Mary Knew
A Reflection by Jesse Steven Wheeler*
This is the story of an intrepid young woman, who upon being presented with an otherwise impossible situation as an unmarried first-century teenager, chose to risk everything for the sake of God’s reign and the world’s salvation. As you read, imagine yourself in the place and circumstances of young Mary:
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”
—Luke 1:26–45 (NIV)
From the time of Jesus to the present day, Middle Eastern society has long prioritized the pursuit of honor and the avoidance of shame as a central, defining feature of social life. As such, Mary’s pregnancy would have brought deep shame upon both her and her family. Joseph, who would have suffered profound humiliation, had no reason to seek Mary’s well-being and in fact had every legal and socio-cultural obligation to pursue its opposite. Nevertheless, Mary chose to walk valiantly through the valley of the shadow of death, in faithful anticipation of her son’s own sacrifice. She had faith, like Abraham before her, that the child of promise would survive. So, taking upon herself and embracing the shame that could have so easily extinguished the light she carried within her, Mary would eventually become the most honored woman of history.
Though she fled Nazareth for the Judean highlands, Mary found herself surrounded not by those who would condemn her for a presumed promiscuity but by those who recognized within her the divine presence on earth and loved her accordingly. I think it is fair to say that this must also be our example, to recognize the presence of the divine within everyone we encounter and respond accordingly—most especially those young women and men who find themselves caught-up in extraordinary circumstances. (Also, recognizing Mary’s virginity must never result in an ultimately unhealthy idolization of celibacy or ascetic excess that merely perpetuates the culture of shame, patriarchy, and hyper-spiritualism being subverted by the incarnation story.) In art and literature, Mary is depicted often as a meek and ultimately passive participant in the divine plan, an empty vessel so to speak. Yet, how might thinking of her instead as a proactive, selfless actor in the Christmas story impact our understanding of the incarnation? In what ways have we allowed misguided theologies or traditional religiosity to negatively impact the most vulnerable members of our community?
So, as I consider Mary’s story in light of present-day realities in the Holy Land, I cannot help but remember that Palestinians too often have been written out of their own story. We are inundated with phrases like:
“A land without a people for a people without a land”
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian.”
“Israeli-Arab”
“Judea and Samaria”
. . . among others.
In what accounts to epistemological genocide, such statements represent an attempt to cleanse our contemporary language of any reference to the indigenous Palestinians, the living stones of the Holy Land. Likewise, we find partition plans and peace accords, most recently the so-called “Deal of the Century” or the “Abraham Accords, ” being concocted in foreign capitals without input from the people on the ground most impacted. And yet, the Palestinians never seem to get the message. They refuse to disappear or go away, standing firm upon the justice of their cause. Like Mary (or should I say Miriam?) these are women and men of agency, in whose liberation is bound our very own. It is for this reason that, in our advocacy efforts, we stand alongside our Palestinian sisters and brothers, hearing and amplifying their stories, centering and elevating their voices, and ultimately taking from them our cues.
Prayer
With Mary, let us glorify the Lord:
With all my heart I glorify the Lord! In the depths of who I am I rejoice in God my savior. He has looked with favor on the low status of his servant. Look! From now on, everyone will consider me highly favored because the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is his name. He shows mercy to everyone, from one generation to the next, who honors him as God. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations. He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty-handed. He has come to the aid of his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, just as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants forever.
—The Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55, CEB)
*excerpt from Jesse Steven Wheeler, Serving a Crucified King: Meditations on Faith, Politics, and the Unyielding Pursuit of God’s Reign (Eugene: Resource Publications, 2021)