SERMON:   MARY, Mother of our Lord  15 August 2004

 Readings:    Isaiah 61:10-62:3        Psalm 113        Galatians 4: 4-7        Luke 2: 1-7 

In the name of God, born of a woman. 

And Mary asked herself, “If I had known then what I know now, would I still have said ‘yes’?”  

All those years ago, confronted with the reality of God’s presence, would I have said yes? Was there someone else who could have done this? Or could it only be me?  

How many times over the years have I wondered whether it was worth it? Whether this child, who was so like and yet so unlike other children, who set me apart from other women even before he was born, could perhaps have been born to another, leaving me to a simpler life, a less troubled life. 

After the drama of his first few years, when Joseph and I were forced to flee into Egypt to avoid Herod’s slaughter of baby boys, life was peaceful enough. There were those who were resentful that their sons had been killed and my son had survived. One grieving mother spat at me as she hurled abuse. But I also had the company of my family and friends who rejoiced that Jesus had not been killed in those terrible days. 

Any woman who has borne and raised a child will know the depth of the bond that is there. Flesh of my own flesh, bone of my own bone. Of me, and yet not me – carrying echoes and reflections of so many others – grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers.  

Probably any one who has ever cared for a child from its earliest days will also know that visceral love that goes so much deeper than language. It is hard to talk about it without sounding sentimental and mawkish but there is a love which binds humans together in a way that defies reason.  I saw it in Joseph too as he raised Jesus, played with him, taught him his craft and so many other things as well.  

There were the other children too – such a joy. When they were young, they loved hearing the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem and the rush into Egypt when he was an infant. I think they thought it was exciting and wished we could all have an adventure like that again. They knew, as children always do, that Jesus was somehow different from them but I think they put it down to his adventurous early years. I didn’t tell them about his conception or about the things that Simeon and Anna had said when he was circumcised. They didn’t need to know and I guess I was still wondering what they really meant.  

I was so young, so confident in my own capacity to cope and in God’s care of me. Looking back it is hard to know whether there was a moment at which I realised what it all meant. It seems to me that we go into most of life unprepared, not knowing what to expect but there are people along the way who guide us and help us to understand. Wise women who can tell you about childbirth, friends who can talk with you about marriage, a partner to talk about life with. But who could Joseph and I talk to about raising a child like Jesus?  

Sometimes we could almost forget that he was anything other than a completely normal child but then something would happen that set him apart, like staying in the temple when he should have been coming home with us. Any of the other children would have been down at the bazaar looking for toys.  

For so many years I wondered what would happen. There seemed to be so many prophecies, so many indications that Jesus’ life would be quite different. Part of me thought that he might become a high priest – it seemed unlikely, given our background, but no one knows better than I do that such things don’t stand in the way of God.   

Those years he spent wandering around as an itinerant teacher were troubling and joyous. I could see that he was doing absolutely what he felt called to do. I could hear the voice of God speaking when he spoke. I saw the healings and the enormous crowds of people who came to listen to him. I saw that he had one part of him completely invested in his ministry of preaching and healing and another part of him immersed in the presence of God.  

And I was afraid. He seemed to fear nothing. He must have known that he was making enemies among the most powerful people in the country. Heaven alone knows, we told him often enough.  

Faced with his passionate conviction that he must follow God’s call, I was reminded of my own conviction, 30 years before, that I must do as God asked, whatever the consequences. How could I, of all people, tell him to pull back and save himself? He wouldn’t have listened anyway, and what would I have been asking him to do? I would have been asking him to lose his soul for the sake of his body. And I couldn’t do that. Even though I knew what must come.  

But I still hoped that it wouldn’t. So many terrible things that might have happened to me didn’t – the angels spoke to Joseph and he honoured our marriage agreement. Jesus might have been killed with all the other baby boys but God told us to go to Egypt.  Right up until the moment of his death, I hoped that God might intervene and save him. He had so much more to do, so much more to teach us.  

I found his death so hard to bear. I threw my rage at God like a spear, wanting God to be in as much pain as I was. It took a while for me to know that God was suffering just as I was. The resurrection was surreal – mind-bending, way beyond anything we had ever experienced – but it was also infinitely comforting. At least I knew that in some way or other he lived. All those learned arguments between Sadducee and Pharisee about whether there was life after death were so much froth and bubble. All that mattered to me was that he had not gone completely, irrevocably.  

His friends have been good to me. John has taken very seriously Jesus’ request that he look after me. But I am treated quite strangely. Some people ignore me completely – the mother of a criminal, a heretic, a blasphemer. But there are many others who want to hear stories of Jesus’ life and, I suspect, want me to be other than I really am. Already it is hard to disentangle the truth of his life and teaching from fabrication and embellishment.  

What was it all about? I still, after all these years, can’t really unravel it all. I do know though that I have been caught up in the inner workings of God’s purposes. Through my son, my passionate, other worldly, quixotic, brilliant, compassionate son, the cosmos has shifted. Nothing will ever be the same again. My love, my pain, my fear, my joy are mine alone – his pain, his love are for the whole creation.

My son.  

Sarah Macneil