I’ve seen about 6 different posts recently from people knocking the “Mary, Did You Know?” Christmas song. The gist of the complaint, from what I can tell, is an assumption that the question is a slam against Mary for being ignorant of the calling and role of Christ, lack of spiritual depth, and generally a put down of women based on degrading views of women embraced and perpetuated by the patriarchy.
There’s some serious legitimacy to that frustration. It’s a common enough perspective, one that has been part of many religious dogmas for centuries. It’s part of the “wicked traditions of the father’s” teachings which have demanded that women remain ignorant in order to maintain innocence and purity. It’s a gross misreading of the scriptures and has led to millennia of abuses towards women.
Here’s an example: I remember tuning into a Sunday religious program on our local Christian radio station in the Midwest about 20 years ago and they were playing a dramatized story of Adam and Eve just as Eve is giving birth to Cain. They portrayed her as a brainless twit who had no concept of what was happening to her body, they brought in that “curious but clueless”, Pandora-esque portrayal of a woman who should be blamed for all our troubles, even though she was obviously too stupid to even understand childbirth. I find that perspective to be demeaning, insulting to God’s creation, and flat out wrong. (As an aside, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our view of Eve is that of tremendous love and respect for her choice to willingly sacrifice personal comfort in order to bring life into the world. She’s not condemned for screwing up paradise, she’s revered for her essential part in God’s plan of happiness.)
Back to the song.
What I’ve read in the frustrated comments about the song is that it’s insulting to ask the mother of the Son of God if she knew who her son was, as if all that information Gabriel gave her just passed through her brain like air in the space between her ears. And like I said, it’s a legitimate way to respond given the history of the relationship between mankind and women.
BUT…I don’t personally see it that way. I see the question in the same way “I” struggle with similar questions.
Do I know that my children were God’s long before they were mine?
Do I remember that God has a plan for them that is bigger than the plans I might have?
Do I remember, when I hold my children, that I’m holding the sons and daughters of God?
I imagine that Jesus was an infant and toddler just like any other. And based on the scriptures he was probably more inquisitive and less
concerned with social customs than most. I also imagine, based on scripture, that this frustrated and/or frightened his mother on a regular basis. Did this mean she didn’t know who He was? No, I don’t think it did. But I think, like all of the mother’s I know, that it made her question how she could live up to that calling. I think after a sleepless night of teething, after a frustrating day of dealing with making sure EVERY child in her home felt loved and important, after scrubbing the chamber pots, cooking the food, and cleaning the home where the Son of God grew up that she was as tired as every other mortal mother. I imagine that she too had to remind herself that it wasn’t all dirty nappies, dirty dishes, dirty floors, fingers, and faces. That somewhere in the mundaneness of it all, the work of God was still happening. That somewhere in her offering of home, food, learning, and love there was something that would come close to the divinity within him. That somehow in all her mortal weakness there would be something that would help him in the work he would someday perform.
I wonder, in my own heart, if she understood that it was HER qualities as a mortal being, subject to death and temptation, that gave the immortal Son of God the capacity to lay down His life so that he could exercise the inheritance of his Heavenly Father and take it up again. And I wonder if knowing that, as she wrapped His body in the shrouds of the grave, much as she’d swaddled his body in a stable, shattered her heart in that space between death and resurrection where faith is all that holds any of us together.
I am certain Mary knew who He was. But I’m even more certain that she forgot herself often. I think she forgot herself in service, in sacrifice, in grief, and in faith. I think she knew he was her salvation AND that he needed her strength. I think she knew that he would accomplish for her what she couldn’t do for herself AND that she would care for him after his death in the way he couldn’t care for himself in that space.
Yes, Mary knew. Mary also questioned. Mary also struggled to remember who she was to him and who he was to her at all times. So I don’t dislike the song. I think the questions serve a good purpose. Do we know who we are? Do we know who the people we love truly are? Do we remember who those we struggle to love are as well?
Mary knew, and I know, and I hope you will come to know as well: Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He lives and He loves us. May this Christmas find the joy of that knowledge secure in your heart.
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