I was recently reflecting on the stained glass window in our church, with the Madonna and Child. I was also thinking our my encounter with the Maori Christ in New Zealand. I was also reflecting on Earl Stanley Jones’s book, “The Christ of Every Road” and his call for a renewal of the church mission to engage the world. I was, also, thinking of the role of Mary in Christ’s story, the great preoccupation with Mary and Christ in European Renaissance art.
The strange thing is that Mary plays such a small part in the New Testament story. Matthew transforms Mary into the Virgin mother of Israel—only Luke’s story of the nativity really centers on Mary. The Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, only mention her one other time in a reference to his mother and brothers, and Jesus seems to brush them off saying, “Who are my mother and my brothers? They who do the will of my Father, they are my mother and my brothers.” John has Mary appear to only twice, at the wedding of Cana and at the cross. None of the Gospel writers have her appear in the story of the resurrection. Paul’s only reference is in Galatians 3, “Born of Woman.”
Four centuries after the New Testament, Mary is almost forgotten. Then, there is a sudden interest in the church, and she dominates Medieval art. She is exalted theologically as a mother of God through the immaculate conception. She is a co-redemptress with Christ, as Titian portrays Mary in “The Assumption of the Virgin.”
She has her enthronement with Christ through the assumption of the Virgin Mary. With this background, I would like to look at the story of Mary and the nativity.
First of all, there is an interesting contrast between the two women in Luke’s story—Mary and Elizabeth. Mary was a nobody and was betrothed to Joseph, who was regarded in the low estate. The writer Luke says, “In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to the city of Galilee to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph.” Elizabeth on the other hand was of the establishment, a wife of a priest who was from the line of Aaron. Mary was a country girl. Elizabeth was a sophisticated woman of Jerusalem. Mary had no past, while Elizabeth had a long past. Mary was not yet a woman, while Elizabeth was past becoming a woman. The key message is “all things are possible.” Mary is the beginning of the future, where out of “no past comes the future.” Mary and Elizabeth find each other. Elizabeth’s baby leaps for joy while still in her womb, because Mary’s baby is to be born to be the Liberator.
Mary sings her song of the great reversal in history. Luke puts Mary right in the center of God’s promise with Sarah, Miriam and Hannah. God’s liberating reversal comes about through a humble instrument—Mary the mother of the liberator. God cuts down the mighty and raises the low. Mary’s child liberates Mary. Mary becomes the second Miriam. She sings about what is to happen next—Jesus the liberator is on the way. The good news for anyone oppressed is that freedom is on its way, too. He will fill the hungry with good things. He will bring freedom and good news, which he addresses to the needs of the oppressed. The good news is the fulfillment of the longing heart. Mary is the symbol of the liberation of all women. Women now appear at the rebirth point in history, women like Sarah, Miriam, Hannah and Mary Magdalene.
Howard Thurman, the great black poet-theologian-preacher says that all the world reveres and remembers the Madonna and child, because with the birth of a baby, civilization is reborn and given a new future. The experience of motherhood is an expression of the creative and redemptive principle of new life. The stirring of a child in the womb is the perennial sign of renewal and an attack on bigotry, blindness, prejudice, greed and all the host of diseases that make human life a nightmare and a Holocaust. With the birth of a child anywhere, something new, fresh and whole is brought into the world—and the world is born-again. The experience of motherhood is an expression of the creative force. But, I feel even this is not the final word as to why the church has lifted the virgin higher and higher.
In Genesis, there is a verse, which is a vital message we overlook. “God created “Adam” humanity in his own image—male and female—he created “them”. The male-female humanity is a reflection of the image of God. Historically we have emphasized the male image of God—God the warrior and God the jock who moves through history bully people over like a halfback. However, listen to Isaiah, “As one of whom his mother conference, so will I comfort you says the Lord.” In the Gospel story, God singles out a young woman to bear his Messiah. In Luke’s account, she handles herself in such a beautiful way there is nothing about her you want to change. I’m sure the portrayal of Madonna and Child by the artist has been far too saccharine.
Hans King, a Catholic theologian, points out: “This grace-endowed maiden talks about the humiliation of the mighty and the exultation of the lowly, the satisfying of the hungry and the sending away of the rich empty, which is a radical revision of priorities.”
This does not change the fact that the new order announced with joy is the one where the:
- Peacemakers inherit the kingdom
- Merciful obtain mercy
- Mourners receive comfort
- Poor in spirit receives the kingdom
- Weak inherit the earth
Thou comest a little baby that makes a mother cry. The Madonna and Child speaks to all of us about a quality of life that we must embrace: gentleness, comfort, forgiveness and acceptance.
Last night I was reading in C.S. Lewis about the virgin birth. He says that the human father is merely an instrument, or a carrier, and often an unwilling carrier, and simply the last in a long line of carriers that stretch far beyond our ancestors into pre-human and pre-organic deserts of time to the creation of matter itself. But, that line has become so choked with hate and greed and the darker qualities of humankind that through the virgin-born Christ—God dispensed with this long line. With his life-giving finger he touched a woman who created humankind anew. Life now has a new divine human point from which to begin again—he is a new creation. The whole soul of our universe quivered at this direct injection of essential life—direct, uncontaminated, and not drained through all the crowded history of nature.
In Christ, you and I can be born in anew. Our old history coded in our games, our old nature clouded with the darker qualities of hate and lust and greed—can be raised and renewed by forgiveness. We can be a new creation born anew of the spirit of a new humanity.
Today, this place can be the manger where the Christ is born anew in us. In this great miracle—a new being—a new human—charged with God—changing human history. This new human stands on the threshold of each of our lives with outstretched hands and says, “Come unto me.” I will draw you into a new beginning, a new history, and a new future. Paul could say: “If anyone is in Christ, he-she is a new creation—the old history—the old nature has passed away—and behold all is become new.” In Christ—the baby of Bethlehem—humanity is born-again—born anew.
Reverend Arthur Schwabe Blog 