What Did Mary Know?

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist.

Today is December 14th 2020 and we're continuing with our season of Advent celebration on Coffee with a Calvinist.

We've been talking about different Christmas related subjects last week.

If you didn't get a chance to listen to the program, we talked about a couple of different things that you might enjoy if you want to go back and listen to those.

We talked about Christmas gift ideas for the believers in your family and friends, Christmas gift ideas for unbelievers and just a couple of weeks ago, the Caffeinated Calvinist roundtable did a very long discussion over the best Christmas movie.

So we've been talking about Christmas a lot lately and that theme is going to continue through this week.

And today I want to talk about something that I have seen going around social media and particularly has been coming up in some groups that I'm a part of.

I'm a part of different Christian groups on Facebook and I see this meme pop up all the time and it's a meme in relation to the song Mary Did You Know.

Now if you're not familiar with Mary Did You Know, Mary Did You Know is a song written by Mark Lowry.

Mark Lowry was famous for being part of the Gaither vocal band and I remember hearing Mark Lowry sing this song about the same time as he wrote it and I'm looking it up now to see exactly when he wrote the song and I think he has pretty much the definitive version of course.

He's the one who wrote it.

He wrote it in 1984.

So obviously I was too young to remember that.

But I would have been only four years old at that time.

But I remember listening to a recording of him sharing this song that he had written and talking about how he had written it and the little bit of the history of how he had come up with the lyrics.

But the meme that's going around, the argument that's going around against the song is Yes, Mary Did Know.

In fact, if you just Google Mary Did You Know meme and go to images, the very first image I'm seeing is the Batman hitting Robin response meme.

That's a pretty famous meme that's out there and it says Mary Did You Know and the answer is yes, she did.

Luke 1 26 to 35.

Then a few pictures over you see another one.

It says Mary Did You Know and the answer is yes, Gabriel told me everything.

Luke 1 30 to 33.

So what I want to do is I want to ask the question, are these memes, and I know memes are not intended to be taken seriously, but I do see some people seemingly taking this subject pretty seriously.

Oh, we shouldn't sing Mary Did You Know.

We shouldn't sing this song because it has an inaccurate theology and I want to challenge that a bit tonight or this morning as we're going through this episode because I do think that the case is being overstated and I think that there's some misunderstandings about what Lowry may have meant when he was putting this together and so let's first look at the argument is yes, Mary Did Know and she knows because of what is written in Luke 1 Some say 26 to 35 some say 30 to 33.

So we're going to look at Luke chapter 1 26 to 35.

That's the passage in Luke chapter 1 beginning at verse 26 It says in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David and the virgin's name was Mary And he came to her and said greetings all favored one the Lord is with you But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be 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 and Mary said to the angel how will this be since I'm a virgin and the angel said To her the Holy Spirit will come upon you the power of the Most High will overshadow you Therefore the child to be born will be called holy the Son of God all right, so He goes on to tell her that Elizabeth is also conceived in her old age But ultimately that's the passage that the the memes that I'm looking at are exciting and saying yes Mary did know because Gabriel told her everything and Another one that I saw references the Magnificat now the Magnificat is actually found later in chapter 1 verses 46 down to 55 and that's the Magnificat simply is another way of saying the Song of Mary and She says my soul magnifies the Lord my spirit rejoices in God my Savior For he has looked upon the humble estate of a servant for behold from now on all Generations will call me blessed and it goes on from there But the point is that yes, of course Mary knew so why would we ask the question Mary? Did you know yes, she knew the song is inaccurate.

We shouldn't sing it.

We shouldn't give it any Credence whatsoever.

That's the argument that's being made and my response to that is I think that that's unfair to the heart of the song and the heart of the Intention behind the song.

I don't think that the intention of the song is to say that Mary was ignorant of everything in fact I know that no one with a fair reading of the New Testament and the gospel of Luke Would say that Mary was ignorant of everything that such a thing would be absurd and that is not the point that is being made The point that is being made in my estimation Based on what I've heard when I remember hearing Lowry explain as he wrote the song and I've heard the song several times I've even sang it with our church group I think the heart behind the song is the question of how much did she know? Not that she didn't know it's not as the insinuation is not that she didn't know anything Because certainly she did know a great deal the heart of the question is Mary How much did you understand you were giving birth not only to the Son of God? But you are you are giving birth to God incarnate the the second person of the Trinity God the Son is is coming to the earth in human flesh through your body and how much of that Do you really? understand with human reason and human understanding How much can you know and I understand where? especially Catholics would get offended by this song because the Catholics would say, you know that Mary was was you know in a sense not only was she sinless, but they almost they almost elevate her to the position of divinity and by By doing so to ask the question of did she have any misunderstandings or did she understand everything perfectly? Almost questions some of their theology, but there's one passage that That I want to point out that I think is is is the heart this this whole Song and this is found in chapter 2 After Mary has given birth to Jesus Shepherds come and visit her and they see the child it says in chapter 2 verse 16 It says and they went with haste That's the shepherds and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger And when they saw it they made known the saying That had been told them concerning this child and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them But notice verse 19, but Mary treasured up all these things pondering them in her heart the word pondering is The Greek word Sambalo and That word according to Laonida, which is a Semantic lexicon of the Greek language It says essentially to give careful consideration to various implications of an issue to reflect on to think about seriously to think deeply about something and This is actually the Translation offered here in Laonida says Mary remembered all these things and thought Deeply about them.

And so here here is Mary.

She has given birth to Jesus she has Held him in her arms.

She's laid him in a manger.

She's seen the the face of Her Savior and she knows this is her Savior because the angel told her this is her Savior and Now shepherds have arrived and said we've seen Angels and the aim and Mary had seen an angel and now the shepherds have seen angels and they've said this child is the Savior and It says Mary was Pondering these things she was giving consideration to these things.

She was thinking deeply about these things And so it comes to the question of what did she know? what did she really understand and We can go to the lyrics of the song and in in some of the things I think Lowry asks in the song are legitimate questions Did you know that Jesus would one day walk on water That's the first line of the song and even though she knew he was the Savior and certainly she knew he was He was coming to save her That's what she says to Elizabeth.

You know, that's what she says in the Magnificent I rejoice in in my Savior and so she and that's another reason why we we can reject the Roman Catholic view of Mary as sinless because she identifies Christ as Her own personal Savior because she needs a Savior because she's a sinner But it's did she know he would walk on water Was that something that Gabriel told her Now did he know that she would save the sons and daughters? Yes, she knew that but again Lowry's not saying she doesn't know He's saying what did you know? Did you know that he came to make you new? Yes Did you know he came to deliver you? Yes, she would have known that Did you know that he would give sight to a blind man, maybe not Did you know that he would calm a storm with his hand? Maybe not.

Did you know that he has walked where angels trod? This one possibly what her particular understanding of The full-orbed sense of his nature as being eternal maybe When you kiss your little baby you kiss the face of God, that's that's a powerful thought I mean when I sing that I think about the fact that this child this is God in the flesh God became a man.

I mean, there's so much to enjoy when singing the song thinking about these realities And again, I'm not just here Anything can be picked apart anything can be can be Seen and find fault with it And then that's the thing that I think we we are too good at we are too good at being Fault finders and there are certain things that need to be rejected because they are outright fallacies they're outright untruths But oftentimes we we get caught up in majoring in the minors and and finding fault where they're where it's it's It's just not really fair.

I Mean, I love the the epic Crescendo of the song where it builds to this climax 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 What a what a what a great thing to be reminded of at Christmastime And again, I know that there are those who would hear what I'm saying and say yes, but it's still it's not perfect theology it asks a question that need not be asked and It does so in a way that I don't enjoy so I can't I can't sing this song in good conscience and I understand that but for me, I think that and I understand this is meme So responding to a meme somebody might say well the meme was never intended to be taken seriously But I've seen it so much that in my heart of hearts.

I had to think there's got to be something behind this There are people who are saying yes, Mary knew everything That's what a few of the memes actually say Mary knew everything and I don't know that she did and I don't think That it's wrong to ask the question.

What did she understand Mary? What did you know? About Christ, we know that she knew he was the Savior.

We know he she knew much because of what was given to her through the angel Gabriel but she did sit there on the night he was born and Pondered what all these things meant and I think that's really the heart of the song.

What did you know? Did you know all of these wonderful things would happen through this child? Did you know that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead? Did you know that he was going to? Give sight to blind Bartimaeus.

Did you know that he was going to? To heal the woman with the issue of blood and raise the daughter of Jairus Mary did you know? And I think these are all good questions and I think that they remind us of the great things that Jesus did when he was here on this earth and So again, this is just my thoughts on this meme my thoughts on this song and perhaps you have different thoughts And if you'd like to share your thoughts, I would love to hear them please feel free to leave a comment in the In the section below if there if that is available on the platform that you're listening to and I want to thank you again for listening today To coffee with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.