Jonathan Kieran

Sir Anthony Hopkins has completed filming on the “origin story” of Mary the Mother of Jesus, covering the years before her birth and up until the time she was traditionally said to have gone on the lam with Joseph, trying to escape the wrath of Herod (played by Hannibal Lecter) and heavily pregnant with the Christ child. Texas megachurch mogul and connoisseur of McMansions, Joel O’Steen, is apparently one the executive producers/progenitors of this project. Mormons were consulted, as well. That’s thrilling to know.

Mary’s unique story in the primitive Christian landscape is far more complex than most Protestants and cultists will allow. In one of the gospel accounts (“Mark”) she and the extended family of Jesus are made to appear rather marginal and even hostile in the overall depiction of Christ’s ministry. Yet, what “Mark” belies is that Mary and a colloquium of Jesus’s Davidic male relatives had already been THE primary leaders of the Jerusalem Mother Church—the early and ongoing base of the Jesus Movement—and that they were apparently quite wary of Paul’s missionary activities and theological leanings. Paul, of course, is believed to have influenced the anonymous writer of the “Mark” gospel heavily. Paul was not a fan of Jesus’s family and the power they wielded in the Jerusalem “church,” which was reflected by an early contentiousness in the growing Christian sect regarding the authoritative influence of “his mother his brothers.”

Again, a number of scholars believe that this was a major reason for the Pauline/“Marcan” rebuff of Jesus’s family and even for the fact that the tectonic destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE is, astonishingly, never mentioned by the gospel writers who composed “corrective” and competing narratives later in the First Century.

These subsequent narrators presented a decidedly different outlook on Mary, to say the least. “Matthew” presents her rather mysteriously as the young woman suddenly “found with child by the Holy Spirit,” without ever explaining how or why that situation supposedly came about. The fact of it is simply (and weirdly) asserted, along with her betrothed Joseph’s decision to divorce her, his change of heart, the escape into Egypt, birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, a visit by the Magi, etc.

The narrative of “Luke” (and its sequel “Acts”) presents Mary as a figure tantamount to the Ark of the Covenant, the Tabernacle, a “blessed” and prophetic figure destined for praise by “all generations”, the “Mother of the Lord,” the “[One] Completed in Grace”, the virgin maiden whose faithful consent to the plan of God changes the course of history, who remains the ideal model of discipleship and contemplation of the mysteries of heaven, and part of the central cast of the fledgling “church” in Jerusalem. All negative attitudes about the family of Jesus appearing in other writings are promptly corrected in “Luke” by the unequivocal exaltation of Mary.

The soaring narrative of “John” portrays Mary in crucial scenes as the “Woman” intimately associated with the mysterious “hour” of salvation history, the catalyst who instigates the revelation of Jesus’s miraculous ministry via her intercession at the Wedding at Cana, who travels with him during his public ministry, and it depicts Mary at the Crucifixion as an Eve-like figure who becomes the spiritual mother of the faithful disciples.

The portrait is similar in the apocalypse of “Revelation”—there the Mother of the Messiah is depicted as a heavenly entity, clothed with the sun, standing above the moon, seeking to escape the persecuting forces of anti-Christian factions (and the primordial Serpent), as well as the mother of all believers.

Without question, there were very early and competing attitudes toward the family of Jesus, including Mary, within the earliest Christian memories, but she was ultimately regarded even then as a figure of authority and more than enough spiritual significance to rival the chief apostles.

There’s a gritty tale to be told about her, but the nuances of that tale might not be best left to the devices of an Osteen.

Maybe he should have told the story of the Italian woman who claims that a big statue of Mary was miraculously producing pizzas in the makeshift shrine in her property. That seems OSteen-esque.

———————

#VirginMary #VirginMaryMovie #AnthonyHopkins #AuthorJonathanKieran #JonathanKieran #WriterJonathanKieran #CaliforniaLife #OnTheEdge #NewNovel #JonathanKieranTheAuthor #JonathanKieranMusic #JonathanKieranArtist #Jericho #JonathanKieranJericho #JerichoAlbum #WritersOfInstagram #ArtistsOfInstagram #AuthorsOfInstagram #PopCulture #RandomCommentary