Mary did you know?

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.

Christmas must involve families, traditions and compulsory presents. We’re obsessed with trees and decorations. Christmas songs – sacred and secular – are obligatory. There are hints of winter solstice and pagan traditions. Santa has taken top billing over Jesus. It’s a muddle.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?

Mark Lowry, who wrote this song, imagined he could meet Mary holding her new-born baby. He wrestled with the paradox that as God, the baby, had created Mary, yet as a mother Mary had ‘created’ the baby. He considered the questions he would like to ask her….

The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.

The Christmas story includes important characters – Joseph, shepherds, wise men, angels. There is marriage, a journey, a manger and a star. But the heart of Christmas narrative is a young woman and a baby; it’s about the baby’s identity, the man the baby would become, and the impact he would have on the world.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
The sleeping Child you’re holding is the Great, I Am.