  “Yes, but it was still hard for him to believe, and he kept saying that he couldn’t understand it.” She looked down and pressed a knuckle to her trembling lips. “Of course, he had been with the devout men who had pleaded, begged, and cried out to God to send a deliverer, a messiah, but he had imagined his coming in a very different way. Finally, in utter confusion, he decided that I should stay with my cousin until her child was born. ‘She will need help,’ he said, and I knew he still couldn’t face the people of Nazareth, who would never understand.”

  “But you did go back to Nazareth?”

  “Yes. My father came to get me when the six months of my cousin’s confinement were up. The child had been born and named John, just as the angel had instructed.”

  “Were all the problems solved then?”

  “Oh no.” She hesitated. “Everything was worse. My father looked at me and saw that I was great with child, and tears of frustration came to his eyes. My cousin tried to talk to him, and her husband made an effort to encourage him, but it wa
s useless. ‘We will have to tell Joseph,’ he said as he guided me out of the house and headed down the road that led back to Nazareth.

  “As soon as we reached home, my mother burst into tears at the sight of me. When my father tried to explain, she became almost hysterical. ‘Who will believe such a thing?’ she cried. ‘We will be the butt of every joke and the laughingstock of the entire village. And if it proves to be of God, can’t he see we’ve suffered enough? How cruel.’ Then my mother flung her mantle over her face and wept bitterly.” For a moment Mary could not go on.

  “My father must have seen that I was experiencing a terrible shock. He led me out into the garden so I would not hear my mother crying. ‘It will be all right,’ he kept saying nervously.” She turned her head away so I would not see her tears.

  “He went back into the room to talk to my mother. They must have decided that he should go right away to explain everything to Joseph. This was even more disturbing to me.”

  “You couldn’t trust Joseph’s love?” I asked after a brief pause.

  “You must understand our customs. I had never even seen Joseph except at a distance, and of course, I had never talked to him. I knew his mother and his sister well, and that was as it should be in Nazareth. He had been picked for me because he was of the same background as my family, the house of King David.

  “At the betrothal I was wearing a veil. Until the marriage, no man, not even the groom, was to see me. It was a simple ceremony. Our fathers signed an agreement, and some baked goods were passed with our best grape wine. My father knew the men of the family well and was impressed with Joseph. He was a scholar but practiced carpentry to earn a living. This was a custom of our people. All fathers wanted their sons to be scholars, but life was uncertain and so they wisely had them also learn a trade.”

  “I can understand why all of this was so difficult for your family,” I said. “They had made a good match for you, and now everything would be spoiled. Did your father curse his God for making all this trouble?”

  “No.” She shook her head so forcefully that her mantle fell back on her shoulders. “That would never have been the way of my father. He simply decided that he must go immediately to tell Joseph.”