But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
(Luke 1:30-33 NIV)
In the classic Christmas song, “Mary, Did You Know?” the writer, Mark Lowry, asks Mary a series of contemplating questions about her Son, Jesus. “Mary, did you know that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water…save our sons and daughters…give sight to the blind man…calm the storm with His hand?” These are some of the questions that are raised by the songwriter as he thinks about Mary as she cradled her Baby Boy in her arms that first Christmas. We never get a response from her, but I imagine that like any other mother, Mary had great hopes for her Son, especially since she was told by the Angel Gabriel that He would be no ordinary child. But did Mary know everything there was to know about Jesus as He lay in that manger? Maybe not right there and then, but I’m sure as she stood by His cross years later, she could answer Mark’s questions with an emphatic “yes.”
We’re all like Mary, in a sense. When we allow Jesus to be born in our heart, we have some knowledge of who He is. But as our relationship with Him grows, so does our knowledge of Him. We eventually realize that the Baby Boy whose birth we celebrate every year is an exceptional child, who came to deliver us from sin, so we could become new. He is “Lord of all creation…heaven’s perfect Lamb…the great I am.” Do you know Him?
Rising with the Son 