| At church on Sunday, we sang “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and then lit the first candle on our Advent wreath. The first week of the Advent season is themed around hope (then peace, joy, and love), but various traditions offer their own emphases, with many naming the candles for the prophets, Bethlehem, the angels, and the shepherds. Some specifically designate a candle for Mary, who fulfilled the prophesies, received the angel’s message, and faithfully carried the Christ child. Mary is having a bit of a resurgence in our Protestant corners. “Mary, no longer just a silent member of the nativity, or a holy womb for God, or an obedient and compliant girl, has become the focal point for how I, and many other Christians, celebrate Christmas while living in the reality of waiting for true justice to come,” wrote D. L. Mayfield in the Washington Post last year. “She has helped me understand the true magnificence of how much God cares about our political, economic and social realities.” Like Mayfield, the scholars who wrote the December cover story for Christianity Today call out contemporary evangelicals who have underestimated Mary’s massive significance in the Gospels, the life of Jesus, and the life of the church. Wheaton College professors Jennifer Powell McNutt and Amy Beverage Peeler deem her the first Christian, writing: Mary was the first to receive the Good News of Christ’s coming and to assent to it. From that point on she continued to assent, to faithfully bear and raise him to adulthood, to witness his first miracle, to demonstrate his redefinition of family through faith, to watch his death on the cross, to receive his Spirit. She was there every step along the way as faithful witness, supporter, and proclaimer of Christ. One of the early ecumenical councils gave Mary the title of Theotokos, or “God-bearer” (a designation in contrast to “Christ-bearer”). It was one of many debates—as McNutt and Peeler reference—where what we believe about Mary indicates what we believe about Christ. And that’s precisely why we need more Mary in our churches and prayers and spiritual disciplines. Christiana Peterson, author of Mystics and Misfits, writes that “her bold decision to bear Jesus points us beyond her to God.” Indeed, in all we read about her in Scripture, her actions and her words (oh the Magnificat!) help us understand God and his nature. Peterson shares how we too might bear God as “we, like Mary, are asked to take Jesus within ourselves and be the vessel of God’s goodness to the world.” That goes for all of us—loving and serving right where find ourselves, even in ordinary suburbia. “When we become God-bearers, allowing his Word to enter us, we also participate in suffering with others,” she said. “Not only do we suffer with those on the margins—the vulnerable, the young, the elderly, minorities, refugees, the homeless, the sick, and the broken-hearted— but we also learn from them what it means to bear God in the world.” Blessings to you this Advent season, Kate |
