Articles
Mary Did You Know?
Mary, Did You Know?
We already told you, please stop asking.
Mary Did You Know? is a Christmas song written in 1984 by Mark Lowry and first hit the radio in 1991 when Buddy Greene put it to music and then, popular Christian music artist Michael English put it on his debut solo album. The song reached number six in the country on the CCM music charts that year. The song has a beautiful melody, and tugs at the heart strings as the singer is asking the biblical Mary, the mother of Jesus, a series of questions like, “Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water?” “Mary did you know will save our sons and daughters?” “Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?” and “Mary did you know that your baby boy is the Great I AM?” These questions are powerful and the thought of asking these to the mother of our Lord and Savior evokes a powerful emotional response. So emotionally powerful is this song, it has been covered by many other superstar artists through the years like Kenny Rogers and Wynonna Judd, Clay Aiken, Pentatonix, Carrie Underwood, and Dolly Parton.
Despite its beautiful melody and emotional call, the song illustrates yet another reason we, as Christians, must go out and teach and tell the world about the gospels. The ignorance shown in the popularity of this piece, and how people have difficulty looking past their own emotions to find truth are profound for students of the bible.
Let us examine a few passages of the bible which tells us exactly what Mary knew:
The angel to Mary in Luke 1:31-33 – “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.”
The angel to Mary in Luke 1:35b – “…therefore the child to be born will be called Holy – the Son of God.”
The angel to Joseph in a dream in Matthew 1:21-23 – “[Mary] will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sons.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” (which means, God with us).
Elizabeth, filled the Holy Spirit, speaking to Mary in Luke 1:43 – “And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
All these things are only when Mary was with child or before. At his birth, the shepherds told Mary of the incredible things revealed to them by the hosts of angels in Luke 2:8-20. When Jesus was a toddler, the magi came and told of what they had seen and the miraculous star in Matthew 2:1-12.
When Jesus was presented in the temple after His birth, Simeon was told by God that he would the Lord’s Christ and he picked up Jesus and blessed Him in Luke 2:25-35. In verses 34-35, he let Mary know that “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.”
The prophetess Anna in the following verses (Luke 2:36-38) began telling, “of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
In Luke 41-50, a twelve-year-old Jesus is left behind, accidentally, by His parents, and after three days of searching in Jerusalem, they find Jesus in the temple intellectually engaging with the wisest of the men in the temple in ways even these aged scholars could not engage. When He is found, and His parents are greatly distressed, Jesus responds with the first words of His recorded in the New Testament, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” His response here already shows that His parents should already have an understanding of who He is.
Finally, at the wedding feast in Cana, recorded in John 2:1-11, they run out of wine, and Mary comes to Jesus and the interaction tells us so much about how knowledgeable Mary is about Jesus and who He was and what He could do:
(John 2:3-5) When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
“Mary, did you know?” is the question posed by the song. The song assumes the answer is, “No.” That Mary was only a good mother, and that her sorrow when Jesus was crucified was a manifestation of the realization that the world was coming to realize as well, at the same time. The scriptures tell us something else, though. She knew His hour had not yet come, but she knew that, as the Lord of All, He could do something. She may not have known what Jesus was going to do. She may have not known the specifics of all the miracles He would perform, but she was the one who knew first of the salvation of man and was the first to glimpse of the plans God had for all of us. She knew she would experience the pain only a mother could feel as He would one day be killed. She knew she was blessed, carrying the Great I AM.
Again, the song is beautiful, but the truth is so much more powerful that she knew exactly what was happening, and despite all that, she was a willing servant of God, to bring Jesus into the world, and to experience the pain and anguish of being the mother of Jesus who would die to save us all.
Lance Byers
12-14-2024
- Mary_Did_You_Know_12-14-24.pdf (60.77 kB)
