Y'all need to chill about “Mary, Did You Know?"

Ask a church receptionist #9

Welcome to another installment of Ask a church receptionist, a monthly column where I answer your questions about the Bible, Christianity, and why people still pretend that egg nog is worth drinking.

---

Dear church receptionist,

With Christmas coming up, I was hoping you could put the debate about “Mary, Did You Know?” to rest once and for all: What did Mary know, and when did she know it?

—definitely not Senator Howard Baker, Jr.

Dear ghost of Richard Nixon,

For anyone who’s never switched on a radio between Halloween and New Year’s, “Mary, Did You Know?” is a popular Christmas song, originally written by comedian Mark Lowry and gospel singer Buddy Greene, that poses a series of questions to the Virgin Mary about whether she was expecting Jesus’s miracles and accomplishments. It’s the sort of thing I always heard my dad call “schmaltz”—overly sentimental stuff that’s a little too convinced of its own profundity—but it’s not a bad song by any means, which (together with its holiday theming) is why it’s been recorded by countless artists since its debut in 1991. My personal favorite is Pentatonix’s version:

So, yeah. Obviously, the song’s gorgeous, if you sing it right, but is it also…[insert dramatic music]…problematic???

For as long as social media has been a thing, there’s been a tradition of posting snarky tweets that amount to, “Um, YES, you IDIOT, of COURSE she knew, do you think the Blessed Virgin is STUPID, or WHAT???” Some of them are actually pretty funny—I liked this one enough that I remember sharing it on my Facebook page one holiday season:

But, that being said, I’m getting far more sick of this “of course she knew” meme than I ever was of the song (which, to be clear, is saying something). I’ll tell you why, after the break:

---

Hey there, stranger! Welcome to my newsletter. If you sign up to receive it in your email inbox, I’ll send you a free digital copy of my award-winning debut novel, and enter you in a drawing to win a signed paperback copy of each of my books. Paid subscribers get even more! You can scroll to the bottom of this post for more info, or else just enter your email address here:

---

To start with, I do think it’s fair to say that the Blessed Virgin Mary is far holier than I, or you, will ever be, and is therefore deserving of our utmost respect. Since the Council of Ephesus in A. D. 431, it’s been more-or-less uncontroversial to describe her as the Theotokos, or “Mother of God”—not in the sense that God as such had a beginning or needed a mother, but in the sense that Christ was fully God, and therefore the Virgin carried God’s whole essence in her womb. And not to belabor (see what I did there?) the point, but getting picked to do that suggests that God thinks pretty highly of you. Being a church receptionist is a great gig, but I’m fairly confident I rank somewhat lower in the kingdom of heaven than God’s literal mom.

So, let the record show that I’m firmly on Team Let’s-Not-Be-Condescening-toward-the-Blessed-Virgin-Mother-of-God. But is “Mary, Did You Know?” condescending? I mean, sure—if you take it literally. And I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s not meant to be taken literally.

Story time: When I was a wee lad attending a Lutheran elementary school waaaaaay back in the 1990s, one of the songs they made us sing during Lent—every freaking week, it seemed like—was the classic black spiritual “Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord)?” (Lutherans love that song for whatever reason). It’s a simple song about the crucifixion, posing a series of questions to the listener about whether he or she was present when Jesus died:

I hated this song as a kid. Hated it. I thought it was the dumbest song I’d ever heard, and when they tried to make us sing it, I would instead stand there and mutter, “No, I wasn’t there, you idiot, that was 2,000 years ago. Do I look 2,000 years old???” So yeah, I was an incorrigible asshole as a kid, but I have since learned that, no, not everyone other than me is an idiot. (For whatever it’s worth, I love “Were You There?” these days.)

The thing is, “Were You There?” is very, very obviously not intended to be taken as a series of information-seeking questions. (The song only dates back to the late nineteenth century; anyone present at the crucifixion was long dead by then, unless the Mormons are right about St. John the Divine.) It’s a series of rhetorical questions intended to convey the overwhelming awe that the speaker is experiencing, thanks to meditating deeply on Christ’s death: the moment in history is so terrible that words have failed us; all we can do is “tremble, tremble, tremble” and ask others if they’re experiencing the same thing.

I was in my twenties before I figured this out. You have an opportunity to be less dumb than me about this!

“Mary, Did You Know?”—for my money—is very clearly offered in a similar spirit: less in the sense of “I’m about to BLOW YOUR MIND, ya dumb Virgin,” and more in the sense of standing alongside the Theotokos, sharing in her awe at her son. Because as cool as the Queen of Heaven is, the fruit of her womb is much cooler. And I’m pretty sure she’d back me up on that.

So, yeah. “Mary, Did You Know?” is poetry. It’s rhetorical questions. You’re obviously free to think it’s bad poetry (or bad rhetorical questions) if you want, but stop taking it so literally. Especially since—to put a finer point on it—most of the people railing against this song are theologically “progressive” types with nothing but contempt for Biblical literalists. My dudes, if you can understand that not all of the Bible is literal, you can probably learn to understand that a song is not literal.

K? K.

That said, if you’re going to insist on taking the song literally, there’s plenty here that Mary probably genuinely didn’t know. In Luke 1:31–33, the archangel Gabriel gives her the following information:

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.

That’s basically it. So while it’s safe to say that the Virgin maybe knew her son “would save our sons and daughters,” she probably didn’t know—since she probably didn’t think about it at the time—whether he “would one day walk on water.” (Side note: please do not rhyme “daughter” with “water” unless you are the Red Hot Chili Peppers.) Most of the other lyrics are in a similar vein—stuff that, had she thought about it, Mary probably would have assumed, “Sure, he could do that”—but not stuff she necessarily expected him to do.

If you want more grist for the mill, you could also argue that St. Mark seems to imply that even the Theotokos herself sometimes had doubts, writing:

And when his family heard [about Jesus’s ministry], they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:21)

Mark doesn’t say that Mary specifically was questioning Jesus, but in verse 31, he makes it clear she at least came along for the ride.

And I dunno, man. That’s how a lot of us feel when we’re confronted with things beyond our grasp: we struggle with the crushing awe, and doubts mingle with our belief, even when the proof is right in front of us—or inside us. I’ve never carried the God of the universe in my womb (in part because I don’t have a womb), but I can imagine it’s an overwhelming, humbling, disorienting thing. And that’s all “Mary, Did You Know?” is trying to convey.

You’re free to think that it fails to convey it—or at least fails to convey it in a way you find satisfying. But the fact that people have kept spinning it, year after year, for more than three decades now, suggests an awful lot of people disagree with you. So maybe chillax and let people enjoy things.

More knowledgable than some (but certainly less knowledgable than the Blessed Virgin),

—the church receptionist 🕹🌙🧸

---

Got a question about the Bible, Christianity, or anything else for a real, honest-to-God church receptionist who literally wrote the book on the Bible? Send it to luke.t.harrington@gmail.com, or just click the button below:

(Be sure to tell me whether you want me to use your real name, a pseudonym, or whatever else.)

---

⬅️ In case you missed it: Getting some exorcise

---

Another rhetorical question: Would you like a free book???

Hey, thanks for reading! If you’re new to this newsletter, here’s how it works: Everyone who signs up to receive it in their email inbox gets a free digital copy of my award-winning debut novel, Ophelia, Alive: A Ghost Story! Anyone who becomes a paid subscriber gets even more:

• All monthly paid subscribers ($5/month) will get a free digital copy of Ophelia, Alive and my award-winning nonfiction debut, Murder-Bears, Moonshine, and Mayhem: Strange Stories from the Bible to Leave You Amused, Bemused, and (Hopefully) Informed.

• Anyone who signs up for an annual subscription ($50/year) will receive both digital books, plus a signed paperback book of their choice!

• Anyone who takes the plunge and becomes a founding member ($200/year or name-your-own price) will receive both digital books and both signed books!

PLUS: Everyone who signs up (free or paid) gets entered in a monthly drawing for a signed book! Why? Because I like you.

Just enter your email address below for a free book and a weekly reminder that I still exist:

Congrats to last month’s winners, phatpcv and rvsmith2! I’ll run the next drawing Dec. 1! 🕹🌙🧸