“But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” While the glory of the Lord bursts out from the heavens from angels above and while the shepherds run with haste to share the amazing news of the newborn King and while farm animals scurry and moo around the barn, Mary, holding her newborn son, sits quietly, unaffected by the outside noise, pondering the joy born on Christmas in her heart.
This year, more than most years, I identify with Mary in the reading of the Christmas story. Specifically, I am taken back to two years ago on this night when Jamie and I brought our newborn son John home from the hospital. As I treasured and pondered that moment in my heart, I realized that I was really the one who was being held. I was being held with a love that silenced all the distractions of this life.
While the world around us was gearing up for Christmas with lights and music, pageants and parties, and excited little children, we were bringing our newborn son into our quiet home. The lights were dimmed and conversations were held to a whisper as not to startle or awaken a sleeping baby. Perhaps my memory is a little idyllic because Mary Katherine was three at the time! Nonetheless, the joy of Christmas was a little quieter that year.
Tonight, as we gather to treasure and ponder the birth of Jesus our Savior, we gather to be held in in the same love that Mary held all those years ago on a dark and silent night in Bethlehem. After a long year, one that undoubtedly brought pain and suffering due to death and disease, failure and disappointment, we gather to be held with a love that has the power to inspire new joys and new possibilities. On the heels of the darkest night of the year, we gather to be held with a love has the power to open our hearts to the dawning of a new day.
Likewise, the people of Israel are on the heels of one of the darkest chapters in their history. It has been 400 years since the prophet announced a Messiah. The people of Israel are being held hostage by the power structure of Rome; they are being pushed further and further toward the margin except for certain religious elite who have chosen to join the power structure of Rome and betray their own people.
But as Mary sings in her song, when she learns she will give birth to the Savior of the world, God has not forgotten his chosen people. God has remembered the promise of mercy. Even during the darkest nights of our lives, God promises to draw near and give us the quiet confidence that comes with his presence.
While the chaos of the world rages on around us, while we are left feeling powerless to stop disease and death, failure and disappointment, God promises to draw near and bid us still so that we may know the love that carries us through the changes and chances of this life. God promises to draw near and bid us still so that we may be held in the love that melts away our sin and sadness.
As I made home visits in the weeks leading up to Christmas where I read the Nativity story, I was again struck by the quiet joy born in our hearts on Christmas. While the world around me was buzzing with holiday traffic and flashing lights, I found the quiet joy of Christmas beside a hospital bed and in a home unadorned with Christmas decorations because the kids have long since moved away.
As I read the Nativity story to the home-bound or hospital-bound, I was struck at just how unadorned the birth of Christ is. I had never read the Christmas story out loud without the sights and sounds of a pageant or a choir or a sermon or a beautifully decorated church. It was remarkable to me at just how powerful this story read in a setting devoid of the usual pageantry of Christmas.
In the Christmas story, Mary and Joseph find no place at the inn and find themselves in the company of barn animals - imagine that. The birth of their firstborn son is re-routed away from the confines of their own home because the powers that be had decided that the whole world needed to be registered for tax purposes, and there are no special provisions made for pregnant women.
There are no obligatory pink and blue blankets to swaddle the baby Jesus in. There is no name card on the side of a proper crib displaying the height and weight of baby Jesus. Joseph’s friends are not waiting outside with celebratory cigars. There is, however, a birth announcement unlike any the world has ever seen – a heavenly host of angels makes known the birth of Jesus to shepherds tending their flocks by night.
Even then, this birth announcement is made known to only to a limited number of shepherds, and shepherds aren’t exactly members of the social elite. They are the type of people whom census workers wouldn’t even bother to count. They are on the outside of the socio-economic system. Today, we might call them migrant workers.
As I read the Christmas story to the home-bound and hospital-bound, I realized that I wasn’t the one announcing the story of Jesus birth. Sure, I was reading the words to the story but the words of the story came alive in those settings. It was almost as if the angels and shepherds were in the room pointing to the manger wherein Christ lies.
I was reminded that the story of Christmas breaks into our lives at inconvenient times when our plans are re-routed because of circumstances outside our control, circumstances that involve illness or death or tragedy, circumstances that are dictated by the powers that be. The story of Christmas breaks into our lives when we find ourselves outside of our comfort zone, when we are left completely vulnerable to what life throws our way. The story of Christmas breaks into our lives and holds us when we don’t think we can hold on any longer.
During these last few weeks and months, you have no doubt been bombarded by the message, “show them how much you really care by buying them something you can’t afford” – a message heard in shopping malls, holiday traffic, and through glitzy advertisements. You have no doubt thought, I can’t wait for Christmas to be here so I can stop, so I can let go, so I can be still. Friends, Christmas is here. Be still and know that God is here – lying in the manger – waiting to hold you in love.
Beloved, as the sights and sounds of this season fade into the background and you are left only with your unadorned self – lacking the dignities the world tells you that you need to be something in this life – may the Babe lying in the manger come into focus and hold you with love. May the Babe lying in the manger quiet your heart and mind and silence the worries and distractions of this life.
And may you hear the words that Mary treasured and pondered in her heart as she held the Son of God on that first Christmas night. “There is nothing you need to do to prove yourself to me. I love you right where you are. Completely helpless and vulnerable and small as you may be, I love you more than you can ever know. You are my child now and forever – nothing can ever change my love for you. I will never let you go.” Amen.
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