What Child is this who laid to rest
On Mary's lap is sleeping
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet
While shepherds watch are keeping
So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh
Come peasant, king to own Him
The King of Kings salvation brings
Let loving hearts enthrone Him
More often than not, during
the first couple years of my youngest son’s life, I found myself singing this song
as I held him in my arms. I was captivated. By my son in all his sweetness for
sure, but something greater was going on. Every time I looked at my sweet boy,
the Holy Spirit at once seemed to take me back in time to God as a baby resting
in Mary’s arms. In the months and years that followed, my spirit has continually
been stirred by the wonder of the Incarnation, and being a mother turned into
something so much more than caring for and enjoying my amazing children, it
became an act of worship and love for my God and King.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is
one of my favorite people in the Bible, which might sound weird to some of you.
Because the Protestant Church, in seeking to move away from some of the
practices of the Catholic Church, has really distanced itself from Mary over
the last 500 years. But to overlook Mary is to neglect some of the most magnificent
wonders of the life of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Mary wasn’t just a side note
in the Bible or a small supporting actress in Scene One of the
Gospels – she was God’s mother. Actually, she is still God’s mother and
will always be God’s mother. God’s mother. Did you get that? Does that even make sense? Because if
it does, then you have some sort of neuron firing around in your head that just
doesn’t seem to work in mine. When I try to wrap my mind around Mary’s
reality, what God did through this young woman’s life and what He gave to her
of Himself, things just start backfiring and tilting until all that’s left is awe… awe of something so great that my
mind cannot fully comprehend it. There’s really no need to add pomp and
circumstance to the truths found in the life of Christ. Our God is
mysterious, wonderful, and glorious in all His ways, and all of that mystery
and wonder is profoundly magnified and unveiled in the light of the Word Made
Flesh.
Mary knew something of
Jesus and had a relationship with Jesus that no one else in all of
history can lay claim to. Only Joseph, and perhaps James, Jude, or
the rest of Jesus’ siblings, can come close. But Mary carried God in
her womb. She nursed God at her breast and made meals for Him. When Jesus
wrapped His tiny infant fingers around Mary’s, do you think she ever thought
about that time when the Hand of God appeared and wrote on the walls in front
of Belshazzar and his nobles (Daniel 5:1-6)? Do you think she ever wept in wonder
at the realization that these were the very same Fingers that set the stars in
their place? Mary watched the God who created bones, muscles, and skin grow
into His own bones, muscles, and skin, and learn to use them for things like walking,
running, and jumping. Can you imagine witnessing God in the flesh taking
His first steps on the earth that He created, held down by the gravity He set
in place, and using the amazing little feet that the Holy Three designed
perfectly for balance?
Mary spent all of the silent
years of Jesus’ life on earth with Him – just Mary, her family, and the
God-man. Where the Bible is silent, which is most of the thirty years of His life on the earth,
she has memories and stories. She had to wrestle with realities that we
cannot even fathom. In that stable 2000 years ago, Mary held a seemingly
helpless baby in her arms, and He was a baby that looked like any other
baby. If not for the shepherds, the angels, the star, and later the Magi
and a jealous king hunting Him down, His birth might have seemed like any other
birth. It would be thirty years before any declaration was made to confirm Who
exactly was living under Mary and Joseph’s roof. Personally, I believe they
knew (how could they not know with all the details around His conception and
birth, not to mention the fact that Jesus was completely sinless – a completely
sinless child would be mind-blowingly obvious), but it is unlikely that others in
Nazareth knew anything except rumors of a pregnancy scandal surrounding the
couple’s first child. And when at last Jesus began to reveal who He really
was to the masses, He was killed like a common criminal upon a crossbeam as His
mother watched in horror. Mary would at this moment, and probably in thousands
of moments before, taste the bitter sting of what Simeon spoke just after Jesus
was born, “A sword will pierce your own soul too, Mary” (Luke 2:25-35).
What I’m really getting at
here is that we don’t see the privilege and wonder in Mary’s life because we
don’t see Jesus for who He really is. And seeing Jesus rightly is
everything, because He is everything (Colossians 1:16-18). The truth is that He
makes it so easy. He’s not trying to hide Himself from us. God came near, and
He draws near even today, so that we might know Him and love Him with all our
hearts. Even though we weren’t alive in the generation of His first
Advent, Jesus left witnesses and written accounts of His life and His message. Then, to seal our hearts and leave us not as orphans, He sent His Spirit
to dwell with us and in us, reminding us of all He said and did, teaching us,
and leading us into the truth about the glory of our God (John 14:16-27).
That which was from the beginning, which
we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have
touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest,
and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life,
which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen
and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us;
and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3)
I love what John says above
in the opening of his first epistle, something both Peter and Luke reiterate in
theirs (2 Peter 1:16, Luke 1:1-3). I can hear the heartbeat behind these profound
statements every time I open the Gospels or any part of the New Testament:
“We
saw God! He was a real person with real skin and bones named
Jesus Christ! We touched His nail-pierced hands, we heard His great
sermon spoken from the mount, we were there when the water was turned to wine,
we saw the lame walk and the blind see, we heard the demons speak His name as
though they had known Him for all eternity, we ate with Him (even after He was
raised from the dead!), we saw Him make bread and fish (and somehow cook them too)
out of thin air for thousands, we saw Him sleep and sweat and bleed and die and
rise again, we heard Him talk to His Father (and we even heard His Father talk
back!)… We were eyewitnesses of God in the flesh and now we are going to
tell you everything we saw, heard, and felt. We are His witnesses, so that you
will see and believe and experience His beauty and become witnesses with us to
all the earth.”
Because of them and with the
Holy Spirit’s help, we can see and know Jesus too. He’s not so far off,
with attributes so great that we cannot understand His ways or know His heart and
intentions. God came near. He is unsearchable, yes, but in the
Incarnation, we discover that God has given us a key so that we might
also come near to Him and search out the unsearchable glory of God. The
One who dwells in unapproachable holiness and light clothed Himself with skin
made from the dust of the earth, that we would finally have ears to hear and
eyes that see. It’s a stunning truth, absurd really if you think about it, but
it is the very heart of the Gospel.
Have you seen Him today? What
is it that occupies your soul, your thoughts, and guides your emotions? What,
or Whom, are you treasuring and pondering in your heart (Luke 2:19)
today? For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:31,
Luke 12:34).
This, this is Christ the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud
The Babe, the Son of Mary
Oh, raise, raise a song on high
His mother sings her lullaby
Joy, oh joy for Christ is born
The Babe, the Son of Mary