PEDESTAL PEOPLE
Do you have any pedestal people in our life? Think for a moment about that. Are there any people you think have moved beyond the ordinary struggles of life? You know what I mean. People who float above the rest of the crowd. People who handle pain and setbacks and never lose their poise. People who seem to be above and beyond the everyday problems. People we’ve put on an imaginary pedestal.
Of course our pedestal people don’t need to be our contemporaries. Actually, it’s easier to put people from history on pedestals because they’re so far removed from us. What we know about them is filtered through the mists of time. People from the past can easily become larger than life. A caricature of who they really were. Take Mary, for example. She stands right at the heart of the Christmas story. She is the mother of God’s own Son. No wonder she has remained larger than life for the past 2000 years—a veritable spiritual giant.
A couple summers ago, I was in St. Patrick’s cathedral while in New York City. St. Pat’s is truly breathtaking. It breathes an air of solemnity. The stained glass windows illumine the church with soft light. All around the interior perimeter of the cathedral are the various chapels to the saints. What struck me was that the largest of those shrines was to Mary. It was the only chapel with separate seating that allowed you to sit and meditate before the shrine of the virgin. I understood the magnitude of the devotion shown her when a little further along, I came across another shrine. This one much smaller. No special seating this time. Fewer candles burning. This was the shrine devoted to her son, Jesus Christ. Yes, it’s easy to put Mary on a pedestal, isn’t it? Mary has enjoyed some pretty lofty titles down through the centuries:
Mother of God
Leader of the Heavenly Choir
Woman Clothed with the Sun
Paragon of Chastity
Queen of Heaven
All titles of veneration and honor! But what does the BIBLE say about Mary? Mary herself sang in her advent song we call the Magnificat: “From now on,“ she sang “ all generations will call me blessed. Mary herself expected people to remember her and acknowledge her role in history. And while some traditions have made too much of Mary, sometimes Protestants have made too little. For it strikes me, that Mary’s life has some life lessons—perhaps some surprising lessons—to teach us.
Let me trace with you the general trajectory of Mary’s life, and consider the drama of Mary’s life in four acts. When we do, we might be surprised to see how much Mary’s life resembles our own.
THE FIRST ACT
Act One in this drama introduces us to the Mary of the Christmas story. The shepherds have come out in the night to offer adoration to the Christ—child. Luke 2:19 reports Mary’s response to all this: Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them.
Now, at one level, that seems pretty normal for any new mom. After all, what mother doesn’t look down on her slumbering newborn and become reflective about what lies ahead for her child? I think of the birth of my own children, and how I got a bit meditative myself looking down into that bassinet in the hospital nursery. What challenges and joys will my child live to see? It’s when we have kids of our own that we see the world with new eyes—as a precarious and sometimes threatening place. Every mother can become rather reflective about her child’s future.
But I don’t think that Luke wants us to consider Mary to be a typical mom. I think he wants for us to think of Mary as a typical INQUIRER into spiritual truth! Luke’s language brings to mind the words of Psalm 1:
Happy are those whose delight is in the Law of the Lord,
Those who meditate upon it day and night.
The Hebrew word we translate meditate means literally, ‘to murmur with a love voice.’ That is what it means to meditate. It means to murmur over God’s revelation with a voice filled with love for the truth. And what the psalmist invites us to do with Scriptures, Mary does with her Son, the Word Incarnate.
Here is where any journey of faith begins. It begins with meditation over the Word of God AS IT APPLIES TO OUR OWN LIVES. One ancient writer in the early church said we should take the Word of God and chew on it. I was out on the farm this summer, and watched the dairy herd of my brothers—in—law stand in the meadow and chew their cud. Well, that’s what that ancient writer said we needed to do with the Word of God. Meditating on that word, turning it over in our minds, is the way we take that revelation and enfold it into our hearts. Anyone who wants to engage in a journey of faith must begin where Mary begins——pondering JESUS and the significance of his life for our own lives.
THE SECOND ACT
But Mary’s journey of faith isn’t easy. Consider the second act in Mary’s drama. It’s twelve years later and Jesus has just celebrated his first Passover feast in the temple at Jerusalem. After the festivities are over, it’s time to head back to Nazareth. But three days down the road, Jesus’ parents discover that he’s not part of the traveling party. A frantic trip back to Jerusalem follows. After three mind—numbing days of ransacking the city, they find him—in the temple, where he is amazing the rabbis with his spiritual insight. When Mary and Joseph confront him, Jesus says he wasn’t lost at all. He was right where he was supposed to be! “Don’t you know,“ he said, “that I had to be in my Fathers’ house?“ And then Luke adds, “But they did not understand what he was saying to them“. MARY did not understand!
Let me suggest that the seedbed for much of our faith struggles is born of that honest confession: I DO NOT UNDERSTAND! What don’t you understand about your life? If you’re like me, quite a bit. There is so much I do not understand. About my own life and the life of others.
Mary does not understand either. She does not understand why her son could put her through three days of anguish and then unblinkingly reply to her rebuke: “Did you not know I must be about my Father’s business.“ Mary did not understand. But Mary is still on a journey of faith. For the end of the temple story is this: “But Jesus’ mother treasured all these things in her heart. . .“ Mary is still meditating. She is still turning over in heart and mind all what these things might mean!
THE THIRD ACT
But was she ready for the third act? Fast—forward this drama about twenty years. We are now well into the earthly ministry of Jesus. Joseph is dead. Mary is a widow. We may assume that her son Jesus has been working some years in the carpenter shop to support his mother financially. Then, about the age of thirty, he leaves his career as a craftsman behind and takes up a far different calling——that of a wandering rabbi. Mary hears that he has been baptized in the Jordan River by his cousin John. And then her son disappears into the wilderness to wrestle, quite literally, with demons. What is happening here? All of this must have troubled Mary’s soul.
Now Jesus is going about the countryside teaching. But what teaching is this? He is offending so many people by what he says! At least, he is offending the religious leaders who pack a lot of clout. How can this ministry of her son—a ministry found offensive by the religious intelligentsia—really herald the coming of the Kingdom of God? How can his ministry be true if what he’s doing is a mystery to his own people? Is this what it means to be the Messiah of Israel?
Mary’s misunderstanding reaches critical mass. She and her family don’t understand Jesus. For in Mark 3:21 we read, When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of Jesus, for they said, ‘he is out of his mind.’ Jesus needs some rest and relaxation, as they say. Well, maybe more than that. Perhaps Jesus needs some psychiatric help. He seems to be talking out of his head. Even for Mary, her preconceived notions of what the Christ would be like are so different from the way her Son is living his life. Mother Mary has become Doubting Mary.
Doubting Mary? Come on! You are getting Mary mixed up with Thomas!—I hear you say. I must confess that I have seldom, if ever, heard Jesus’ Mother called Doubting Mary. Yet it seems as though we cannot escape the honest truth. And perhaps we should give thanks for it.
For you see, Mary reminds us of ourselves. In our crises of faith when we really question whether God makes sense. Whether JESUS makes sense. Mary doubts. But lest we become too hard on her, we need to remember that doubt and faith often co—exist together.
Yes, even the greatest names in the history of the church have faced their moments of doubt. John Knox is known as the great Scottish churchman. Yet, he writes, “There was a time when my soul knew anger, wrath, and indignation—when it conceived against God calling all his promises in doubt.“
Increase Mather was one of the great Puritan preachers, yet he writes in his diary entry: “greatly molested with temptations to atheism.“ And Martin Luther, the great reformer, once wrote, “For more than a week Christ was wholly lost. I was shaken by desperation and blasphemy against God. There was a time when his wife appeared in mourning clothes at the breakfast table. “Who has died?“ asked Martin. “God has died,“ said his wife. “Why, that’s a terrible thing to say!“ said Luther. “It is,“ she said, “but if God has not died, why do you act as though he has? Why do you despair of life and hope?“
I take comfort in the midst of my doubt by looking at Mary. For I am tempted to say: “If I saw angels I would never have another doubt in the world! But Mary saw the angels. I am tempted to say: “If I had a message straight from God that would be enough to remove all of my doubts!“ But Mary had such a message from God. This thing we call faith is so difficult, so hard, that not even open heavens are enough to quell the churning of uncertainty within our souls.
So, what will it take to move further down the road of faith? Well, note what Jesus says in response to the request for an audience with his family. He says: “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s Word and put it into practice.“
Mary must have thought: “What kind of talk is this? Jesus is my Son! How can he say such things! How can he turn his back on me! But Mary must learn that she is to be more than the biological mother of the Lord Jesus. She must make a journey from being the Mother of the Messiah to being the Disciple of Christ. It is THAT lesson that Mary is learning throughout the ministry of her Son. Biological ties are cut so that new ones can be forged—ties of FAITH to her son. Mary too must hear God’s Word and put it into practice.
THE FOURTH ACT
Does Mary learn that lesson? Well, move to act four. Come with me to the upper room in Acts chapter 1. Jesus has ascended to heaven. The small band of followers are gathered to await the outpouring of the Spirit of Christ. They are all there—the eleven of course. But there are others who have joined them. We learn from Acts 1:14: “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and MARY the mother of Jesus and his brothers.“
There she is—in the upper room. Mary is there but not occupying some premier place as one to whom others pray. No, she is there praying herself. For she is there, not first of all as Jesus’ mother, but as Jesus’ disciple. Mary has indeed heard God’s Word spoken in her Son, and is putting it into practice.
LEARNING FROM MARY
That’s Mary’s story. For me, Mary isn’t someone I want to put on a pedestal. I don’t think she would want that. I don’t want to adore Mary. But I do want to learn from her life. That means this Christmas I want to meditate with Mary about who her Son really is. I want to cut through the commercialism of this Christmas season and focus on the identity of Jesus. I want to think long and hard about my own life in the light of his coming. As I do, I want to confront my own doubts and uncertainties. For me, as well as Mary, the cup of faith is often half—filled. I want to break through to a new level of obedience. Like Mary, I want to find my real identity as a disciple of her Son.
Join me on that journey. To hear the Christmas story is wonderful. To ponder it, amazing! But to OBEY the Christ who is born on Christmas Day—to respond to him in love——that will make all the difference in the world. For in doing so, you will join Mary’s family. A family that is ultimately defined not by genealogies or family trees. You will become part of God’s own family—children of the Father, brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus himself. Would you pray with me?
Prayer
Lord, we rise up and call Mary blessed. What a privilege to be enfolded into God’s salvation plan! What blessing to be the mother of the Messiah! But in honoring Mary help us also to learn from her. In this season when hype and glitter threatened to overwhelm us, may Mary become a pattern for our own journey of faith. Like Mary help us break through our hectic pace to quiet our souls, and contemplate Christ. Like Mary, help us to face our doubts and uncertainties with a commitment to obedience. Lord, help us to know Jesus deeply and so become part of the one family that abides forever—your family, the family of the living God. Amen.
Robert Heerspink
Rev. Robert Heerspink is a native of west Michigan. He completed his undergraduate studies at Calvin College and holds the degrees of Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Calvin Theological Seminary. He has also received a Doctor of Ministry degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Bob was ordained a minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church of North America in 1979, and has 26 years of parish experience, having served four churches throughout west Michigan. He was appointed the Director of The Back to God Hour in 2006. Bob has written several resources related to congregational stewardship, including the book, Becoming a Firstfruits Congregation. He is a regular contributor to TODAY, the monthly devotional of The Back to God Hour. Bob is married to Edith (Miedema) and they have three children. His hobbies include reading fictional and historical works, watersports, and occassional golfing.
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