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December 17, 2009
Advent Musing -- Day 19
When I attended the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany, in 1990, my sister told me ahead of time that there would be a moment that would grab me and never let go.
That put me on the spot a bit. What if it didn't happen? After all, I knew the story pretty well, and her statement made me feel pressured, sort of like going to a religious event and being expected to have some kind of experience that would initiate you into the "in" crowd.
I tried to put my sister's comment out of my mind. Since those unusual moments of grace cannot be programmed or contrived, I just relaxed and gave my full attention to the magnificent simplicity of that production.
I shouldn't have worried. As Mary the mother of Jesus held her son's body in her arms after he had been removed from the cross, she wailed, "My son! My son!" in German, and I couldn't breathe. It was that profoundly human moment that haunts me still.
I've thought a lot about what it must have been like to have mothered the child Jesus to maturity. Because so little is known about Jesus' childhood, I suppose all we can do is speculate about how much she knew about who he was and what his purpose in life was to be.
The popular song "Mary, Did You Know" confronts us with the possibility that perhaps she didn't have the full picture of Jesus' life when he was born. Sometimes when I teach about this, people get upset about the idea that Mary might have learned who he was a little at a time, but mostly I think the upset is more about having a long-held cherished belief challenged. There's just something about that Christmas story that we love, and we don't much want anyone tampering with our ideas about it, and yet I keep wanting to ask, "Mary, what did you know? And when did you know it?"
Since I believe that Jesus was fully human and fully divine, however, I keep on asking the questions about what it was like for him and for his family as he grew up in a real family, a neighborhood, a group of friends. I wonder if there was sibling rivalry. Did Joseph scold him? Were there times when Mary was frustrated with him, besides that time at the Temple when he was twelve, of course, and showed himself to be unusually precocious. That Mark relates in his gospel that at one time when Jesus was drawing such a crowd because of what he was doing, his family went to get him and to take charge of him, saying that he was out of his mind pretty much convinces me that Jesus' family learned who he was in increments.
There is one thing I know for sure, and it is this: The depth of compassion and empathy, sensitivity and love that Jesus revealed isn't developed in a child who is made to believe he is entitled, special and above the laws of others. In fact, one of the worst things that can happen to a child is to be made the center of the parent's world or made to feel that she is better than other, and if anyone who is reading this needs evidence for this, read the newspapers and watch the news. Terminal uniqueness is not a quality that promotes the kind of Savior Jesus became.
When I ponder these things in my heart, it seems to make sense that Jesus had a dawning awareness of his purpose in life, and I think that his upbringing in Mary's and Joseph's home contributed to the actualization of his mission. Whatever they did enhanced the boy Jesus' developing and maturation process in such a way that he could fulfill his mission. For all kinds of reasons, I think Jesus had to do chores like the rest of the children.
And when I ponder Mary's role, I have to believe that she, too, had a dawning awareness of who Jesus was, an awareness that had to have been tested, tried and challenged over his lifetime. Sometimes I wonder if she would have said Yes to the angel's invitation from God if she had known that Calvary was ahead.
It's one thing to read the story of Jesus through the eyes of over 2000 years with a perspective shaped not only by the biblical record but whatever cultural and religious overlays have been placed on the story you've heard.
It was something else entirely to have lived the story as a flesh-and-blood mother, a real person, a human being asked to be an instrument of God in a tiny village in a remote part of the world.
What do you think? What did Mary know, and when did she know it?
Does pondering the humanity of Jesus make your faith expand? Or does it bother you?
Grace -- always --
Jeanie
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