The song Mary, Did You Know has always cut me deep. As a mom who also had to send her only boy on to Heaven before me, it just resonates.  When the angel appeared and told her what her destiny would be, what did she know?  There is no indication that she hesitated to say “yes”, so did she just agree with blind faith? We know that Mary is fully human so even in her state of grace, if Gabriel had given her a glimpse into her future, surely her humanity would have caused her to pause and scratch her head, right?  The bible tells us twice that Mary “pondered things in her heart” but it doesn’t tell us that she knew. So she must not have known.

Besides all the big stuff- Jesus’ childhood, ministry and ultimate death and resurrection…what did she know that night in Bethlehem?  Is there any bigger contradiction in this world to that “silent night” in the manger than modern day Christmas?  Did Mary gaze at her baby in his swaddling clothes and think of what his birthday would look like 2000 years later?  If she had an inkling, did she giggle at our stupidity?  Did she roll her eyes at our excessiveness?  Did she cry at our exasperation trying to just “get it all done?” 

Did she foresee the years of tinsel icicles that morphed into bright colored mesh that transitioned into velvet ribbon bows that now grace our trees?  Did she see the felt stockings that got swapped out for Pottery Barn into the Bauble needlepoint stockings that are all the rage today? (on my bucket list by the way and if we ever hit it big I’ll never say so….but there will be signs…needlepoint Bauble stockings on my mantle will be a sign), but I digress…

What was her journey to Bethlehem, her Advent like? What did she learn, grow from, accept and anticipate while waiting for her Christmas?  Did she weep knowing how impatient we would become, forgetting the art of waiting?  Was her heart sad, does it still get sad watching us hurriedly decorate school lobbies full of secular holiday crap instead of teaching the kids who are walking through that lobby of what it means to wait, to get a little closer each day, to anticipate? Is she heartbroken that once again we missed an opportunity to teach our most teachable what we are waiting for?  Why is that?  Why is it that the churches aren’t decorated yet?  Their halls don’t get decked until He is born?  Why can’t the school that is designed to teach what the church teaches wait too?  Do we think that a few antsy individuals know church doctrine and sacred tradition better than our religious leaders and better than the Bible?  

So what did Mary know?  I hope she didn’t know all of that.  She couldn’t have.  So if even Mary didn’t know what her life would look like, why do we think we get to know?  

Several months ago someone sent me a snippet of a video from a family wedding in 1997.  We were taking an extended family pic with the bride and groom. In that clip we can see 16 of us with two more who were just out of the camera angle.  And it kind of sucked the oxygen from me for a few minutes.  And every time that I have watched it since.  Of the 18, five are dead…four of them who should still be here today. And as the camera panned and I caught my 21-year-old self, I looked at her and wondered, what would she have done if she had known?  

What would that 21 year girl do differently if she had known that within three years she would be married herself, one year later be a mom and four years after that she would be burying her second born and then be sent into battle for the rest of life learning to balance grief and joy, guilt and acceptance, doubt and faith, not now and finally.  What would she have said if God had shown her?  Her humanity would have said nope.  Not taking that option. Can I see what’s behind door 2 please?  

So we don’t get to know.  Because we would never say yes.  

The flip side of that script though is we don’t get to know anything.  When we are waiting and hoping for a thing, anything, He has got his own nope. He is like listen…if I told you the bad then you would never say yes to me but if I showed you the good coming then you would never say no to the world.  And saying yes to Him means saying no to the world, over and over.  And we don’t do that very well. We don’t say no because we don’t know how to wait. 

For the past 23 Christmases I have had a Santa believer under my roof. This Christmas, the 24th, I do not.  Oh I am still pretending and lying but she has figured it out and she is trying so hard to catch me.  But sadly, that season is over for this family.  My kids know and have always known the real reason for the season.  BE-LIEV-E me, it is etched into their innermost beings what we are really celebrating. But our 25th Christmas and beyond will look much different.  Oh my wise Soul Sista friend swears to me that life is so good on the other side but I don’t know if I believe her. Because the other side holds a lot more grown-up kid stuff that I do know about. God did not have to tell me that one day none of them would “believe” anymore.  I knew that one day would come and now one day is today.  

Aren’t we are all on a perpetual journey to Bethlehem? Waiting and anticipating for what is to come.  We grieve for what we’ve lost and find joy in what comes in its place.  We walk through the guilt of what we would have differently and accept that we can’t go back. We doubt if better days are coming but find our faith redeemed when they do.  We learn that not now does not mean no and finally is always better. 

May your Christmas be full but not exactly how you pictured it to be. May you ponder and store up in your heart all the things just like Mary did.  And wait with anticipation until He tells you what He wants you to know.

Merry Christmas 2024