Precious Memories
Luke 2:19
Have you had sacred moments in your life? / Moments that are precious? Moments that you will never forget? / Moments that fill your heart with love and joy? / Moments that bring you closer to God? //
That’s what the Christmas season is all about to me. / Many of the sacred moments of my life have come at Christmas. / And we see many sacred moments in the Christmas stories of the Gospels. //
One of my favorite verses in the Christmas narrative... in fact, one of my favorite verses in the Bible... is Luke 2:19. / This is our scripture text for today. / It says, “Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”
You know, I can just see Mary doing that. Pondering all that had happened to her during the past year. . Let’s see. She had gotten engaged. / She got married. / She had a baby. / That, in itself, would have been a pretty big year for anybody I know. //
Then, you add on that she had to migrate across the country, to pay taxes in her husband’s hometown, at the very same time that the baby was born. /You may not have noticed that fact, but, believe me... it would have been a major thing if you had had to go through it yourself.
So, it turns out that there were no hotel rooms available in the husband’s hometown. / Bad enough. / But then, they ended up having to sleep in a barn. / At this point, her experience is worse than any travel nightmare that any of you have ever told me. //
It gets even more interesting. / After the baby is born... a motley band of shepherds shows up and proclaims that her baby is the Messiah, the deliverer of Israel, who has been prophesied in the scriptures. / A few days later, a royal caravan of sages arrives from the Orient... saying that her new baby son is the King of Kings... whose birth is marked by the appearance of a special star in the heavens. / At this point, Mary should be ready to stop and catch her breath.
But even when all that is said, we have not even gotten to the most remarkable part of the story. Did I mention that Mary had a baby, even though she was a virgin? Did I mention that an angel of God appeared to her? / Did I mention that the angel told her that her son was going to be the Savior of the World? / Did I mention that the whole sky filled up with angels on the night that her son was born? / Did I mention that her son was divine, God’s very own son? //
Wow! No wonder everyone was running around shouting “Hallelujah!” and singing, “Glory in the highest!” / No wonder humble villagers worshipped the baby Jesus! / No wonder foreign kings bowed before him! //
“And Mary pondered these things in her heart.” “Pondered them in her heart”! / I should say so! / This is one of the great understatements of the Bible. / Mary had all of this happen to her and she just thought about it for a minute?
No, it goes much deeper than that. / There are a couple of things I would like you to consider. / First, how did the Christmas story get into the Bible? / Do you ever think about questions like that? //
OK. Luke and Matthew wrote it down. / Where did they get it? / Did an angel call them and say, “Listen up, buddy, I’ve got a scoop straight from God. / Get out your pen and notepad so you can jot all this down.” //
No! We Christians know that the Bible did not come about that way. [Muslims see the Qur’an that way, but we know better.] We realize that both Luke and Matthew wrote down material that they collected from eyewitnesses. //
Who is the only eyewitness to the events in Luke and Matthew? – The annunciation, the birth of John the Baptist, the manger in Bethlehem, the shepherds, the Wise Men. //
Only one person saw it all. / It was Mary. / Clearly, she is the only one who could have told us about these things. / Luke and Matthew may have written it down, but Mary is the narrator. We should probably take another look, if we think it was just men who narrated the Bible. Clearly some were women.
OK. So Mary did more than just meditate. / What are we to make of our verse, “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart”? / I looked up the Greek words that are used here. / The word for “kept” is suntereo. / It means to keep or preserve something precious. / It is kind of like our verb “to treasure.” / We might translate it as “Mary treasured these things.” // The word, which we translate “ponder,” is sunballo. / It means to put things together, literally to “throw things together” to store them. //
I think of a sentimental person who might save corsage from a dance... or a lock of baby’s hair... and put these things in a very special collection of keepsakes. / There, from time to time, she would take out the special keepsake treasures... and remember some of the most precious moments of her life. //
Are you like that? / I am. / I am the kind of sentimental person who keeps toys from when I was a child, and pressed flowers, and old play programs... because these things remind me of some of the happiest moments of my life. / Susan, on the other hand, who is not so sentimental, is always asking, “When are you going to throw that ratty old junk away?”
// And so, Mary collected memories of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth. She treasured these memories as precious keepsakes of the powerful moments where God touched her. / And she stored the keepsake memories in the chambers of her heart... where she could bring them out again...
and remember the miraculous things that God had done. //
Christmas is a time for remembering. / If you have had happy Christmases in your life, I know that you are full of happy memories during this season. / I always think back to memorable yuletide seasons during my life. / I remember happy times with my grandparents, and my mother and father, and my brother and sister. / We had such happy Christmases. / I remember when our children were small. / Michael used to get so excited thinking about the toys that were on their way. / I still love all the music of the season. / Do you have memories like that? / Do you ponder them and treasure them in your heart? //
The purpose of celebrating Christmas is to ponder what God has done. / The God who made us continues to love us. / He did not forget about us miserable, sinful human beings... but he sent us a savior. / He did this in coming to us as one of us... a fellow human being that we could understand. / He showed us what it means to be vulnerable, by being born as a helpless infant. //
Here is the lesson that I want to leave you with today: Not just that God touched Mary’s life... not just that she pondered and appreciated what had happened to her.... What I want to point out... is that that God’s presence in Mary’s life made a difference. It transformed her. Her faith grew. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, she became one of the leaders of the earliest Christians.
// How about you? / Would you allow Christ’s birth to touch you? / Would allow God to transform you? / Don’t let all the meaning of the season be lost. Every song that is sung, every colorful decoration, every gift, every moment of worship and contemplation... is all meant to bring you closer to God through Jesus Christ. / If you have truly come closer to the Lord this season, if you have drawn closer to God today, then you have celebrated Christmas.
Dear God, thank you for the story of Mary that has touched our hearts. Just as she treasured the memories of Jesus’ birth, let us treasure the miraculous Christ-mas story. And may it lead us to find your salvation, which came with Jesus.