In the story of Christmas, most people focus on Jesus, as well they should. But the Gospels highlight another very important figure: Mary. She is the mother of God, and an inspiration who is relevant even today.
Let's start with the basics: Mary of Nazareth was a young girl, probably a teenager, betrothed to be married to the carpenter Joseph. As a young Jewish woman, she would know the Bible — the great story of how Israel's God had created the Heavens and the Earth, and of how that God chose a people and promised to bring about a renewal of the world through them. Israel's generous God would hold up his end of the bargain and liberate them through a daring, unexpected act.
This is the story that Mary may have had on her mind when she was visited by the angel Gabriel. In the Bible, angels are the killing machines of Israel's God. The Gospels tell us that the angel's appearance scared her, as well it should. And yet she held her ground. The angel asked her to bear a child, and she dared to talk back: How can this happen, since I am a virgin? God is all-powerful, answered the angel. Mary responded, "Let it be done to me according to your will."
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Mary's sheer courage is impressive. As as an unmarried woman, pregnancy exposed her to being stoned. It took serious stones (sorry for the pun) to say yes to Gabriel. Later on, Mary would go into exile in Egypt after her son was threatened by King Herod, no mean feat for a young woman with a baby. And, last, when almost all of Jesus' companions fled, she would be at the foot of the Cross.
In popular piety, Mary is viewed as a passive and soft figure. That is not the Mary of the Bible or of Christian Tradition. When Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, according to the Gospel of Luke, she launches into a hymn, the Magnificat, placing her in the tradition of the fearless prophets of Israel: "[The Almighty] puts forth his arm in strength / and scatters the proud-hearted. / He casts the mighty from their thrones / and raises the lowly. / He fills the starving with good things, / sends the rich away empty." This was not an archetype of the passive virgin, but an active, proud woman. For Christians, Mary is an archetype of womanhood because of her courage.
The Gospel writers build an explicit parallel between Mary and one of the greatest figures of the Bible, Abraham. Mary believed Israel's God could do the impossible and staked her life on it — like Abraham she "had faith and it was reckoned to her as righteousness." Like Abraham, Mary left her familiar environment for a foreign land. Like Abraham, Mary was given a son through whom Israel's God would spread his blessings to the nations. Like Abraham, Mary was asked to sacrifice her son — but unlike Abraham, no angel stayed the knife. The Gospel writers wouldn't make this parallel if they didn't want to tell us about Mary's courage.
These parallels are everywhere in the Bible. The Bible is like a symphony; themes are repeated and expanded upon by the writers. The arcs of many characters refer to other characters, or concepts, or events, and allow us to understand the characters and their meaning deeply.
The other Biblical character whose arc Mary parallels is Eve. The Bible, in Corinthians, says that Jesus was the new Adam — just like Adam is a figure representative of all of humanity, so is Jesus. If there was to be a new Adam, there had to be a new Eve, and that is Mary. This is the source of the Roman Catholic dogma of the immaculate conception, that Mary was born without sin (that is not the same thing as the virgin birth). Since Eve was created without sin, the new Eve had to be born without sin.
This brings us to a key teaching of the story of Mary: the meaning of freedom. Freedom, then, in the Biblical worldview, involves an element of free choice but is also a lifelong process of liberating ourselves from our bad impulses so that we can make free choices, just as the alcoholic needs to liberate himself from the pull of his addiction before he can make a free choice about what he drinks. Call it "the passions" if you're a Greek philosopher, or "the unconscious" or "neuroses" if you're a psychologist, or "the consequences of original sin" if you're a Christian. God respects his creatures, and would not save us if we refused him, and that is why Mary's choice to give birth to the Savior had to be a truly free choice. God wanted Mary to be born without sin so she could make a truly free choice.
Mary was a brave, courageous, free woman. But Mary's humility is important. When God told Abraham he would have a son despite the seeming biological impossibility, given his wife's age, Genesis says he laughed so hard he fell on his face. Mary said simply, "Let it be done to me according to your will."
Mary, then, holds lessons for all of us. About trust, and trust in God. About courage. And about the true meaning of freedom. Not bad for an unwed teenage mother from 2,000 years ago.
