Sermon 12/15/2019 “Do you know?”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at Immanuel Chapel, Virginia Theological Seminary
Text: Matthew 11:2-11
Day: 3Advent, Year A
Have you heard the song, “Mary Did You Know?” This song asks Mary, the mother-to-be of Christ Jesus, a series of questions, each ending with “Mary Did You Know?” This song is very popular; it has been recorded by countless musicians since first released in 1991.
This song asks a series of haunting questions of Mary, each ending with “did you know?” The words ask Mary, mother of Jesus, if she truly realized all the wondrous miracles that her child would grow up to do. Here’s a sample:
Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God
Mary did you know?[1]
The answer, of course, is that Mary didn’t know, not fully, couldn’t have known, all the ramifications of her saying “yes” to God when she consented to bear the Christ Child into the world. Mary didn’t know, couldn’t have known, any more than ANY mother-to-be can know what will become of the love they birth into the world, any more than any father-to-be could know.
Except, of course, the Father of THIS Child knew. His Father-in-Heaven had sent him, with his full consent, on this earthly mission to “inhabit humanity, conquer death, and make an Exodus from life that all life could follow.” I’ll bet this Child’s adoptive father, Joseph of Nazareth, knew, too, as this Child’s life unfolded, as HE (Joseph) pondered in his heart the mysteries revealed to HIM by an angel in a dream, who told him to shelter and give material sustenance to the Messiah and to name the Child “Jesus.”
If these parents-to-be hadn’t FULLY understood the unusual birth announcements, they surely understood his full identity when he performed all those miracles—the very miracles that the prophets had foretold some 700 years before.
We know that Mary KNEW these prophecies, knew scripture. How else could she have so blithely sung the Song of Hannah in response to the angel’s announcement? “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God…” sang Hannah in thanksgiving.[2] “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” sang Mary.[3]
These wouldn’t have been the first words off MY lips if an angel suggested I give birth to God. But Mary channeled barren Hannah, mother of Samuel, who a thousand years before had promised to give her firstborn child to God’s service IF ONLY God would give her children.
Accepting the mission God had given her opened Mary to new possibilities in her life, not all of them positive. Yes, Mary would, forever-after, be known and revered as “God-bearer.” But, if her fiancé Joseph had rejected her, she would have been an outcast. And Mary could have been stoned to death for heresy for claiming she was to give birth to God, the Messiah. Almost certainly, she would have been ridiculed, not believed. And yet, Mary said, “let it be to me according to your word.”[4]
By the time three decades or so later that King Herod had had John the Baptizer arrested, Mary DID know that the baby boy she had birthed had out-argued scripture scholars in the Temple, had given sight to blind men, had healed the lame, and had done all the miraculous things the prophets of old had foretold about the Messiah. “Mary did you know?” Yes, Mary knew.
Scripture records that even John the Baptizer knew Jesus was the Messiah.[5] But Jesus, apparently, either had done something, or hadn’t done something, that hadn’t “squared,” completely, with John’s understanding of what the Messiah would do. John sent word to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”
Just how many Messiahs did John think there would be? God coming to us in the flesh isn’t like a surfer who doesn’t like the look of an oncoming wave so says, “I’ll sit this one out and wait for a better one.”
John was like a man in the old joke who was trapped on top of the roof of his house after a flood. This man had prayed for God to save him but had turned away rescue boats and even a helicopter. He knew GOD would save him. When he drowned and arrived at the proverbial pearly gates, he complained that God hadn’t rescued him. Whereupon St. Peter asked, “Who do you think sent all those rescue vehicles?”
John knew, all right. John knew that Jesus was the Messiah. WE know, too. We know that there was and will be no other Messiah. John—and we—either must believe in this one or let OUR RESCUE from this life pass us by.
What John had wanted was an explanation for why Jesus-the-Messiah hadn’t rescued him from prison, why Jesus had allowed Herod to do the sinful things he had done and had allowed Herod to arrest John for having denounced Herod’s sins.
But we shouldn’t be hard on John. Don’t WE, even today, knowing what would happen on and after the Cross, don’t WE try to make Jesus-the-Christ over into our image?
What Jesus told John was, “Look at me: What you see, what I did, is what you get. Judge for yourself.” And to this day, John points us to Jesus, who tells us to live his love.
As for Mary, there’s a new version of the “Mary did you know? song making the rounds on the Internet.
Mary did you know
that we hear your voice
for the healing of the nations?
Mary did you know
your unsettling cry
can help renew creation?[6]
The question for us today is, “Resurrection, do YOU know?”
[1] Words by Michael Lowry in 1984; music by Buddy Green in 1991; first released by Michael English in 1991
[5] See John 1:29 and John 1:36
[6] Words by Jennifer Henry; artwork by Anthony VanArsdale for the National Black Catholic Congress (posted here)
