CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: New Netflix movie shows women play key roles in the growth of Christianity
Mary, the new movie from Netflix, tells the story of the birth of Jesus with a focus on his mother’s experiences. It draws on both the Bible, and on other tellings of the story, and ramps up the jeopardy the baby faced before and after his birth.
I was struck by the women in the story. We see the wisdom, faith and grit of Mary herself, her mother Anne, her relative Elizabeth and Anna the prophet at the Temple. It’s a reminder that patriarchal though the Bible can be, women play key roles in the growth of the faith - none more so than Mary.
• Sign up for our free newsletters
Almost every year a new re-telling of ‘the greatest story ever told’ hits our screens. Why do we never tire of it?
In ‘Mary’, Herod King of the Jews who owes his power to the Roman Empire, has no time for God. He’s vicious, paranoid and increasingly deranged.
Hearing that a Messiah is to be born (the Rescuer promised in Jewish scriptures) he boasts of his achievements. “What need have we of a Messiah?” he asks, oblivious to the fact that his people seek liberation from both the Romans and their own megalomaniac king.
Today we struggle individually and collectively with global and personal problems. We seek messiahs at COP conferences, peace talks, political rallies, GP surgeries or explore more self-destructive routes. For we, who need a Messiah, have rationalised God out of existence.
The Christmas story assures us that Messiah has come. ‘Oh sure,’ the cynical voice in us says. ‘What difference has he made?’ Well, the film ends with the words, spoken by Mary: “Love will cost you dearly. It will pierce your heart, but in the end love will save the world.”
Would-be Messiahs in Herod’s day (and there were many) tried to succeed through violence. In contrast, the way of Jesus is the way of love. Christians believe that this love, as Jesus’s death and resurrection shows, is big enough to heal the universe.
That’s the difference Messiah is making, and that’s why we never tire of the story.
And in a foretaste of the universal healing to come, Jesus commissions people today - people like the wise and faith-filled characters in ‘Mary’ - to transform everything they encounter with love.
Mary responds to her commissioning with resolve and the courage to embrace sorrow. In the movie, she says to the child in her arms: “I chose you just as you chose me.”
A love from outside us flows in us and through us whenever we are open to it. We are invited, as was Mary, to be Christ-bearing ‘vessels of the promise’, to echo her words to God: “Let it be!”
