Who Was Mary?

Luke 1:26-38

 

        Have you ever heard a song and dismissed it to only later discover it was not the music but rather your lack of rhythm that caused the original rejection. Sometimes we think we hear the music but we fail to feel the poetry.

        Back in the mid 70’s a friend suggested I take Deb to see a young singer who was on her maiden tour. “You’ll love her. She used to sing for Graham Parsons.” So Deb and I spent big bucks to hear a couple of songs.  That’s all it took. With Deb in tow we headed for the exits.

        Thirteen years later Deb and I headed for San Angelo, Texas. Now for those of you who have never visited West Texas it swings to its own rhythm. While the temperature was a bit too hot, my family and I loved spending better than a decade embracing an enchanting culture quite different than my beloved South.

        A couple of years into our stay I was riding through the desert with a friend listening to the radio when a song called, “Waltzing Cross Texas” oozed through the dashboard. With a couple of years of Texas culture under my belt I found myself swaying to the hypnotic voice. “Do you know who is singing that song?”

My friend looked over in disbelief and said “You’re kidding? That’s Emmylou Harris.” 

        In disbelief I blurted out, “Emmylou Harris! I walked out of a concert of hers a few years ago.” 

In the great state of Texas, claiming dislike for Emmylou is akin to saying you don’t remember the Alamo. My friend just shook his head and turned up the volume.

        Sometimes we think we know everything when we really know nothing at all. In our infantile state we hear a song but never fully appreciate the blessing we received.

        During the Christmas Season, with the possible exception of Santa, no one gets more air time than Mary. The interesting thing is we all view her differently. Some see an obedient woman embracing her rightful place in God’s family. Others argue she was a strong woman who didn’t need a man in her life. Many of our Catholic friends exalt Mary as the Queen of Heaven. Our Orthodox friends adore her as the God-bearer. Hallmark Cards romanticizes her and the U.S. Postal Services puts her on Christmas Stamps. We intellectual Presbyterians argue over the significance of her virginity. Each, in our own way,adore Mary. But do we actually know who she was?

        Mark, our earliest gospel has no birth narrative and only mentions Mary once. The gospel of Matthew is more interested in Joseph. John only mentions Mary when Jesus turns the water into wine. Even in the gospel of Luke, Mary is only mentioned by name in the birth narratives. It is from this gospel that most of our stories and mythologies are born. So who might Luke have imagined Mary to have been?

        Luke begins by describing Mary as a virgin, betrothed to a man. In the Hebrews culture, girls celebrated their marriage at the age of 16. But the girl was betrothed, promised to a man, when she was 12 or 13. She lived with her parents until the wedding. So we know Luke’s Mary was a young girl between 12 to 15.

        Mary is greeted by the angel with the words, “Greetings, Favored One. The Lord is with you.” A more literal translation would be “Rejoice! You are full of God’s grace. The Lord is with you.” This is a standard greeting shared each Sabbath as people entered the synagogue.

        What is not ordinary was what Mary was told next.

        The Spirit will come upon you.

        The power of the most high will overshadow you.

        The child born will be called holy, the Son of God.

        Mary responded, “How can that be? I am not married.”

        For 2,ooo years our primary understanding of Mary begins and ends with the word VIRGIN.  In our minds this makes her extraordinarily different from the rest of us.

        But what if we view Mary as an ordinary child, with nondescript parents, in a little known village, of an obsolete country? Who would we see? In other words, before the 2,000 year old discussion declaring Mary to practically be God, what made her different from us?

        In a word, “Nothing.”

        One thing that we miss when casually reading the Bible is the authors believed God had remarkable sense of humor.

        Abraham and Sarah, the mother and father of the Hebrew Nation were in their 90’s when Isaac was born.

        Esau, the strong trustworthy hunter gets rejected in favor of his scheming little brother Jacob.

        Joseph, the mama’s favorite, gets thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his own brothers.

        God located Moses in the middle of the desert where he was wasting his life herding sheep.

        Need I continue? I challenge you to name one hero in the Old Testament who was born with a silver spoon in his or her mouth. Every one, in some way or the other was flawed or ordinary. And so was Mary. Oh yes, Mary was full of grace. But so was Sarah and Abraham; so was Isaac and Rebekah; so was Jacob and Rachel………. and so are you.

        The wonder of Christmas is not that Mary was a virgin. The wonder of Christmas is that God wants each of us to become pregnant and give birth to something divine.

Like Mary, we cry out, “How is that possible? I am so ordinary?” But the angel of the Lord continues to sing, “You are a child of God. You have always been blessed.”

I think the real miracle of Christmas begins when we not only hear the music but we sway to the rhythms. For so many years Christmas has been about Mary, Joseph, and the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. It is a miraculous story centering on our preconceived notion of the magnificence of Mary.  But what good is Christmas if only Mary is full of grace? It is sort of like hearing Emmylou with a tin ear rather than a longing heart.

You are filled with the ordinary and the holy. Each day the grace of God within you longs to expose new horizons and possibilities. So this Christmas, Waltz Across Bethlehem and be introduced to the rhythms of God’s melody.   Waltz Across Bethlehem and be reminded you too are full of grace.