December of 2022 was, for some reason, a time of unusually frequent online discussion about the song “Mary, Did You Know?” This observation is strictly based on my own encounters, not on any verifiable web data. The song has been on my radar most Decembers since 2018, when I wrote a PrayTell blog post, “What Did Mary Know?”
I’d already observed the increased 2022 activity around the song (and the overly-expansive content many people presume to be in Luke’s Annunciation scene and Magnificat) when the pastor of the UCC church I serve as music director asked me if I’d mind him quoting my blog post as part of his sermon about the song.
Truth be told, I’m more often intrigued by the question “What did Jesus know?” Some of the Johannine scenes we encounter during the early Sundays of Ordinary Time tend to get that question in motion for me. When two of John the Baptist’s disciples leave him to follow Jesus, and when Jesus asks them “What are you looking for?” and they reply that they want to know where he’s staying, I sometimes wonder if Jesus didn’t get a little creeped out by these two guys who were somewhat out of the blue following after him, ready to track him down to his residence. “No, seriously—what, exactly, are you looking for? You know, my cousin’s a great guy; you could do worse than continuing to follow him.” Similarly, when his mother comes up to him at Cana with a problem that isn’t really his to deal with, you couldn’t honestly have blamed him if he’d asked her: “And this affects me, how?” (The whole crisis of a party without wine notwithstanding.)
For me, as for so many of my ancestors in faith, it all boils down to my mortal inability to readily grasp that Jesus was both human and divine: completely, fully, truly, and simultaneously both human and divine. It was from the inability to grasp this truth that the most popular heresies were (and continue to be) born. (Not to mention our larger inability to live as both/and, not either/or, people.)
I, for example, often struggle not to be a Closet Monophysite. Since I have a very, VERY firm grasp on what it means to be fully (and feebly) human, the best I can sometimes do is imagine the human side of Jesus being completely submerged, flailing around inside the divine nature, almost as if drowning. A friend of mine calls herself a Seasonal Nestorian. The “spiritual but not religious” folks I know are mostly Arians. What kind of heretic are you?
The Jesuit liturgical theologian Edward Kilmartin purportedly said that a good theologian is always one preposition away from heresy. (I’ve heard several of his students use this aphorism.) For those of us whose theological skill isn’t quite so finely honed, it’s not a surprise that we sometimes cross over that prepositional (or some other) boundary.
Yet, before we all hasten to gather up the tinder, kindling, and firewood, it’s important to recall that a true heresy is
1) Public (vs. in the interior/personal forum of conscience);
2) Intentional (it explicitly intends to contradict an officially-defined teaching, doctrine, or dogma;
3) Obstinate (once correction has been made, it is reiterated).
Disagreeing with or disliking someone’s theological (liturgical, spiritual …) point of view is not heresy.
Nevertheless, I find myself increasingly attracted to the possibility that maybe Jesus was clueless about why those two random guys started tailing him. Or maybe he was really mystified as to why his mother was going on and on about no wine. Or—and this one is seriously difficult for me—maybe he actually couldn’t work miracles when there was insufficient faith around him.
In earlier days, my tendency would have been to see the Jesus in my imagination serenely smiling as he asked a rhetorical question or pretended to be unable to work a miracle. I now try to give more credence to the scriptures’ accounts of the times his fully human nature was showing forth. It’s part of the larger endeavor to keep imagining God, as some have expressed it, as being more Jesus-like (vs. making Jesus more [Graeco-Roman] godlike).
Liturgically and—especially—sacramentally, a return to the Patristic era concept/understanding of sacraments as providing a theosis, a “divinizing” of us might be a good entry point into allowing a more-human Jesus into our spiritual lives. If we embrace the fact that a portion of the divine Christ was placed in us when we became members of the Body, and that the Spirit sealed that divinity in us, it may even assist our Lenten journey to return to and be renewed in baptismal grace. This may allow us to relate more deeply to the Jesus in the desert who was sunburned, near fainting (just like me, that one time I fell asleep at the beach!); who may have been as outright startled as his followers by the Transfiguration; who was humanly and understandably afraid as tensions grew more pronounced with the authorities (civil and religious); whose resolve may have bowed but never broke during the horrors of his final bodily days.
It feels like what I’m planning to give up for Lent this year is the heresy I so often live with. I may even try to have an indistinct, unsung version of “Jesus, Did You Know?” as my Lenten soundtrack.
Another thing about an adjacent mystery is to recognize that the strong tendency in Western Christianity to treat the Triune Godhead as Jesus with two backups like Moses being supported by Joshua and Aaron.
For my Passiontide reflections on the Way of the Cross, I contemplate the horror that certain knowledge with which Jesus have been burdened, and the horror of uncertain knowledge that may have burdened Mary, along that Way: and that, together, the human experience of both was included. (Consider: are you a person who wants to know in detail what tomorrow brings? or a person who does not? If memory serves, roughly 20% of people would respond affirmatively to the first question, and roughly 80% to the second. Certainty and Uncertainty can both include solace and horror.)
“Liturgically and—especially—sacramentally, a return to the Patristic era concept/understanding of sacraments as providing a theosis, a “divinizing” of us might be a good entry point into allowing a more-human Jesus into our spiritual lives…”
Indeed. And this action of the Spirit occurs despite our unintentional interior heresies; that is, our inability to fully conceptualize the mystery of faith. Karl’s example of the popular understanding of the Trinity is a good one. There are many more that could be mentioned. Yes, the “one preposition away” rule applies to us all. Still, those not-quite-true notions we hold before morning coffee are good enough for Christ to accept us into his theosis, dummies that we are. In the end, that’s what we aim for.
edit: I’m just pointing out that the Mystery exceeds our comprehension; not that anything goes!
Part of our problem may be that we tend to limit knowledge to what we can articulate. As S. Patrick Doering pointed out in his 2006 dissertation, “Between Humanity and Divinity: Christ Consciousness in Jacques Maritain’s On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus and the Epistemology of Michael Polanyi,” there may be knowledge in the supra-conscious (Maritain), and “we know more than we can say” (Polanyi). Jesus’ human knowledge need not conflict with his divine knowledge. Maritain’s suggestion did not, IMO, get the serious consideration that it deserves.
Part of our problem may be that we tend to limit knowledge to what we can articulate. As S. Patrick Doering pointed out in his 2006 dissertation, “Between Humanity and Divinity: Christ Consciousness in Jacques Maritain’s On the Grace and Humanity of Jesus and the Epistemology of Michael Polanyi,” there may be knowledge in the supra-conscious (Maritain), and “we know more than we can say” (Polanyi). Jesus’ human knowledge need not conflict with his divine knowledge, Maritain’s suggestion did not, IMO, get the serious consideration that it deserves.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful & insightful reflection Alan. I always thought that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine & in performing miracles he was calling on his ‘divine power’, but this piece that I read recently suggests that anyone could multiply loaves & fish or turn water into wine if they were sufficiently prayerful & had strong faith: “Given that he was fully human, Jesus did not have at his disposal some store of divine power on which he could call whenever he encountered people who were sick or physically and mentally disabled. I am convinced that the power he had over illness, disability and evil spirits came from the depth of his prayerfulness and his extraordinary faith in God.” It was comforting to me to discover that I am not the only one who wonders “What did Jesus know?”