The Stories Mary Could Tell

Today's Advent 4 homily reflected on the Annunciation & Magnificat and traced Mary's arc in the Gospels. I found it so poignant to consider how the same Mary who offers her iconic "yes" to God later comes with Jesus' brothers to take Him home, because they all think He's lost His mind.

Colors by Brittany Richardson & pencils by Brian Gage

Mothers can testify that you do not forget the details of birthing a new human being into the world. I have to imagine that we only get an edited version of Mary’s recollections on the pages of the gospels, a few treasured details set alongside other mysterious & wonder-full moments of magi and shepherds and aged prophets in the temple.

Perhaps Mary spoke less about the traumatic times—the breath-stealing fleeing in the night or the panicked heart-stopping multi-day search for tween Jesus.

She herself witnessed His miraculous works beginning with her request at the wedding of Cana. She must have heard much of His teaching. Perhaps she'd even seen His baptism, marveling at the two cousins in the water with the kind of parental wonder that comes at seeing those you nursed as infants grow tall and broad.

I wonder if she and Elizabeth laughed about it later, recounting the long-ago joyful moments of prophecy and song, remembering the rolling movements of babies leaping in wombs and all the unreclaimable expectancy of pregnant mothers who cannot imagine the years ahead.

Mary treasured up so many things—so many moments of faith and unqualified yes and bearing witness—but still in Mark 3 we see her alongside her other sons, coming to bring Jesus home, intent on stopping the work she does not understand.

I find this to be mysterious and oddly hopeful.

Because once you've hiked some miles on the spiritual journey of faith, that first "yes" can seem so long-ago distant. Sometimes the confusion of the present moment—when what Jesus is doing seems mad and foolish and impossible to understand—can be unmooring.

Mary reminds me that I am in good company.

I can welcome Jesus as Advent closes and the light of Christmas dawns while perhaps also wondering at what it means to do so, bearing faith alongside disappointments and confusion mixed in with my underlying "yes."

Welcoming a personal relationship with a living God by necessity displaces the comfort of a static faith. Trusting in One who continues to dwell in and among people means reckoning with reality that He will do what He will, even when we'd rather He do something else.

We get little glimpses of Mary's story and we know she—the only human to be with Jesus from His birth to death—is there at the beginning, and also at the end and new beginning. She is there at the foot of the cross.

We last see her on the pages of Scripture with the apostles, in the upper room of Acts 1, as the followers of Jesus bear witness to a different birth story, that of the church. I love that Jesus' brothers are there, too, alongside all those who trekked that wild and wonderful path with Him. In a wry story-teller twist, they all, too, will be thought out of their minds on Pentecost Day.

Which is perhaps fitting, because a human mind cannot fully parse things beyond our conception, things like the mystery of God Himself birthed into our midst. If our minds could make sense of it, we might not need to see. And yet in Jesus, grace upon grace, God draws near to show us what He is like.

The Word becomes flesh & dwells among us.

We don't clearly see Mary again on the pages of Scripture, but we do see her continual witness in her recollection, her pondering of these treasured moments as told to the gospelers.

The one who remembered each word of the Magnificat also recalled how she thought Jesus had lost His mind. The one who told how she swaddled His infant body also recounted His words to her at the foot of the cross.

Mary had a lifetime of moments with Jesus stored up in her heart, but, then, I suppose, so will we.

Merry Christmas, friends.