I’ve been thinking…amid the busy-ness of Christmas and rewriting a book…that life is full of a lot of unanswerable questions. And I think that sometimes people are afraid of questions, afraid that by asking them they might crumble just in the asking. But I also know that God is not afraid of anything we might ask Him. I hope to explore some of the biblical men and women whose questions were answered…or not…in days to come (after Christmas), but for now I want to focus on a few we still ask today and one we especially ask this time of year.
Mary, did you know?
It’s a popular Christmas song now, but I wonder, do we understand what we are asking when we ask that question? Mary, did you know that you were about to give birth to God?
If she believed what the angel told her, she did. If she understood the ancient Hebrew prophecies, she knew that she was special. She was being asked to allow the Son of God to reside in her womb before she ever got to share the marriage tent with Joseph her betrothed. She was being asked to give up the wedding, the joy of holding on to her purity, and all of the traditions a girl of her day longed to live. When the angel stood before her and said,
“Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”
She knew everything was about to change for her.
But…she did not know all of this in the experiential sense. As we do not know what it is like to give birth until we do so and hold that precious baby in our arms, so Mary could not know all that was to come, nor how it would affect her. As her life later showed, sometimes she appeared to forget just Whose child Jesus was.
But on that day, when the angel told her what was about to happen, and on that night when she held her son and called His name Jesus, she pondered. And she knew. She definitely knew.
And yes, she kissed the face of God.
Selah~
