Mary, Did You Really Know?

Many little girls dream of their marriage to a handsome young man, a life filled with joy and the adventure of raising children. This was little different in the time of Mary and Joseph, with a couple of notable extras. First, they were under the thumb of a ruthless foreign power, taxed to death and never really safe from
abuse by the soldiers. Second, they all wished for their anointed deliverer to arrive, and that meant each Jewish girl hoped she would be the one to bear the child who would grow up to be the Messiah (anointed one). So far, so good -- she had grown up in a God-fearing family, and was betrothed to a respected man, a local builder named Joseph. Then it all came unglued.

Mary was minding her own business, we presume, when Gabriel was sent from God to tell her the great news. Good news: she was going to be the Messiah's mother! Bad news: the implication carried with "you will conceive in your womb" was that she would be pregnant before she and Joseph got married. What was she to do? This would be a high price to pay to bear the savior of her people. However, no matter how much of this went through her head in a few seconds, she said "I am the Lord's servant." From then on, she was the target of her neighbors' scorn; and in a small village, of course, nothing goes unnoticed.

But that wasn't the only price Mary had to pay. At the temple, meeting the elderly Simeon should have been a pleasant experience of being blessed by an old devout man -- but the man's last phrase, "a sword will pierce your own soul also" must have sent a chill all through her.

And it wasn't over. Within a year or so, Herod the king ordered all two-year-olds and under in the region of Bethlehem to be put to the sword. Imagine Mary's terror at hearing about this, even though Joseph had been warned in a dream to leave, and they were now on their way to Egypt. What if Herod found out that it was her son he was after, and that they had escaped? What if he ordered another random killing? How could her son survive such threats?

What about in Luke 2:41-51, when Jesus wasn't in the caravan with the others, and was lost to them for three days? How did Mary survive during that time of trauma?

The song "Mary, Did You Know?" gives many of the wonderful details about Jesus' life, but these vignettes are enough to turn any parent's blood cold. When Mary told the angel yes, did she really know how much she would go through to watch her son grow up -- only to be killed, so cruelly, on a Roman object of torture? Maybe she didn't need to know. We can thank God that she was willing to endure what she already knew, and that she was given the strength to endure the rest as well.