Starring Role

As a child, our daughter Emily played the coveted role of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the church nativity play. Wearing a blue robe, her head demurely covered, she tenderly placed the baby Jesus into the manger while I beamed, camera in hand, from my cushioned third row seat. The music crescendoed around the embodied story, providing parents, kids, and congregants their brief annual insight into the events of what we collectively refer to as the “first Christmas”.

When the angel Gabriel blazed into Mary’s vision, her life and the course of history were forever changed.  Gabriel’s message pierced and enveloped her, announcing a God-initiated calling and a new identity that would define Mary’s life.  

And, as far as we know from the biblical record, this astonishing and clear divine encounter came to Mary just that once.  She had that single memory of personal encounter to lean on.  

But God spoke into the lives of others whose experiences pushed up against Mary’s.

From Joseph, Mary heard – not once, but three times – stories of directive, angelic dreams.  Her relative Elizabeth (John the Baptist leaping in her aged womb) prophetically confirmed Gabriel’s revelation to Mary and surely described the story of Zechariah’s angel encounter over unfolding days together.  While Mary lay exhausted and euphoric from the birthing of her precious child, shepherds describing an angel choir with gasping wonder suddenly burst in on the new family. Later, as the couple brought their baby in obedience to the Temple, Simeon and Anna unexpectedly stepped up with their joyful, bold-spoken prophecies. Years afterward (we surmise), the startling arrival of the magi gave further tangible evidence of God at work to fulfil his ancient promises.  The eastern mystics told their own stories of sky-thrown declarations bold enough to motivate a long, hazardous journey in order to give their treasures to a toddler King.  

Mary didn’t experience herself all the wonders of the biblical Christmas story we read together each Christmas Eve. We may think of Mary in the starring role, but those in the supporting cast actually get some of the best lines. I wonder if she resented that.  She herself did not hear the stirring angelic songs or see the lit sky. Why couldn’t Gabriel have come again to her in her keening darkness rather than those shepherds? Why did only Joseph receive the bright dreams of angels?  Did the magi’s star kindle in Mary’s vision?  Perhaps even Mary was not given as much clarity and certainty as she longed for.

The mother of Jesus was given a brief blaze of promise, a window of light.  So were Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth, the shepherds, Simeon and Anna, the magi.

Each one spoke from his or her experience. With each awed description, each thrilled telling, the larger story gained weight, magnitude.  Each one’s small light, brought together, blazed up into the great light of this unprecedented history that we call the Christmas story.

Most of the folk I share faith with are also like this. We have brief moments of revelation when our hearts flame up, when God seems close and our way forward seems so clear. But for most of us those are rare. Our days tend toward the routine rather than the visionary. We long for “God-things” and to see those special moments repeated, but we cannot manipulate the gifts of grace. In the beautiful body of Christ – the nativity reenacted in our Holy Spirit birthed communities – no one gets all the revelation, all the gifts. So we turn to one another, bravely offering in cupped hands our vulnerable sparks of faith. 

In sharing together, pooling the coals of our stories, the light blazes up enough for those of us living today to see afresh the glorious story of God with us, still lighting its way through time.  Lord knows, I’m hungry to sit around that fire this Christmas.