we walk like Mary

“Walk of Mary Across the Mountains” by Maximilian Albert Josef Liebenwein (1869–1926)

I’m sure we’ve all seen any number of artistic interpretations of the journey of the Holy Family to Bethlehem for the census and the birth of Christ. In most of them, Mary’s fragility as a very-pregnant mother seems to be an important theme: She is typically perched on the couple’s donkey while Joseph tirelessly walks alongside, or is at least leaning heavily on Joseph’s support, if she tries to walk herself. This painting, titled “Walk of Mary Across the Mountains,” struck me as so opposite to those renderings that I first thought – until I noticed Joseph and the burro in the shadows of the upper right-hand corner – that it must be depicting Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, not her trek toward meeting God in tiny-human-baby form.

Perhaps it strikes me especially because I’ve been in this “very-pregnant” state twice in the last six years. I know the immense (perhaps near-impossible) ask that a 70-mile journey on foot would make on an unstable pelvis, split abdominal muscles, and half-capacity lungs. I understand why so many paintings show her riding the donkey – which, granted, wouldn’t have been particularly comfortable, either. Yet in this piece, Maximilian Leibenwein has captured something different in Mary that I also recognize: That state of resigned determination that takes a woman from her already-great discomfort through a period of excruciating travail and into the extraordinary euphoria on the other side.

Toward the end of each of my pregnancies, I didn’t know what scared me more: that I might be pregnant for another three weeks, or that I might not be pregnant for another three weeks. Each option was defined by a different kind of uncertainty and discomfort, but either way, I could not escape the fact that my fate was to endure the uniquely life-upending transition of a birth, sooner or later.

Mary’s baby is coming. The pain is inevitable; the process is inevitable; the birth is inevitable. He is coming. Her body will do the work, and she must only be ready to meet him.

But unique to Mary’s circumstance is that it’s not merely her firstborn son coming; it is her Lord. The Messiah is coming. After millennia of relentlessly inviting his people into his space, God Incarnate invaded ours, bringing heaven to earth and commencing the rebirth of humanity through the birth of Jesus.

Ready or not, the King is coming.

We remember his royal-and-lowly approach in Advent, in part, to remember that the King still approaches us; the King, though come, is also here, and is coming again. He has already-and-not-yet come, already-and-not-yet rescued us, already-and-not-yet glorified us.

How do we approach him? How can we be ready to meet him? Perhaps with a doggedness like Mary’s, as she made the journey toward the “greatly multiplied” pain promised her in Genesis 3:16 for the sake of meeting the snake-crusher of Genesis 3:15. She was at once humble and bold: humble, in her wholehearted submission to God’s use (Luke 1:38); and bold, in her unflinching determination to praise the Lord for the goodness and certainty of his plan for her life, and for her whole people besides (Luke 1:46-55).

We need not have birthed children from our bodies to know what it is to make an arduous trek through certain suffering for the sake of immeasurable joy. This is the story of every saint, every martyr, every follower of Christ – the story of my life and yours. Pain in life, and death at life’s end, are inevitable. But on the other side is Jesus. And with us every moment – though like Mary in Leibenwein’s depiction, we cannot yet see him – is Jesus.

Every day is another step toward the God who has stepped toward us. Every day, a step closer to his presence, a moment nearer to the full realization of his glory. We walk humbly, yet boldly: obeying and praising, walking and singing, enduring and rejoicing. We walk like Mary, across treacherous mountains and valleys of shadow, until at last we see our Lord face-to-face.