A Thought for Christmas : Mary, Why Not a Single Mom?

Few days back when I was thinking of the incarnation story, I thought, “Why didn’t God choose Mary as a single mom?” The practice of single moms which looks fascinating in today’s world would have gained much weight if Mary had been a single mom. And what you do think about homosexual parenting? My mind always traces back to the creation story to look for the creation ideal for anything. We find that a typical family that God planned was "One Adam and One Eve" as parents for children. Any other form of parenting a child is an aberration.

I was surprised and shocked during a recent visit to a Gypsy mission field. I saw two girl children there, both of them bought for a mere Rs. 15,000 and 20, 000 each from ‘someone’. Whether legally right or wrong, these were families in the impoverished Gypsy community (commonly called as Narikuravas or Vagiri)  who valued the worth of a girl child and have bought them from the so-called high caste families, where these girls were unwanted and would have been killed otherwise. I was moved. But these poor families were reminding me of a fact that they were obeying to God’s plan of being parents to a baby who was deprived of one.

Joseph and Mary
God planned a family setting for baby Jesus. He neither wanted Mary to be called as a single mom nor baby Jesus to be called as a fatherless kid. He took effort to prepare the traditionally and culturally bound minds of Mary and Joseph and designed a wonderful family unit. Mary and Joseph raised baby Jesus together. They were together in their flight to Egypt in an emergent situation and suffered the plight of being a migrant family there. Back in Nazareth, they went to temple together, executed their spiritual responsibilities together and were together in a crisis situation when child Jesus was lost. Child Jesus in turn obeyed both parents. Joseph probably did not live long. But Joseph and Mary for sure gave Jesus a happy childhood. How can children have a blessed childhood and not an abusive one?

Encourage Adoption
Children who are a gift from God undergo various forms of extreme abuses like abortion and female infanticide. Satan has been playing havoc from time immemorial to play in the lives of children and parents. King Herod ordering to kill male babies testifies to this fact. We can be agents of God’s love when we show unconditional love towards unwanted babies by making them our own like how Joseph proved to be a foster dad for baby Jesus. We should not deprive a child of a happy parentage by a dad and a mom, unless it is otherwise divinely planned by God like how we find in the adoption stories of Moses and Esther where only the name of a single adoptive parent is given. 

Discourage Divorce
One another extreme abuse to children happens when parents opt to divorce each other. When Joseph tried to divorce Mary, God planned an angel to counsel him and give up his divorce plans. In the Old Testament, we read the story of Gomer, being an unfaithful wife to her husband Hosea, but God asking him to forgive his wife over and over again. God equates Hosea’s unconditional love to Gomer to his love for his children. There was a great rise in the divorce rate in the post-exilic community to the effect that God had to say to them, “I hate divorce.” (Malachi 2:16). 

The Pharisees living in the time of Jesus were so much waiting and wanting Jesus to subscribe to the prevailing rabbinic rule of divorcing their wives for anything and everything (if she burns food by mistake, if the husband finds another woman, more beautiful). When Jesus said it otherwise and finally said, “Let no one separate them, for God has joined them together,” and also that remarriage of divorcees in some situations is equal to adultery, the disciples became upset to the extent they said, “Then, it is better not to marry!” (Read Matthew 19:3-12). Apostle Paul goes a step ahead to counsel us that we should not go to lawsuits for anything (for divorces too), instead choose to remain wronged and cheated. (This counsel came in the context of settling disputes in a Christian background instead of taking them to non-believers who lead lawsuits, where we cause God’s name to be mocked. The passage is found in 1 Corinthians 6:1-11).

Children need parents. Parents need children. The Christmas message from the earthly family of Jesus is to celebrate family as a blessing received from God and not to desecrate it by any ways. Giving Jesus a due place in our hearts this Christmas is to give children and families their due places. Wish you a Happy Christmas!