Playing Mary
At least one shepherd will hit another shepherd with his shepherd’s crook, an angel will wave to her mom mid-song, and someone is going to lose part of their costume– these are a few of the things that you can count on during the Sunday School Christmas program. It’s an imperfect, joyous, chaotic tradition. And I love it.
One of the blessings (or curses depending on your perspective) of growing up in a small church is that as a girl in middle school you were almost guaranteed at least one shot to play Mary in the annual Sunday School Christmas Program. I always thought it was the best part you could hope for. You usually had less than 5 lines, but you still felt a bit like the star of the show.
I was picked for the role as a twelve year old and I think I refused to give it up. For three years running, one of the signs of the Christmas season was me walking around the sanctuary stage with a pillow around my waist paired with a properly meek and righteous expression.
It’s easy now that we’re two thousand years removed from the event to think of Mary and her miraculous pregnancy in glowing vignettes. We imagine a young woman, her eyes cast heaven-ward, serenely making the trip to Bethlehem.
What we miss is the vicious gossip that must have spread through Galilee. The other girls whispering about the oh-so-pure Mary being brought down a notch or two and the old women clicking their tongues and thanking the Lord that it wasn’t their granddaughters. We don’t think about the stilted conversations and sleepless nights as Joseph contemplated how to best end his relationship with Mary without shaming them both.
Being Mary probably didn’t feel like such an honor as she made her lonely way through her hometown streets, unsure if her family would ever believe her story and wondering if the man who had promised to grow old with her would ever be able to look her in the eyes again.
This is the reality of the nativity story. It’s a story of humiliation: the humiliation of a good girl and the humiliation of the God of the universe being confined to the skin of a tiny, naked, helpless baby.
Mary could have said no. She could have simply told Gabriel that she was really content with her life, with her upcoming wedding, and the love of her family and friends. Her whole life could have passed without ever straying from the clear and simple expectations set out for her. Yet when presented with the news that would ruin her quiet existence, she took her place unhesitatingly as the Lord’s servant, willing to appear to be a hypocrite and a sinner for the sake of His promise.
Jesus could have said no. He could have stayed in Heaven under the constant praise and adoration of all the angels across all the galaxies. He could have left us to our own self-chosen fate. Yet He “made himself nothing” (Philippians 2:7), taking the form of not just a human, but an infant who would need to be fed and clothed and taught how to walk by two insignificant young Galileans. All the power of Heaven was in this infant, this infant who would grow up to be a man who would be humiliated in every imaginable way by the very creation He came to save.
The nativity is a story of how far love will go, how much love is willing to put aside, for the sake of the one it loves.
It makes me wonder what I am willing to give up for Love’s sake. Am I willing to be made a fool of, misunderstood, and maybe a little bit scandalous? I pray that I am, because love that worries about what others will think doesn’t sound like love at all.
