I agree. It is fitting that iSHaH (Hebrew: woman, lit. from man) who was taken from the first AaDaM ("bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh"), and who was deceived by the evil one, and by whom the first man fell, should be that from whom the second man was taken (flesh of her flesh) who crushes the reign of the evil one, and thereby makes righteous the second AaDaM. In that way she who was the instrument of Satan by which AaDaM lost righteousness is she who is the instrument of God by which Satan is crushed and the righteousness of AaDaM is restored.
If God had taken Mary's rib, Jesus would not have been her seed, her son. (Eve was not Adam's daughter.) God took Mary's seed, for only in that way could she be truly His natural mother. In taking her seed to Himself in the hypostatic union, He truly became her seed. Did Moses know that women have eggs? Probably not. But these are God-inspired words, and they have layers of meaning. The most obvious meaning is the offspring of the woman, particularly Christ. But deeper still, that offspring includes all those in Christ, including you and I. There is enmity between us on the one hand, and those on the other hand whom Jesus described as having the devil as their father (John 8:44).
It is true that we should not think that "seed of the woman" means "ovum of the woman". But, "seed of the woman" implies something about the relation between the woman and the offspring to whom it refers, namely, that this offspring is generated from her natural reproductive system, just as a certain kind of seed comes from a plant, and as a certain kind of seed comes from a man's reproductive system. Seed is the natural product of living organisms; it develops naturally and organically from our bodies. And so it was with Christ -- the Logos is the Son of the Father but also the true seed of the woman. The child conceived in her womb was truly and genuinely her seed, not only flesh of her flesh (as Eve was of Adam), but "fruit" of her womb [and don't take 'womb' in some scientific sense as equivalent to "uterus alone"]. The term 'fruit' and the Genesis term 'seed' fit together. Jesus is not the fruit of Mary's womb in the sense of mere incubator, mere surrogate, or like the fruit of a branch *grafted* onto a tree. He is truly and genuinely her seed, the actual fruit of her body. This taking of Christ out of Mary is parallel to Eve being taken out of Adam. And although we shouldn't force the two events to be the same in all respects, Christ's human nature is no less derived from Mary than Eve's human nature was derived from Adam.
Adam being the source of Eve was the basis for a hierarchical relation between them. But Mary is the mother of Jesus, and, in a certain respect, that makes Jesus subject to Mary. In another respect, of course, Jesus is God, and Mary is on that basis subject to Him, she being created by Him (in a very figurative sense, being 'taken out of Him', as Wisdom brings forth its treasures). But Mary's being subject to Jesus as her Creator does not cancel out or nullify Jesus's being subject to Mary as His mother. The two relations, each a hierarchical inversion of the other, remain juxtaposed eternally, in beauty and in love.
FRiends, I am praying fervently for the reunion of all Christians, as Jesus prayed in John 17, "that they may be one, even as Thou Father, art in Me, and I in Thee". This morning as we sang the seventh verse of "Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel", I got chocked up, and I couldn't sing it.
Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Oh, bid our sad divisions cease,
And be Yourself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!
May Emmanuel come and heal our divisions and make us one in Christ. When we are one, then, Christ tells us, the world will know that the Father sent His Son, and that He loves us. Christ is coming again. Tonight we look back to His first coming, and forward to His second coming. But may we be *one* when He comes again. FRiends, pray with me tonight that all our sad divisions cease. And let us work untiringly to remove and heal those divisions.
-A8
Thank you for those thoughts on Mary's mysterious, luminous motherhood. To me, all these beautiful doctrines together ere like a Rubik's cube of beauty and meaning.
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.
If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing
Or all of God's Angels in heaven for to sing
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky