365 Days of the Great Names of God, Day 233: God of Mary, the Mother of Jesus

God of Mary, the Mother of Jesus

"'I am the Lord's servant,' Mary answered. 'May it be to me as you have said.'" (Luke 1:38 NIV)

Full disclosure: I've never been quite sure who all the "Marys" of the Bible are. Or, maybe more accurately, I've never actually figured out which is which. We'll get to the other two most prominent Marys of the New Testament—Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany—in the days ahead, but I wanted to start with the Mary I was pretty sure about to begin with: Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Oh, friends: don't we need to take a moment and consider the absolute enormity of having that descriptive clause after your name: "the mother of Jesus"? Even if you didn't grow up reading the Bible or going to church, you probably are accustomed to this Mary being "the mother of Jesus." But we need to strip off our familiarity for a minute and let the weight of that designation hit us with full force: this Mary was the earthly mother of the Great I AM. This Mary's human arms carried the Arm of the Lord. This Mary made bread to feed the Bread of Life. This Mary had to let her child go in a way no other mother has ever had to let a child go: to the cross.

The more I started to think about this Mary, the more I realized I'm not sure about her at all. I thought I knew her story, and I did know parts of it. But I had gotten so used to the major details of her role that I'd come to think of them as ordinary and usual. And I didn't even start to think about the "minor" details of her life which might well not have been minor to her at all.

Her fear, for instance. Who was that angel? What on earth was he talking about? What did he mean she would conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit? Who even WAS the Holy Spirit? What would Joseph say? What would her parents say? What would the religious leaders say?

Her confusion. What did this divine assignment mean for the rest of her life? How was she supposed to raise a child who was in some ways like any other  child but in countless others unlike anyone else, ever? And what was she raising Him for? How much should she let herself love Him when somehow He did not really belong to her in the first place?

Her loneliness. Did the other mothers in town want to meet for playdates? If they did, did they talk about normal things with her? Or did they take a wide path around her when they saw her at the market, unsure what to make of her or what to do with her?

Her pain. To have her own son—THE Son—not give her first-in-line-to-see-Him privileges and then to hear Him give strangers the status of also being His mother and brothers. The terror of her growing understanding of what awaited the Man who would always still be a little bit her baby boy. The agony of watching His agony.

And at this point, Mary taught me a quick and sharp lesson: this is what I tend to do with other people, too...people not on the pages of Scripture but in my life. People in my family. People at my church. People I interact with regularly through my children. I get used to the basic facts of their stories and don't take the time to consider how those facts must play out day after day. 

The last we see of Mary the mother of Jesus on the pages of Scripture is in the Upper Room with the disciples and Jesus' brothers, after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. Yet she must have had life to live after that. My friends and family and acquaintances also have life to live both with and beyond whatever few words describe them in some tidy package. 

Mary, the mother of Jesus, nudges me that I need to pause at the clause after others' names. The God of relationship calls us to something deeper than that. He calls us to go with each other to a place where fears, confusion, loneliness and pain are shared...and, in the sharing, are lessened.

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God, help me to look at the people you've placed in my life not just as some sort of package neatly wrapped up in a few familiar words but as stories deserving of a careful read. And when this is a costly investment to make, give me Mary's words and the heart behind them: "I am the Lord's servant."