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O the stories she could tellSunday, December 28, 2008
Luke 2:19 Jesus wants to know everything. She tells him the stories of the angels and the shepherds, the gifts of the wise men from far away, the angel Gabriel's visitation to his mother and the dreams sent by God to his father to corroborate her story and direct their path. He learns that he was born in Bethlehem, not in Egypt. When he is told of Herod's murderous rampage through the homes of his birthplace, how all the children under two were killed, he understands that Herod was trying to find and eliminate him. He cries out to his mother, "Those children! Their blood is on my hands." Mary has been remembered and praised throughout the world since the stories were finally written. No one blames her or Joseph or Jesus for the deaths in Bethlehem. Herod's evil acts derived from his jealousy, his insecurity, his fear, his greed for power and immortality: all driven to insanity by the devil, not by God. But the people of Bethlehem, bereft and lost in grief, wondered what we all wonder. How could bad things happen to good people? Why should Jesus not wonder the same thing? And why should he not take on the responsibility? Even in the first moments, months, and years of his life, Jesus must have lived in unalterable tension as he chose to honor his Father and obey his Father, all the while questioning him, asking him for answers, wanting the world to be better than it was. When he was a child Mary helped him learn how to be human, how to accept the position he was given. Then later, of course, he helped her. She watched him die on the cross and remembered the flight to Egypt, and wondered why such awful things happen to good people. And she wondered what happened next. What was God doing with her Jesus? Let me be satisfied, Lord, with the freedom you afford me to ask my questions. And let me be still and wait all my life, if need be, for your answers to become clear. You are God. |
How long did she ponder? These stories got out somehow, or we wouldn't be reading them. In her novel Christ the Lord - Out of Egypt, Anne Rice's Mary says to her son Jesus when he is about seven years old, "I'll tell this story one time, and then never again."