In which I enter the "Mary, did you know?" skirmishes
I had completely forgotten, but a parishioner reminded me at coffee hour on Sunday that I had preached on “Mary, did you know?” last Christmas. Since the annual skirmishes around this song have broken out again in my Facebook feed, I’m venturing this slight contribution.
And yes, I did sing it.
Christmas Day
Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Petersburg
25 December 2022
✠ I speak to you in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.
So many words—the shepherds’ report of the angels’ song, Joseph’s report of an angelic visitor who bestowed on the baby the Name which is above every name, not to mention her own highly informative conversation with the Archangel Gabriel just nine months before—so many words, but Mary’s deepest instinct is not to talk, but to treasure, not to proclaim, but to ponder.
I was visiting my family last week so I could celebrate the holiday with them and be free to be with my parish family, where I belong, for Christmas. And I kept hearing my father whistle a tune. It would whistle it for you myself, but since I can’t really whistle, I’ve asked Canon Thomas to play it on the organ: (first five notes of ascending D minor scale)
Do you recognize that? I was sure I did: “Let all mortal flesh keep silence,” obviously—though that was odd. Since when is “Let all mortal flesh keep silence” in my Baptist family’s repertoire? I kept listening, and the rest of the tune began to unfold, and it finally clicked: it was “Mary, did you know?”
Do y’all know that song? You haven’t lived until you’ve been part of the Mary-did-you-know controversies around Christmastime. Because, beloved in Christ, there are some people out there who hate that song with a fierceness you can barely imagine.
Mary, did you know that your baby boy
Would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know that your baby boy
Would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy
Has come to make you new?
This child that you delivered, will soon deliver you
Well, yes, say the people who hate that song. Of course she knew. All those words—”He shall be the son of the Most High”; “You shall call his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins”; “Unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord”—all these words Mary knew, and she treasured them, and pondered them in her heart.
Yes, she knew. Not all the details, of course—the walking on water bit had not been announced ahead of time—and let’s not think that she had somehow worked out all the details of Christology that it would take the Church four centuries to hammer out. But yes, she knew. But what did she do with what she knew? Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.
She didn’t talk, she treasured. She didn’t proclaim, she pondered. Mary could be a talker when the occasion called for it: just ask her cousin Elizabeth, who heard Mary pour out that mighty song, the Magnificat; just ask the servants at the wedding at Cana, who got their first instructions from her and not from Jesus. She could be a talker when the occasion called for it. But on this occasion Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.
I’m not much of a treasurer myself, not much of a ponderer. I’m a talker. By inclination and profession, I’m a talker. But my father’s advice, given unawares, is the right advice for this occasion: Let all mortal flesh keep silence. Because I too have the words to treasure, and the mighty deeds of God to ponder. I have been told, and I believe, that God himself entered human history in Jesus Christ, and that in Christ is my salvation, my joy, my hope, my life. I have known him, I have seen him at work in my life to enlighten and transform, I have held him in my hands and taken him on my lips in a wonderful exchange that even Mary could not yet have envisioned. I could talk and talk and talk about all these things: but as Richard Hooker said, our safest eloquence concerning him is silence.
So let’s do something we don’t often do here. I’m going to return to my seat and invite you into a space of silence. Grasp in your hand the hand of the infant king. Sit beside his holy Mother, and, with her, treasure all the words you have about Jesus, and ponder them in your heart.