Today is a music day.
I hope you all are keeping warm in your neck of the woods. It is going to go from -12 degrees F on Friday, December 23, to 54 degrees F the next Friday, December 30.
Confession time. I didn’t get the song recorded that I was planning on posting today, so I am going to post the one I did last year.
Mary, Did You Know? is one of my favorite Christmas songs. To think this sweet teenage girl went through all she had to in order to bring the Messiah into the world is mind boggling.
I saw one version on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. Someone had written a comment that this song is not Biblical because Mary did know.
I beg to differ. The only things Mary would know about Jesus was she and Joseph had been told.
- “And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end'” (Lk. 1: 30-33 ESV).
- “And the angel answered her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God'” (Lk. 1: 35-37 ESV).
- “But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins'” (Mt. 1: 20-21 ESV).
- “And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed'” (Lk. 2: 34-35 ESV).
True, they would have had the Old Testament prophecy on the coming Messiah. (I am only going to look at the ones addressed in the song.)
- Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes” (Isa. 35: 5-7 ESV).
- “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isa. 61: 1 ESV).
- “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7: 13-14 ESV).
Okay, there is also a passage in Daniel 9 that talks about weeks of sin that is supposed to be prophecy that the Messiah will end sin. To me, it really didn’t talk about the Messiah. It just said that sin would end.
Nowhere was Mary told that Jesus would
- Walk on water.
- Calm the storm.
Since Mary knew Jesus was the Son of God, she would have figured out that she kissed the face of God and that He walked with angels.
Would Mary have realized that Jesus would make her new because He was heaven’s perfect Lamb? Probably not. Israel was looking for a military Messiah, not a spiritual One.
But to me, the person questioning what Mary knew and didn’t know missed an important point.
The song is very specific of what Mary knew in hindsight.
Mary was told Jesus was the Son of God. She wasn’t told how everything would shake out. She had to take that on faith.
Which she did.
Merry Christmas from Pastor Steve, Adam, and I. I hope you have silenced your heart to really let the Child of Christmas in this year.
Mary, Did You Know?
Vocalist: Elaine Guthals
Keyboard: Louise Guthals Weiss
What do you think?
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