The other night I was driving to my sister's house listening to Christmas music (cause HELLO Christmas is a week away!) and the song "Mary Did You Know?" by Pentatonix came on. Now this is one of those classic Christmas songs that you listen to every year, so I probably shouldn't have been so taken aback by it, but I think for the first time I actually really listened to the lyrics and to say they spoke to me would probably be an understatement. If you don't know the song (where have you been?!?! Just kidding!), it's basically all these questions asked to Mary the mother of Jesus and each one declares all that Jesus was and would do in this world. Things like walking on water, healing a blind man, saving the world are just a few of the things the song mentions. But one line in particular really caught my attention. It's not actually a question, it's a statement...one of the few out right things the song declares. After starting off asking Mary if she knew her son was from heaven, the song simply states, "when you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God"! What a powerful visual of such a holy moment! Can you imagine being Mary as a young woman, newly married and holding baby Jesus... literally the Son of God... in her hands! What an astounding moment that must have been and what amazing opportunities she must have experienced in being Jesus' mother. I can't even fathom it!
Then this morning, I was sitting and reading the Gospel of Mark where it talks about Jesus's mother and brothers coming to see Him while He is out preaching in an over crowded house. As the story goes, his family basically thinks Jesus is out of his mind, and they have come to talk Him out of carrying on this nonsense. The story is just a sentence or two but reading it I couldn't help but think "how did Mary get from the place of being visited by angels and told she would be the mother of the savior of the world, to the place of questioning what Jesus was even doing proclaiming to be the Son of God?". At first, I didn't seem to get it...why the change of heart? Was it the power of a group of her children complaining about their "brother" that got her to join in and want to call Jesus out? Did she just go along because she couldn't talk to her other sons out of trying to confront Jesus? What was the deal?!
Then I started thinking about my own life and how I've literally had all these holy moments with God over the years myself ...moments where He's been more real to me than even my best friend... but as those moments have gotten further and further behind me I have often started to forget and doubt the God in them. Then suddenly I understood what might have happened to Mary. Sure she "kept all these things in her heart" about who Jesus was and what the angel had declared, but were they also on her mind. As Jesus grew and these moments got further and further behind her, I could imagine it must have been hard to hold onto them and the holiness of all she had been through. And in the midst of the ordinariness of life, the extraordinary nature of Jesus might have just gotten lost for her. Plus, Jesus didn't exactly do what people expected so maybe when Jesus started His ministry it wasn't what Mary thought the angel had meant and it threw her for a loop.
I guess there's really know way to really tell what Mary was thinking or feeling at that moment, in fact, I might be so far off in my understanding and ideas of these Biblical stories... but none the less, my thought process has reminded me of the importance of keeping these holy moments with God at the forefront of my mind. Jesus is real and God has shown Himself strong to me throughout my life. And just like Jesus's brothers may have felt Jesus was out of His mind, there will be people in my life who doubt who Jesus is and will want to convince me that God is not real. However, like Mary, I have experienced God in miraculous ways, and I need to learn from her life never to forget who He is to me. Not only that but I should also never let the ordinariness of life strip away the miracle of having a relationship with God....no matter how distant my last "holy moment" with Him may feel.
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