Devotional 12-8-10

Please read Luke 1:46-55

Growing up Methodist, and Methodist Protestant at that, I did not know much about Mary, the mother of Jesus. . Oh, I knew it was a Catholic thing, but those were the next door neighbors, my cousins, and the kids that went to the other school down the street from mine. I never really gave her much thought until my husband and I had the opportunity to study in Switzerland at the World Council of Churches’ program on international ecumenism. That’s been almost 30 years ago, but I still remember the awesome privilege and challenge of living for five months with 60 different people from 40 different countries and every denomination from Pentecostal to Romanian Orthodox, with lots in between. Over time, I became friends with some Eastern Orthodox priests who did not quite grasp the fact that I was an ordained minister in my denomination, just as they were in theirs.

Friendly but intense theological debates were an everyday occurrence. Really they were one of the most important reasons why we were all there: to learn from one another. One evening, one of the Orthodox priests said, “You might not be so much into this women and ordination thing if your church worshipped Mary, if it had any kind of a female role model, someone you read about, prayed to, someone who affected your spirituality in profound ways.” Well. I certainly wasn’t thinking of God as male in those days, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t raised with that image in Bible stories, Sunday School curriculum and stained glass. What would a visible female presence in church be like? I decided to do some reading, and then some reflecting.

Mary is one of the stars of the show at Advent and Christmas. She is called “blessed” many times in Luke’s gospel. But just how blessed was she? I like to imagine what the lives of some biblical women were really like, more than what they said or did in Scripture. Mary had the unenviable task of telling her parents she was pregnant before she was married. What was that conversation like for her? For her mother? The siblings which she must have had? She had to tell her fiancé the same thing and that she was bearing a baby that was not his. We know a little of Joseph’s reaction, but what was it like for her when she told him? What was it like to walk miles and miles to Bethlehem from Nazareth when she was nine months pregnant? What was it like to have a baby in a place that was probably dirty and smelly and uncomfortable? Who, besides Joseph, was there to help her and soothe her? Who cut the cord? As her boy Jesus grew and changed, as he began to realize his calling and uniqueness, what went through her mind when she took care of him and disciplined him? We have no record. When she and Joseph had to return to Jerusalem to get him because he had stayed behind with the scholars, how did she begin to really let go of him? Years later, when he began his public ministry, how did she react when she heard him teach and saw the people he healed? Was she proud of him or was she frightened of his power? How did she handle the criticism of him that I am sure she knew of? When it became clear that his very life was at stake if he continued his ministry, were there times she wondered if he should have chosen a different path? Finally, when she knew he was to be crucified, and actually saw him on the cross, did she regret her decision to say yes to God’s angel all those years ago? We don’t know, but for me, when I think about her life, I think there must have been times when she thought, “If these are blessings, then I don’t know what blessings really are.” I don’t think that she had an easy life. Yet, the book of Acts tells us that she was active in the early church, so she must have experienced the risen Christ in ways we cannot begin to fathom. That was surely a blessing that I do not understand.

Every year when I preach on this text, I think about these events in her life. What I’ve come to understand is that life isn’t easy for anybody. But God is always there. What a strong and faith filled prayer life this woman must have had. She accepted what happened to her and at times, even praised God, as this passage clearly shows. She kept going no matter what happened to her. As far as we know, she was a poor, uneducated woman who society then and now would overlook. Yet God had something special for her to do as surely as God has something for each of us to do, even if it’s not the magnitude of Mary’s. Over the years, what I’ve learned about Mary through many books, articles, studies and reflections, is that she stayed on the road that God had placed her. I’ve also come to understand that God often doesn’t use so-called important people to do His will. It’s Halloween when I write this, and I have no idea what Advent and Christmas hold for us in our new churches and in our newly emptied nest. I don’t know what they hold for anyone. If we take our faith seriously, I know we will all be called to do something this holiday season. Some will be called to experience the holidays without a particular loved one for the first time. Some will be called to help people they would rather not help, if they were honest. I don’t know what, but there will be something that is challenging, as well as something that is joyful. My prayer is that whatever it is we are called to do, we will stay as faithful to the task as Mary did, that no matter what happens, we can truthfully say. “My soul magnifies the Lord for he has done great things.”.

Rev. Dorcas L. Conrad
Highland Avenue UMC
Fairmont, W. Va.