Something to Treasure and Ponder
Luke 2:8-20
by Jim Westmoreland
Sometimes, I hear people say, "I'm having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year." And, sometimes, I am one of the slow ones. But the Bible doesn't really care much about that. Instead, it asks us if we are attending to the Spirit of Worship, of the Christ-mass which gets into us. Are our hearts moving through the waiting and anticipation of Advent to be ready for the worship and adoration and celebration of the arrival of the Christ-child. When Jesus comes, is our worship overwhelmed or drowned out by the TV, the big family dinner, the unwrapping of the presents, or by the noise of the toys?
Mary, the mother of Jesus, can teach us some special things about Christmas. Imagine what all must be going on in the mind of this new, very young mother? What is behind her quiet demeanor? Luke, the author of this story, has made it clear that something unique is going on with Mary. She seems out of step with the rest of the characters, and her private, perhaps even lonely, journey through Christmas is exactly the reason we are drawn to her.
Matthew's version has the wise men seeing a star and following it to Bethlehem sometime after the birth of Jesus. In Luke's gospel, the shepherds arrived breathlessly at the manger, and they began speaking about the angels and the heavenly host that they heard praising God. They also relayed the news that the angels told them that this child would be the long-awaited "Messiah, the Lord." Sometimes, we get so caught up in the specialness of this birth. We talk of a miraculous conception, about Savior, about Son of God, and we can overlook this young mother. This was not a motherless birth!
In verse eighteen we are told that all who heard them were amazed at what the shepherds told them. In verse twenty we're told that the shepherds then returned glorifying and praising God. Between these phrases describing amazement and praise is sandwiched verse nineteen. That's Mary's verse! She isn't amazed, and she isn't glorifying and praising God. We are told, "But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart."
Isn't that striking? Everybody else is saying, "Glory hallelujah," but Mary is much quieter and subdued. She is the one closest to the miracle, and yet she seems more a stranger to it than the shepherds. They celebrate and worship. The best she can do is "treasure and ponder" their words about him being "the Messiah, the Lord."
The word that has been translated as "treasure" in the Greek has the connotation of "holding close out of concern." And, the word translated as "ponder" has the connotation of "meditating upon or conversing with." So, Luke tells us that Mary is taking all this to heart where she converses with something ponderous and strange that she does not understand.
Christmas is about the beginnings of our hope. To receive this hope we have to take our own place among the shepherds at the nativity this year. If hope begins to stir within us about the dead and frail things within us, then we may find that the shepherds have already written our lines and that our role is to rejoice and go home glorifying and praising God.
But if the message of Christmas seems strange to what we are feeling this year, we can adopt Mary's role. If that's our part, if pondering is what makes the most sense to us, then it is enough for now to know that we belong in the story.(1) It is a good thing to treasure and remember our experiences of God being with us and giving us hope and joy. And, it is okay for us to not know and to ponder what it all means. As we ask our questions and search for meaning, God comes near us. We have our own personal encounter with Immanuel.
We are not strangers to this holy drama. The stranger is the hope that has been born into our lives. It is new! It is different! It begins to transform us and lift us up. We don't have to understand this hope, and we don't even have to feel hopeful. All we have to do is take the stranger in.
On this Christmas Eve the fulfillment of hope, O God, is more than we can handle. So, all we ask is that hope be reborn in our hearts, that we join with Mary in treasuring and pondering the birth of your Son in Bethlehem and also His birth in our own hearts. And, we ask that this sacred conversation continue to shape our lives until we understand. Amen
Century Christian Church, December 24, 2005 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
www.centurychristian.org
1. "The Christmas Stranger," a sermon by Dr. M. Craig Barnes, pastor of The Shadyside Presbyterian and the Robert Meneilly Professor of Pastoral Ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.