Protestants have never paid enough attention to
Mary. During Advent and Christmas, however, we allow her briefly to be a part
of our piety. We sing about her in
carols that describes her as “Gentle Mary, Meek and Mild,” a rather docile and
unremarkable figure. We forget that she
was the first disciple, the one who believed before she conceived.
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In
countless Christian pageants little girls in white robes and blue veils quietly
represent her as the only thing female in the story of the nativity. They sit in wordless contemplation, as if
somehow cut off from the reaction of the miracle of Bethlehem.
It was the
“wordless contemplation” requirement that prevented me from ever getting to
play Mary in the Christmas drama. Since
I had a voice that could easily be heard throughout the sanctuary, I got to be
the head shepherd. My line was, “Let us
now go even unto Bethlehem . . .” (with appropriate hand signal!)
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This
third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, which is a call to rejoicing. And Mary is our teacher in this. The greeting Gabriel offers calls her to
rejoice as one “full of grace.” She did
not receive this greeting with immediate joy, however. Initial confusion and uncertainty in the face
of an epiphany is normal in the biblical text.
Her faith has to grow in the twilight of doubt until rejoicing is
authentic.
It
is time that we pay attention to Mary, this one woman whose trust in God allows
the Word to be made flesh, after our likeness.
The New Testament does not idealize Mary. She is a poor and oppressed woman of Galilee,
where her life is completely immersed in the social, political, and religious
situation of her people.
It
has been too facile for the church to imagine, as Leonardo Boff writes, that
“all was easy and clear for her—that she knew she was the Mother of God, that
her Son Jesus was the Son of the Most High, or that she was the most highly
blessed of all women.” Her story is like
ours; she had to walk in the darkness of faith.
For this we should call her blessed.
And
Elizabeth does. After the blessing of
Elizabeth, Mary breaks forth in an exquisite song of rejoicing. It has dense theological meaning, but it is
foremost the song of “a young women shyly placing one hand upon a swelling
belly to touch the miracle unfolding within her,” as Wendy Wright puts it.
In
the miracle of her baby, in her own private joy, Mary perceives the blessing of
justice for the people of God. In this
celebration, Mary stands squarely within Israel’s prophetic tradition. This faithful justice of God does not come
without pain. Mary can hardly fathom the
pain that will be hers as she lives out her vocation as God-bearer. Nor can we.
Mary
longs for God to turn things upside down, as her great hymn the Magnificat insists. For centuries the church has allowed these
revolutionary works to sustain hope. We
learn something about the nature of rejoicing from this text.
Rejoicing
is not simply flowery words detailing how wonderful the world is. Rather, it takes on the urgency of petition,
calling God to be faithful to God’s own character. That is why Mary’s rejoicing sounds as if
these mighty acts have already become true.
We can participate in making it so.
Molly T.
Marshall
Central prepares leaders to work for justice in the world.
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