Mary Did You Know?

Mary Did You Know?, my favorite Christmas song focuses on the life of Jesus more than just His birth.  Check out this link to a wonderful video of this beautiful song: http://www.uptv.com/blog/uplifting-video-mary-did-you-know-music-video

Mary did you know, that your baby boy would one day walk on water

Mary did you know, that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters

Did you know, that your baby boy has come to make you new

This 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 would calm the storm with His hand

Did you know, that your baby boy has walked where angels trod

When you kiss your little baby then you kissed the face of God

The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again

The lame will leap, the dumb will speak the praises of the Lamb

Mary did you know, that your baby boy is Lord of all creation

Mary did you know, that your baby boy would one day rule the nations

Did you know, that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb

The sleeping Child you’re holding is the Great, I Am.

Mary, did you know just what you were getting into the day the angel came to you and said you were with child?

We celebrate Mary at Christmas because she is the mother of Jesus.  We pretty much stop there when it comes to our thoughts on Mary.  We have seen glimpses of her life before the birth of Jesus as portrayed in television movies but not a lot is said about her after that. 

What hopes and dreams Mary must have had for Jesus.  After all, she was hand-picked by God Himself to bear His Son, the Savior of the world.  Before her conception, she was visited by an angel of the Lord who told her, “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 the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:32-33)

Undoubtedly, Mary would have thought that Jesus would one day be a worldly king – “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.” She would not have understood, yet, the spiritual concept of Jesus as the Holy Spirit.

As His mother, Mary certainly would have envisioned amazing things for Jesus.  She’d known of His miracles and even experienced the first one where he turned wine into water.  She also saw Him disregarded in His own home town.  What a disappointment that would have been for her. This was not what she expected when the angel came to her with the news of the birth of Jesus. 

Imagine Mary’s agony when she stood at the cross and watched Jesus, her firstborn son, suffer and die the most excruciating death at such a young age.  She must have grieved over the incomplete promises the angel spoke of in Luke 1.  She probably cried out to God in great anguish, asking Him “Why? It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”  She may have questioned her role as His mother – did she do something wrong?

Proclaiming to be the Son of God did not bring Jesus the glory Mary would have expected, rather, it took Him to the cross.  I can’t even begin to comprehend the pain she felt watching her son die. How cruel and devastating to see His life snuffed out on the cross.  She couldn’t know what was yet to come, but the cross was only the beginning.           

We all come into our relationship with God in high hopes of a different life, somehow thinking it will be smooth sailing with God at the wheel.   We go into marriage with the same ideals.  How shocking it is to have to face the cross, though.  We all have to go there, in our marriages and in our relationships with God. 

It is a place where we take our high hopes, our failures, our expectations and place them at the feet of Jesus, much like Mary did when she sat at His feet while He died.  At this point in our lives, we are usually at the end of our ropes, possibly in a state of grieving as Mary had been.  We’ve been walking through the desert searching for the way out.

Jesus is the Way.  Following Him does not promise us a better life here on Earth, but it will give us the peace we need to persevere in a fallen world.  It guarantees us the wonderful gift of eternal life in a heavenly place that exceeds all our earthly expectations.

The Christmas story tells us about the wonderful birth of Jesus, and it also directs us to the cross.  When we decide to follow Jesus, the path will lead us to the cross at some point.  When you think your life can’t get any worse, or that you can’t bear another day of the trials, think of Mary.  Our pain is nothing compared to what she went through.

The beauty of the cross is the new life it brings.  Mary saw Jesus raised from the dead.  Your marriage can be raised from the dead and so can your circumstances.  You can have eternal life in heaven.  All because of the innocent birth of baby Jesus.

Merry Christmas!