Mary, Did You Know?

About 60 miles north of Jerusalem, in a region called Galilee, a village of about 400 people sat nestled on the gently sloped western side of a hill that rises significantly above the valleys below. On the eastern side, near its highest point this hill that is sloped so leisurely on its western side features some sharp drop-offs.

From the top on a good day, looking to the west, one could see Mt. Carmel, where Elijah humiliated the priests of Baal. Looking just north of, and past, Mt. Carmel, one could see the Mediterranean Sea, just fourteen miles away. To the south the fertile Valley of Jezreel, where Gideon defeated the Amalekites and the Midianites, appeared. Nearby to the southeast was Mt. Tabor, which many scholars believe was soon to be the Mount of Transfiguration. A little past Mt. Tabor, Mt. Gilboa, on which Saul and his sons were slain by the Philistines, was visible. Twelve miles to the east is the rift that is the Jordan valley, the main route to Jerusalem.

The people of this village would have been farmers, tending to land in the fertile valley below, or tending to sheep or cattle in the grassy meadows on the slopes. Or they might have been craftsmen who built or repaired implements and tools that farmers needed. The children played with dolls, or played games like hopscotch or jacks. Older children and adults might be found playing checkers when they could spare time from the daily grind.

In this village a young girl was coming of age. Like everyone else in the town, her family didn’t have much, but they had a good existence. She had graduated from dolls and games to drawing water from the well and other “womanly” chores. Her parents had brought her up “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” although that phrase had not yet been written. They were familiar with Deuteronomy 6:6-9, and it’s obvious that they practiced it.

She recently had become engaged, or betrothed. A betrothal was an agreement between two families to unite their children, or it might be an agreement between a man and the parents of the girl. It involved a dowry, and was considered as binding as marriage itself. Her man was a good man and skilled in a trade so he could provide for a family; not wealthy nor really with any prospects of becoming wealthy, but sufficient. I suppose the girl was 15, or 16. We don’t know, but by the customs of the time, it was more likely that a girl would be married at 13 than that she would be unmarried by 18.

And so we read in Luke 1:26-33,” In the sixth month (since Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, became pregnant, see vs 36 ) the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High.”

On a day that had been just like every other day, Mary was doing what she did every other day when suddenly Gabriel stood before her and greeted her with a laudatory, but very unusual, greeting. She was shocked, troubled, bewildered and who knows what else. And then, while she was grappling with an unusual greeting from a more unusual stranger, she had a ton of bricks dropped on her. God has chosen her to be the physical mother of His Son on earth. Mary’s reaction? “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” I think this response tells us why God chose Mary.

Can we imagine how mind boggling this event must have been for teenage Mary? (Probably not.) One moment you’re walking the street of your nondescript town, as normally as any other day, when confronted by a total stranger who gives a confusing greeting from nowhere. Then the next instant announces you have been chosen to be the physical mother of the Messiah. What just happened?

God, knowing the hearts of all the women in the world who met the lineage qualifications for His son, chose Mary. I really believe this choice had been made long before He sent Gabriel to Mary. And He gave her the gift of birthing, and raising, His Son on this earth. I don’t feel adequate to answer this question, but I pose it for you to consider; What kind of person must Mary have been?

I’m sure she knew the pain and heartache that would accompany this task. I’m sure she was familiar with Isaiah 53 and other such prophecies. She made a statement about this event found in Luke 2:46-55. It was later turned into a song. We call it “The Magnificat.” But the response this young girl gave that I cannot let go of was her statement to Gabriel, “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” That is the submission for which we all should strive.

Mark Lowry, a contemporary of ours, wrote a song which for me captures the essence of this event at a high level, “Mary, Did You Know?”. It consists of a series of thought provoking and heart wrenching rhetorical questions. No answers are sought nor given. The point is to make us think on a deeper level about the story related in Luke 1 and 2. The time of the long expected Messiah had come, and this dear sweet girl (she found favor with God) was going to be at the center of it. Whatever her life plan had been, it had just been blown to smithereens. She knew in a general sense what lay ahead, but the specifics would come at her one at a time and require a fortitude most humans can’t even imagine.

I’ve heard “Mary, Did You Know” called the “worst of all Christmas songs (by someone who obviously has no understanding of poetry and rhetorical devices.) It is closer to the best of all Christmas songs because it is such a poignant representation of what this experience must have been like for someone whose life was drastically changed, never to be the same again. Our situation is, of course, much different than Mary’s, but that is exactly what should happen to all of us when Jesus, the Son of God, comes into our lives.

PS; This is my favorite group. Give it a listen.

https://youtu.be/KqBaoaaPswI?si=T0mRE90gV0x245bM