Mary... Would You Do it Again?

There is a popular Christmas song called "Mary, Did You Know?" You might have heard it a few times... today. This Christmas season it seems to be following me everywhere: On the radio, on Pandora and Spotify, on TV, and in the stores and restaurants. There are some who enjoy it and some, like me, who find it less than appealing. However, whether you love the song or find it irritating, this year I've begun to wonder if it is asking all the wrong questions. The questions in the song seem to mirror a clean and sanitized Christmas story. In our social media obsessed and socially disconnected culture we have a tendency to see just the smiling faces and amazing moments on the screen and assume that is the whole of the story, that all of those other people's lives are shinny and happy. I think we have a tendency to do that with the stories we find in scripture as well.

As I've pondered this, my thoughts have turned to Mary and how little we actually know about her. In Luke chapter one we meet Mary as a young woman, betrothed to a man named Joseph. That is a lightly paraphrased version of her introduction. We can infer some things from its brevity or from what the angel says to her, but the one thing we know for certain is that she says yes to an unusual and frightening assignment. We usually skip over that part. Mary may not have had any expectation that anyone would believe her story. We are never told how most of her family, her kin, her friends, or the community responded to her suddenly turning up pregnant. We get a brief glimpse into Joseph's thinking and Elizabeth is overcome with joy. Everyone else? We can only imagine, and my mental imagining is pretty grim for how Mary's life changed.

The next scene we find Mary in (after visiting Elizabeth) is on her way to Bethlehem. Most of our cultural images depicting the events surrounding the birth of Jesus are clean and shiny. They have been polished for Christmas cards and children's pageants. However, the reality had to have been much darker, confusing, and difficult. These two young people had said yes to one of the most puzzling assignments God has ever given His people. There was no map, no precedent for this sort of journey. They were figuring it out one moment, one decision at a time.

Once we get past the birth narratives in the Gospel recordings, the story very quickly turns into a mother's nightmare: a mid-night flight to an enemy nation, leaving the child behind in a busy metropolis, watching the first-born wander, homeless, from town to town with a raggamuffin band of misfits, and, eventually, watching Him tortured and killed like a criminal. Maybe she knew more than I imagine she did, but during His life I wonder if her vision of Jesus' ministry every fully aligned with the reality of how His life played out?

This year as I think about Mary and the story behind the pages of scripture and our collective imaginations, I don't want to hear her answer to "Did you know?" I want to hear her speak to how she navigated the grief and the sorrow of living life with Jesus in real-time. How many nights did she cry herself to sleep? Did the way that He lived and the path He took make her ever doubt what the angel said to her? Did she ever lose hope? And at the end of it all I would want Mary to address the questions "Was it worth it all?" and "Knowing what you know now, would you do it all again?" My suspicion is that on crucifixion day and the two days that proceeded it, the answer may very well have been "Absolutely not!" even as she longed to hold on to hope.

It is easy to look at the words in Scripture and the words we use during the Christmas season and assume that life for the mother of Jesus was filled with joy and peace and hope. Those were likely present, but so were the usual human struggles of fear and doubt and sorrow. Scant few since Mary have the reassurance of an angel or the miraculous baby boy, but many are watching life play out very differently than they had envisioned. The world is still full of God's children in contradiction: holding steadfast to the promises of God while facing a life full of fear, pain, and uncertainty. There are many entering this Christmas season looking at the chaos without and within and wondering if it is all worth it. Many are struggling with grief and sorrow, with doubt and loss of hope. Many find themselves on dark days unsure of when the light will shine again. I wonder if Mary were among us and could answer the question she might reply “The journey with Jesus was turbulent. There were many times I didn't understand why. And the night He died! That was dark and hopeless. The days following felt like it had all been for naught, and that that, no, it had not been worth it." I wonder if at this point she would pause, a tear in her eye but smiling "But then everything changed; I saw Jesus again! It didn't make the pain, the sorrow, the trials, and hardships any less real. It didn't change the journey or the darkness; He just redefined it.”

No matter where you find yourself this Christmas season, no matter if your social media posts match your reality, or if your reality matches the vision you had for life, whether your days are filled with sorrow, joy, fear, or hope, please know you are in good company with all of God's children across all of time. This season, no matter where you are in this journey, may you see Jesus' face again and know, no matter the circumstances, that journeying with Him is always worth it.