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Mary
The
season of Advent is marked by a spirit of prayerful expectation,
and the two Biblical characters who epitomize this spirit are
John the Baptist and Mary. Protestant Christians have always
venerated the Baptist, and John’s Nativity is commemorated
in the Prayer Book on June 24. But about Mary we have a been
a bit ambivalent, sometimes considering her to be no more than
a character in the Christmas story.
This
is due, in part, to the extravagance of Marian devotion in Roman
Catholicism, where Mary has been declared, without any Biblical
warrant, to have been immaculately conceived and bodily assumed
into heaven. But I suspect that Protestant hesitancy is not
purely theological: it also has something to do with male ambivalence
towards women, who, from a male perspective, share with God
the attributes of a mystery which evokes both fear and fascination.
The
Scottish reformer John Knox fulminated against "the monstrous
regimen of women," referring to the two monarchs with whom
he had to deal: Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots. But efforts
to keep Mary in her place, like efforts to keep women in their
place, result in the impoverishment of religion and in the impoverishment
of life. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that most of the
horrors which bedevil the modern age have to do with the suppression
of the feminine in our culture.
Women
do not usually wage war, nor do young girls shoot up high schools.
The Greek comedian Aristophanes wrote a play entitled Lysistrata,
in which the women of Athens refuse to have anything to do with
their husbands until the men have made peace with each other.
Spiritual
writers marveled over the paradox that a mortal woman contained
within her womb the creator of the universe, even as the temple
had once contained the Lord of all. But this marvel is not limited
to the physical order: Augustine writes that Mary conceived
the Word in her heart through faith, before she conceived the
Word in her womb. The mystery of God incarnate depended upon
Mary’s act of obedient submission to the angel’s message:
Behold
the handmaid of the Lord;
let it be unto me according to thy word.
Luke 1:38
Beverly
Gaventa, a Presbyterian Professor of New Testament at Princeton
Theological Seminary, believes the time has come for Protestant
churches to give Mary another look. As a mother, Gaventa discovered
a maternal kinship with the Mother of God. As a Christian, she
found a soulmate who wrestled at times with God’s will.
The Biblical Mary had a strong faith, with real questions and
real emotions. In her book, Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives
on Mary, Gaventa reminds us that scripture itself declares
that all generations will call Mary blessed (Luke 1:48). Protestants
have really not done this. Isn’t it perhaps time for us
to start?.
December
22, 2002
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