University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

MARY

Luke 2:1-20

A Christmas Eve Meditation by Robert E. Dunham

University Presbyterian Church

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Christmas Eve  December 24, 2006

            She has acquired many names across the centuries: the Blessed Virgin… Mother of God… Queen of Heaven.  She has been the subject of poetry and song, of sculpture and paintings. She has been venerated by many and is at least a curiosity to many others. Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary, betrothed to Joseph.  Mary, an adolescent girl, whose life was turned upside down at the word of an angel.

Artists’ renderings of Mary have… reflected an immense range in interpretations. Early Christian art borrowed heavily from Greco-Roman portraiture to render Mary as Queen of Heaven. By contrast, for his pieta in St. Peter’s, Michelangelo shunned such ethereal realms and presented her as a vulnerable, grieving mother. Henry Ossawa Tanner, an African-American painter working at the turn of the twentieth century, saw Mary as a terrified girl retreating into the corner of a peasant cottage as she is confronted by an apparition of pure light and an annunciation that overturns her life. Mary graces with her beauty the most prestigious museums of the world as well as the candles and T-shirts of ubiquitous tourist traps.[1]

            So, who was she? Who was the one who was asked by God to bear God’s own son? Though volumes have been written across the years about her, the truth is, we don’t know much about her. Or… we know only bits and pieces.

            Professor Scot McKnight, in a recent article in a leading evangelical publication, argues that there are two Marys.

One wears a Carolina blue robe, exudes piety from a somber face, often holds her baby son in her arms, and barely makes eye contact with us. This is the familiar Blessed Virgin Mary, and she leads us to a Christmas celebration of quiet reflection.

Another Mary – the Blessed Valorous Mary – wears ordinary clothing and exudes hope from a confident face. This Mary utters poetry fit for a political rally, goes toe-to-toe with Herod the Great, musters her motherliness to reprimand her Messiah-son for dallying in the temple, follows her faith to ask him to address a flagging wine supply at a wedding, and then finds the feistiness to take her children to Capernaum to rescue Jesus from death threats. This Mary followed Jesus all the way to the Cross – not just as mother, but as disciple, even after his closest followers deserted him. She leads us to a Christmas marked by a yearning for justice and the courage to fight for it. Like other women of her time, she may have worn a robe and a veil, but I suspect her sleeves were rolled up and her veil askew more often than not.[2]

            Many folks, perhaps many of us here tonight, are more comfortable with the first Mary – the pious and somber one who leads us to a Christmas of quiet reflection. But across the years, my study of Scripture has drawn me closer to the second Mary – the Mary of courage and conviction and of bold good news.

            Nowhere does her voice ring more clearly than in the clarion song she sings soon after learning of God’s plan for her from the angel Gabriel. As soon as the angel leaves her, Mary heads for the home of her older relative Elizabeth to share her news, knowing that Elizabeth, too, by God’s grace, is expecting a special child.  It is a remarkable meeting, as one New Testament scholar notes, in that “One is old and has no children; the other is young and has no husband. But both are pregnant.”[3] Mary sings, and the song that Mary sings is explosive in its affirmation of what God is doing, in words once labeled by George Bernard Shaw as the “most revolutionary song ever sung.”

If we want to enter the world of the real Mary that first Christmas, listen once again to her song in the context of Herod the Great. Herod, we might recall, had assassinated members of his own family for anything that even smelled of treachery. That same Herod had taxed Israel – felt more by the poor than anyone else – beyond its means. Hear her words in that context. They are words of subversion, words that reveal why unjust rulers might worry over their public recitation, words that tell the first Christmas story [in bold relief]:

            His mercy extends to those who fear him,

from generation to generation [she sings].

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

but has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things

but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,

remembering to be merciful

to Abraham and his descendents forever… (Luke 1:50-55)[4]

            These, friends, are not words of quiet piety. They are the subversive strains of a world-shattering song, sung by a poor adolescent girl of humble means in the days of Herod the King. They may often be sung quietly during evening prayer, but I suspect they are meant to be sung “full throttle,” declaring that God’s justice ultimately will be established… that the Herods of this world one day will be dethroned, because Mary’s son… has gained a foothold in our world.[5]

            Such is the hope that was born at Christmas, the hope around which we gather once again this holy night. It is a hope first proclaimed by Mary – brave, bold, faithful Mary.  So it is no wonder that soon after she had given birth, when the shepherds descended upon that stable at Bethlehem to greet the Christ child and to share the good news that the angels had told to them, Mary did not speak. She did not need to speak, for she had already sung. That night she simply took it all in, keeping all these things, pondering them in her heart.

Good news of a great joy!  Indeed. Indeed.  And Mary said, “Let it be… according to your word.” Oh, yes. Let it be!