Mary's Song

Josh is preaching on the messes that God has taken and rehabbed.  Last week it was Tamar--this week it was Mary.  We are often so focused on the glory of the birth of Jesus, we forget the hardship and mess that was involved.  There are two awe-inspiring messages from the passages in Matthew and Luke:

One is the great step of faith taken by Joseph, a righteous man, who did not stumble into self-absorption, but took instead the word of the angel and obeyed.  And of course the faith of Mary who accepted her assignment with her answer to the angel, "May it be to me as you have said."

It was refreshing to hear Julie Carrothers, a teenaged girl, read Mary's song in Matthew 1:46-55.  As one listens to the text, full of glory and praise to God, one cannot help but hear those words of the Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene song "Mary, Did You Know":

"Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?
   Did you  know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
        Tlhis child that you delivered will soon deliver you.

Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with His hand?
    Did you know that your baby boy had walked where angels trod?
        When you kiss your little baby, you've kissed the face of God.

Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
     Did you know that your baby boy is heaven's perfect lamb?
          This sleeping child you're holding is The Great I Am."

As a peasant teenaged Jewish girl looking for a Messiah, she probably did not know the answers.  But she did what all mothers do--pondered them in her heart.

Jane Kenyon asks in a poem for which I cannot find a reference. "Did she know that the baby  she held would one day be dripping blood on the hem of her garment?"

Mary--such an interesting character in God's story.