If there was a prize for the most misunderstood doctrine in the church, the immaculate conception of Mary might win it. The immaculate conception is not about the virginity of Mary, nor about the conception or birth of Jesus.
It begins with God choosing to get involved in the world in the most radical way possible, by becoming a human being, by being born in a particular time, place and culture. To achieve this, God chose one woman out of many to be the mother of his son.
To communicate with us, God could have sent a book, a system of ideas, a philosophy, a morality, an organization, a political system, or many other things. Instead, God chose to come among us by becoming a person – in Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of God, God with a human face, the one who literally brings God down to earth for us. Jesus is God’s answer to the human question, “What’s God like?” Jesus is ‘the image of the invisible God.’ (Colossians 1.15)
To underline the reality of his humanity, Jesus was born of a woman, as all people are. God chose to make that a matter of the woman’s free consent. God chose Mary for the unique role of being the mother of his son. She was asked for her consent, and she gave it. She did not understand what it meant, but she trusted. She said, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord; let what you have said be done to me.’ (Luke 1.38) In effect, Mary said, “Whatever God wants, I want.”
That summarized her attitude towards God. She put God first in all things. She gave herself to God as fully as possible, and, from the moment of her free consent, Jesus the son of God began to be present in her womb. Mary was a self-giving person, who did not hold back anything for herself. In that, she is a role model for Christians, the model of received salvation. That quality was itself a gift of God’s grace, a gift of God who said to her through the angel, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’(Luke 1.28)
In a unique way which fully respected her freedom, Mary was chosen by God from the beginning of her existence, that is, from the moment when she was conceived in her mother’s womb through the natural union of her parents. Because she was to become the mother of the Son of God, she was preserved by God from all sin. It was possible; it was appropriate; God did it. From there on, she was God-centred, without self-seeking. That means she was a whole and complete human being, an integrated person. With her, what you saw was what you got; she was true to herself. It doesn’t mean she was perfect – only God is – it means she was fully what God meant her to be.
If we met her, I think we would feel we were in the presence of someone who was fully real, with no pretence, no hiding behind an image or a front, no PR. We would have the sense that she was fully herself, and that this was how God means everyone to be. Mary is an example at the individual level of what the world would be like if it was as open to God as she was.
Supplementary material on the Immaculate Conception
‘Jesus grew in wisdom and knowledge.’ (Luke 2.52) Not Mary?
‘We have admired his goodness in that, for love of us, he [Jesus] has not refused to descend to such a low position as to bear all that belongs to our race, included in which is ignorance’. (Saint Cyril of Alexandria, PG 75.369; cited by Raymond E. Brown SS, Jesus, God and Man: Modern Biblical Reflections, Chapman, London, 1968, p.102.)