The Christmas Story and 2020

How can things go so badly?  I suspect most people have asked a question like that during 2020.  There are the pandemic and the cascade of problems that have come with it like economic hardship, unemployment, disruption of education from pre-K through university life, businesses closing offices with people now working from home. In addition, we’ve experienced a variety of natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, fires, and wild snowstorms.  It’s been quite a year!

As Christmas approaches, one person stands out for me in the Christmas story as someone who experienced unexpected, unpleasant, life-changing events.  That person is Mary, the mother of Jesus.

The history of Christianity has created many images of Mary that I don’t find particularly helpful or inspiring.  Catholic and Orthodox Christians have put Mary on a such lofty pedestal that she has lost her humanity.  She’s pictured as calm, demure, and dutiful … much like a perfect monk or nun.  Of course, Protestants went in another direction and rarely mention Mary at all.  But the Gospel stories present Mary as a key figure in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

What is there about Mary makes her relevant in 2020?  Our only information about Mary is from the sacred stories found in the Bible written decades after her death.  The legends of Mary grew quickly in the early centuries of Christianity.  In an attempt to avoid the pious legends, I want to focus on things that are key in the stories relayed by the Bible.  I recognize that no one knows what is historically accurate in any of these stories.

We are told that Mary was a young girl who probably had just entered puberty.  She grew up in a culture in which women weren’t given much respect. Women were help-mates to men and worked tirelessly at home.  Perhaps up to 20% of women died in childbirth, yet they were expected to have many children.  That was part of being a good wife.

Mary was betrothed, promised to, a man named Joseph.  It was an arranged marriage.  It seems that her life was planned for her.  She would follow the way of life that she saw from all the women around her.  We don’t know how she felt about that.  Whatever she felt about her future, her feelings probably didn’t matter much to anyone.  She was expected to follow tradition.

In this context that Mary should follow traditional expectations, something unexpected happened.  The sacred story conveys that an angel appeared and relayed a message.  We have particular notions of angels today that are different from Mary’s culture.  An angel was a messenger.  The author of another New Testament book explained that we should welcome strangers because they could be angels (Hebrews 13:2), so an angel may likely appear to be a human being.  With that in mind, I prefer to think that Mary somehow became aware that she was pregnant.  She didn’t know how it happened.  Since she wasn’t married, the normal course of action would have been for her to be stoned to death.  Her parents tried to protect her and sent her to live with her cousin, Elizabeth, to keep her out of public view.  Her parents (probably her father) made the final arrangements for the marriage to Joseph to save Mary’s life.  All of these events had to be both frightening and confusing to Mary.

As if this wasn’t enough, within this nine-month pregnancy, she was married, traveled to Bethlehem, and gave birth. Not long after the child’s birth, Mary and her family became refugees in Egypt.  Over what was probably a two-year period, it likely seemed as though one horrible event happened after another to this woman.  From what we know of Mary, time and again, she needed to respond to incredible, dire circumstances.  Yet, she persisted.

No matter what the events in Mary’s life, what I find most inspiring is that she continued to continue.  Faced with difficult situations throughout her life, the sacred stories convey a sense that Mary maintained hope for the future.  This hope continued as she stood at the foot of the cross watching her son, who was sentenced to capital punishment, and died a truly horrible death.

Even with the approval of vaccines, medical experts tell us that we will live with the pandemic throughout 2021.  In the face of the serious news, aware that more people will become sick and die, we are challenged to be like Mary:  hopeful and vigilant in finding ways to preserve life.  Mary is an example of how to face very difficult circumstances, circumstances she never expected. Yet Mary persisted in hope.  Mary trusted that life was profoundly good. Mary understood that the difficulties of life could be endured and that good would prevail.

As we mark this Christmas, likely a simpler holiday than years past with many of us grieving the loss of loved ones, let’s remember Mary.  I find her in her story something uniquely relevant for our lives in 2020.  To that end, the image of Mary that will inspire us is the strong woman who faced difficulties and never lost hope.  It was that hope which sustained her.

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay