208: Christmas - A Time to Reflect

There are many cultural dimensions to all that is Christmas. Pick your favorite. I have a few that I look forward to every year. But as I get older, I’m seeing Christmas more as a great time to reflect on my relationship with Jesus.

In Luke’s gospel, for example, I’m especially drawn to the mother of Jesus, Mary, and how she reflects upon the birth of her son and all that it means to her, both in the present and the future. There are things we can learn from Mary as she takes time to reflect on this most important event in all of history.

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To set the scene for when Mary took time to reflect on all that happened at the first Christmas, I’ll read a few verses from Luke’s gospel that tell the story.

They’re the ones that occur right after Mary gave birth to Jesus. An angel of the Lord had just appeared to a group of shepherds who were on the job out in the fields tending to their sheep. God’s glory surrounded all of them, having appeared out of nowhere. Quite naturally the shepherds were terrified for they had never seen anything like this. 

But the angel, a messenger from God, reassured them and told them there’s nothing to be afraid of because he was there to simply announce that Jesus. the savior, the Messiah the Lord. had been born in Bethlehem. Other angels then appear filling the sky and praising God. What a majestic sight that must have been.

After the angels leave

We’ll pick up the story in chapter 2 of Luke’s Gospel, verse 15. Luke writes:

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 

It’s this last line that has captained me lately, But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Two important actions going on

There are two important verbs in the sentence I just read, “treasured” and “pondered.” at least that’s how the New International translation renders them.  Other translations use the phrase “Mary kept all these things in  her heart” rather than “treasure.”

For the verb “Pondered,” other translations use “thought about them often.”

But the translation I like best is the New International Bible Reader’s Version  which translates Luke 2:19 like this,

But Mary kept all these things like a secret treasure in her heart. She thought about them over and over. 

What are the “these things” of Christmas

Regardless of how you translate the two verbs in this verse, the noun phrase that is the object of the first sentence in the verse is always translated the same, “these things.”

But what are the things Mary was keeping, or treasuring, and pondering or thinking about over and over? It’s one of the beautiful mysteries of the Christmas story that’s worth taking the time to reflect upon.

I imagine Mary obviously reflecting upon w