Mary, Mother of God

May 8, 1988

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We haven’t done right by her, we Protestants. We really haven’t. We haven’t treated her fairly. As a matter of fact, we haven’t done much with her at all. We’ve never claimed her as one of our own. She belongs, we think, over there, in the other camp, in the Roman Catholic division of the Church, where they do honor and respect her, where, indeed, some virtually worship her.

They come pretty close to it in Latin America, certainly, and in parts of Italy and Spain....You’ve seen it if you’ve visited there...in her chaste, blue gown, and halo, and prim, pure countenance, she is adored almost as a co-redemptrix with her Son. She’s the one who is approachable, tender, accessible....the one who intercedes when you have trouble, the special friend of sinners....

In the somber, brutal Good Friday observances across Latin America, Mary plays as large a role as Jesus Himself.

Now that’s not good Roman Catholic teaching, I hasten to add. Let’s be fair. It’s a distortion which the Church rightly repudiates, but it’s hard to kill. It continues to be the popular belief in many parts of the world.

We’ve backed away from that excess, we Protestants, and maybe we’ve backed away too far. In our REACTION to an extreme, we’ve had difficulty even seeing Mary as a real person. For most of us, she’s more a wooden figure than an actual personality, more a caricature than a human being.... She’s more like Snow White than Golda Meir.[1]

She comes across for most of us, I suspect, as a cardboard, beautiful, but strangely remote figure in the Christmas drama...just one more player in that group of long-ago actors who gathered in serenity around the creche.

We see her in place, kneeling, on stage at the birth---We don’t even read the 1st Chapter of Luke---

We see her again, weeping, in anguish at the Crucifixion...and in one or two other brief cameo scenes in between; but our tradition has tended to push her into the background.

WE’VE BOTH REALLY DISTORTED HER, it would seem...Catholics by over-idealizing her, Protestants by ignoring her.

We’ve both failed to do justice to her as a human being, as a person. She was not perfect, which may be the most important part of the story, but she was a very special woman, a woman with special gifts and graces.

She was a woman, who, like her Son, grew in wisdom and stature as she struggled with God’s call and will in her uniquely positioned life.

There’s a great story here that ought not to be lost on Protestants, a great story in its own right, and also for what it can help us see of Jesus through her. After all, in some ways, she had the most complete vantage point of anybody, the best seat in the house. Mary was the one person, humanly speaking, who spent more time, more clock and calendar time with Jesus while he was on earth, than any other person in the unfolding saga. She knew Him longer and knew Him better than any of the disciples, better than Peter, better than John.

She was there from birth to death, from conception to Crucifixion...and beyond, thank God. But in that 33 year span of His earthly life, she must have had her emotions absolutely STRETCHED....stretched almost beyond endurability. IT COULDN’T HAVE BEEN EASY TO BE MOTHER OF GOD.

Let’s take a fresh look at Mary this morning---not as a Christmas ornament, not as a bit player in the Crucifixion drama, but on this Mother’s Day, I’d like for us to think of Mary, the person, the human mother, as an appropriate and beautiful symbol of both the agony and the ecstasy of motherhood, AND as a rich, fruitful example for us of the deeper meaning of DISCIPLESHIP.

It comes close to being unfair, frankly, all she had to go through. Maybe that’s the way discipleship is.... Maybe it’s the way motherhood is....

If you knew everything from the start, you might never start. I suppose God made it that way, maybe for our protection...certainly for our good.

“Whom the Lord loveth, He(the Lord) chasteneth”, wrote the author of Hebrews, knowing that indulgence doesn’t show love, it shows contempt.

That’s not an easy truth, nor a popular truth, but it’s a TRUTH. Strange as it may seem, it’s the tight reins, usually, not the slack one, that really is the best gift. AND SO HERE.

From the day of the Annunciation on, there was pain and perplexity for Mary. Oh, joy, too, of course, pride, satisfaction, honor, prestige...but mingled throughout a melancholy foreboding. Read that 1st Chapter of Luke over carefully. It’s there.

“Blessed art thou, O favored one....”

Blessing with a hook. God’s blessings are free, but they never come unaccompanied by responsibility. Mary knew it from the start. The Record says that when the angel came with the message of what was to happen, “she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be.”

I guess so. From the very beginning, she was sweating.

She neither sought nor understood this “honor” for which she’d been singled out. Can you blame her? Without title, property, position, or even husband to give it public respectability, OF COURSE it troubled her. WHAT WAS GOD ASKING?

And when the birth actually came, if anything, it was worse. There was no provision that was proper, not even her own familiar bed.... Uprooted from home by the edict of Caesar, right at the time of delivery, forced to travel at the worst possible moment, and then to have to look and beg for a place in the midst of a sea of uncaring humanity....

“A stable? Is that all you can find, Joseph? For God’s son?” WHAT WAS GOD ASKING?

“All these things she pondered in her heart”, Luke tells us. Maybe ponder is a charitable word. If the Gospel had been written by a woman...well, we’ll never know.

But it didn’t get any easier. Driven down to Egypt, then back up to Nazareth, raising her family in relative poverty.... And all the time, this strange, so different Son, growing up around her....

She was His first teacher, probably taught Him to read, if she knew how herself...many didn’t.

She taught Him to say His prayers---taught Jesus to pray---does the very idea send chills up your spine?

She watched Him grow....

Maybe He was a model child, probably He was, but there came a time when He felt a greater loyalty to God than to His mother and father. In fact, He told them so.

Remember? In the Temple...Passover...when He was 12. It’s the only account we have of Jesus’ boyhood, the only authentic note available between the time He was born and the time He was 30. They all made the trip to Jerusalem for the religious holiday. I have an idea Mary and Joseph made a special effort to take Him to the Temple because they sensed how much it meant to Him.

We read too much into that story, I think, if we see in His questions more than a burgeoning, excited interest in the things of God. THAT’S ENOUGH. That’s plenty. Don’t make Him Messiah too early. You undercut the completeness of Incarnation if you do that. It’s more impressive to see Him blossom. It’s a high level, precocious, theological bull-session, in the finest sense of all those terms...wonderful talk, stimulating talk, and the boy was so caught up in it, He forgot the clock.

His parents had to come back a whole day’s journey to find Him, right where they had left Him, and in her relief that He was safe, Mary snapped at Him uncharacteristically, “Son, didn’t you know we were worried about you?”

My mother used to say the same thing to me, didn’t yours....and I bet you’ve said the same thing to your children.

It was His answer that cut. Luke tells us. His source for it must have been the memory of Mary herself. Where else could he have gotten it. She never forgot. “Did you not know”, the boy said quietly.... “Did you not know I must be about my Father’s business?”

A 12-year-old boy, the age of most of the confirmands we received 2 weeks ago.... I’ve heard sermons preached on that text a number of times, and it’s usually used as an example of Jesus’ early recognition of His mission and purpose in life. I don’t know, but I don’t believe Mary heard it that day with any sense of radiant joy. IT WOUNDED HER TOO DEEPLY.

“Did you not know, Mother...Don’t you understand I have a higher loyalty now.”

NO, she didn’t understand. She wasn’t ready for that. After all she’d been though, after all she’d given up, and borne for Him, after all she’d sacrificed, to be stabbed with that kind of announcement.... She didn’t come first anymore, HIS OWN MOTHER.... No, she didn’t understand. BUT AT THAT MOMENT MAYBE SHE BEGAN TO. What was God asking?

Does being mother of God mean not only having Him, but having to give Him up?

Is the goal of motherhood, in any case, at last, relinquishment?

Is the point of love, finally, surrender?

Do we only keep what we are willing to give away? Maybe more than one mother has pondered these things in her heart.

It didn’t happen all at once, of course, His going. She had some time to prepare, some time to get used to it. He was in the home 18 more years. The Church calls them the “silent years”...adolescence, young manhood, maturity.... Mary grew along with Him, I believe. We don’t have any details, only speculation. Sometime in that period, presumably, Joseph died, and Jesus, as oldest son, became head of the household. He supported the family by means of the trade He had learned from His father. He was a carpenter. He made things with His hands.

He knew about yokes, and plows, and solid foundations for houses....

We know He did, because He talked about them later on.

But Mary knew now that it wouldn’t last this way. He’d move on soon, because His destiny demanded it. Maybe she couldn’t grasp it yet, entirely, but with her intuition, she knew it. His mission was broader than one small household in Nazareth.

I wonder how many times she must have looked at Him tenderly as He lay sleeping and...pondered.... Her boy who was hers, but more than hers.

AND ONE DAY HE WAS GONE. Can you imagine how Mary must have viewed the public ministry of Jesus when it came? From her special vantage point, how do you suppose it looked?

There had to be pride, at times...even joy, ecstasy.... Do you know any contemporary Jewish mothers?   Well...OF COURSE there was pride. The early adulation, the crowds, the healing...my boy!.... Her heart must have swelled to bursting as she watched the people flock out to Him, and hang on His teaching. Maybe she recognized the source of some of His stories...the woman sweeping the floor looking for a lost coin...He’d seen her do that....

The pangs of childbirth and the distress of uprootedness didn’t hurt as much in the flush of His positive reception.... Maybe it wasn’t going to be so painful.

But that old shudder, that old foreboding, that old sense of the chastening aspect of blessing couldn’t be pushed aside completely. WHAT WOULD GOD ASK NEXT? He was hers, but He was other; she had borne Him, but she didn’t possess Him. AND SHE HAD TO LEARN TO LIVE WITH THAT.

There was that day at the wedding in Cana when she tried to goad Him into action before He was ready. He said to her sternly, “Woman, what do you have to do with me?”

WOMAN, He called her, not even MOTHER...the words went through her heart like a knife.

And then, that other occasion when the whole family made a trip to visit with Him. He was busy, of course, they expected that, with crowds of people around, but they sent word in that they were there.

“Your mother and brothers and sisters have come”, the disciples told Him. She couldn’t believe His response.

“Who are my mother, and my brothers and sisters”, He answered matter of factly, motioning to the people standing nearby. “Here are my mother and my brothers and sisters. Whoever does the will of my Father is my brother and sister and mother.”

It was a hard thing to hear that from the Son she’d carried, and changed, and trained, and watched grow. It couldn’t have been easy to be mother of God.

But all the time her soul was stretching...

All the time, even through the pain and confusion, she was growing. We can’t follow it step by step, but it came to culmination that unforgettable afternoon, on the hill....

You have to handle this with exquisite tenderness. Sensitivity requires it....

Don’t stand too close out of common respect....

Mothers who have lost a son in war, or in an accident, or through an illness may have an inkling of what Mary went through....

To see your own Son, your own flesh and blood, your own boy, be publicly condemned, when you know the beauty of His character when you know the purity of His inner life.

To see Him flailed, ridiculed, spat on...and then brutally nailed to a post, in excruciating pain, when there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it.... It’s a wonder she didn’t go out of her mind completely.

Others grieved that day, too, of course.... John, the other women who were there, a few bystanders who knew Him and loved Him, but it had to be harder on the mother Mary than on anybody else.

It was Abraham and Isaac all over again, only this time there was no last minute substitute.

She would have switched places with Him if she could have. Of course she would have switched places with Him. She was His mother.

But all she can do is watch...helplessly...watch and die along with Him. 33 years ago her heart was troubled. All along, intermittently, there was the foreboding.

And now, it’s come to this---here, like a common criminal, between 2 common criminals...here He hangs, His very life’s blood dripping on the ground beneath, and all she can do is watch.

She had been permitted to bear Him in her womb, nurse Him, feed Him, see Him take His first step, and now those feet are impaled with a Roman spike. IS THIS WHAT IT IS TO BE MOTHER OF GOD? One is reduced to a whisper in the face of such a spectacle. Or maybe simply a grasp.

And then He looks down on her and speaks---the voice she knows so well----“Woman, behold thy son.” And to the disciple, “Behold thy mother.”

AGAIN, as at the wedding, way back there, He calls her WOMAN. That could have done her in. It would have earlier.

That’s all she gets, That’s all there is for her.

After all she’d been though, after all she’d lost, after all she’d sacrificed, and given up, and endured, and suffered...a hanger on in somebody else’s house, a widow for somebody else to look after, an object of the charitable love and care of someone to whom she’s not even related, when she thought at one time she’d be queen of the world. He never asked her if the relationship would be satisfactory. Didn’t ask John, either, if he’d take her.

BUT YOU CAN DO THAT IF YOU’RE LORD. You’re entitled to that right if you’re Master. It’s what it means to be LORD and MASTER.

You see, HE KNEW HE COULD COUNT ON THEM. He knew that at last they were ready to respond. Maybe they themselves didn’t even quite know it, but HE knew it. AND HERE IT IS. The glory of Mary is, she accepts His decision for her,

His arrangement for her, and makes His wish her command.

I guess the most sobering thing about this whole interchange, and an insight that shakes the fire out of our hungering for special privilege is found right here. When I realized it, it hit me like a thunderbolt. It’s the realization that not even the uniqueness of her relationship exempts her from the demands of total allegiance. There is no hierarchy of discipleship. You either are or you aren’t. EVEN THE MOTHER OF GOD MUST TRUST AND OBEY. Let that get inside of you when you want God to make a special exemption in your case.

It isn’t that business about the immaculate conception that makes Mary special. WHAT MAKES MARY SPECIAL IS RIGHT HERE, and nothing I know about her boosts my appreciation more for this special woman....

In spite of all she’d been through, in spite of everything that had happened, even including her unparalleled grief in this wrenching moment, she accepts the provision He makes for her, and does it without question. THIS IS HOW FAR SHE HAS COME.

The Child, who once obeyed, now commands.

The Mother, who once directed, now receives.... AND IT’S ALL RIGHT.

The pain is not eliminated, but the foreboding is gone. She has touched the bottom, the very bottom, and it is sound. It’ll take the Resurrection to confirm it, but the seed of Resurrection is already here.

EVEN IF SHE STILL DOESN’T TOTALLY UNDERSTAND IT, SHE TRUSTS.

The Mother, now, is follower, because of the Son, even for her, is LORD.

Not even the claims of kinship supersede the claims of discipleship. That’s very, very big. Though He is flesh of her flesh, and blood of her blood, He is first of all, SAVIOR, and she accepts His right to rule and to decide what is best.

Is that, then, what it is to be disciple? Is that what it is to be servant? Is that what it is to be follower, believer, friend....to be willing to let Him ask of us ANYTHING, anything in all the world?

She had come a long way from that moment as a teenager when the angel whispered in her ear.... Her emotions had been squeezed through a wringer. She had known joy, ecstasy, confusion, hurt...the pride of seeing Him flourish, the anguish of seeing Him die. Through it all a flickering faith struggled, cried, doubted, agonized, questioned...burgeoned, matured...was able to relinquish, and then, finally, to follow in trustful commitment.

It’s a pilgrimage others are called to make, through other emotional trials. Mary, the mother of God, has been there. We don’t pray through her, for she’s one of us, but we admire her, we appreciate her, we learn from her, we kneel beside her in adoration of her Savior and ours.

Hail, Mary, O favored one, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, even Jesus Christ, our Lord.

--

[1] Golda Meir was a former Prime Minister of Israel.