Luke 2 (Christmas Morning) - Mary: Woman of Contemplation

I. Making Sense of It All

When you are working your way through life, sometimes it just doesn’t make sense to you. Things happen in a way where you just cannot see God working through it. But then, when you look back at what happened, you begin to make sense of it and you can clearly see God’s hand in it.

I finished my studies at North Park Seminary in 2001. I was looking for a place to do my internship and not having much luck. I was wondering what God’s plan was for me. I had a couple interviews with churches to see if I could intern there and have the internship turn into full-time ministry. But none of these things worked out. Then I fell into a full time job working with developmentally disabled adults in Chicago and worked out a part-time internship at the church I was attending, one that I didn’t get paid for. It seemed that my plans for my life were being put on hold. It seemed like things weren’t going where I wanted to see them go. I wondered how God was working his plan for my life, or perhaps, if I were on my own. Now, looking back, it is easy to see God at work in my two extra years in Chicago. My work with the developmentally disabled adults was a real blessing to me, and my internship was a great experience. And when my internship was done and I could graduate, I was called here to minister in Albert City.

I wonder this Christmas morning if Mary had a similar experience. She had been told by God that her son would be the Son of God. She had been told that he would be the Messiah, whom the people of Israel had been waiting for for centuries. And then she found herself traveling to a distant town, away from home and family right around when she was due. When she got there there was no place for her to give birth and so she ended up in a stable, surrounded by animals, laying her newborn son, the future king of Israel, in a cattle trough.

I wonder what she thought of this turn of events. You see, we know the Christmas story so well, we hear it year after year and it is a part of the fabric of our celebration of the holiday. But for Mary it was all new. She didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t know what was to come. And things sure didn’t seem to be going the way that she would have expected.

And then a group of dirty shepherds show up and tell her that angels appeared to them. Wow, maybe God is at work after all, even though what he is doing doesn’t seem to make sense. And later on, maybe even a year later, magi from the east show up with gold, incense and myrrh. Maybe Jesus actually will be king. But then Mary and her family have to flee to Egypt to protect Jesus from being killed. Life doesn’t go as we plan it, does it?

II. Pondering

There is a recurring phrase, though, throughout Luke’s telling of the Christmas story and Jesus’ childhood. The recurring phrase is that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

Mary knew there was something special about her son. She knew Jesus was going on to special things. And so everything that she saw that was unusual, everything that didn’t really make sense to her, she remembered and thought about. And then, looking back at these things later, understanding them in context with each other, she was able to make sense of God’s plan through Jesus. This is the life of contemplation. This is what is valuable about spending time thinking on the things of God. Contemplation, thinking on the things of God, allows us to catch a glimpse of God truly working in this world. It is not enough, I believe, to go about doing the things of God. It is not enough, I believe, to just trust that God is working in the events around your life and so then just go about your life expecting to never understand what is going on. No, God wants us to think on the things that he is doing. He wants us to spend time seeking out his will and focusing on what it is that he is doing for and through us. The book Experiencing God, which one of our adult Bible studies on Sunday mornings is studying, talks about it this way, find out what it is that God is doing in the world, and then get involved in that. And the way to see what God is doing in the world is to do what Mary did. Treasure up the things you see going on. Study the work of God. Learn from it and watch as God makes sense of the world to you. This is what Mary did as she watched God work in unusual and unique ways with Jesus.

III. God’s Plan

But what was God’s plan? Why did Jesus come as a poor baby? Why did Jesus come to die a criminal’s death at a much too young age of thirty-three? It doesn’t make terribly much sense.

Lisa and I had our own nativity about nine months ago. We didn’t have to travel a terribly long distance, though we did have to drive through the fog in the middle of the night. And we didn’t have to go to a stable to give birth, instead of a stable, we had a wonderful maternity ward at the Storm Lake hospital. Seeing the difference between what we experienced and what Jesus experienced in his birth reminds me of how great God’s sacrifice was in sending his Son as a baby. Babies are about as helpless as you can possibly be. When Jesus was born about the only thing he could do was cry. God chose to send his Son in a way where he would be totally and completely reliant upon Mary and Joseph. And he allowed him to be born in a cattle shed. And we see a little later, when Jesus was dedicated in the temple when he was 40 days old, that Mary and Joseph give the offering that the poor would give. Mary and Joseph were not people of means. They were truly poor. This is the way that God chose to enter the world. It really doesn’t make much sense.

But, again and again, after experiencing something that just didn’t make sense in any way, God would do something that would show Mary that he was really at work in Jesus’ life. The birth in a stable didn’t make sense for God’s Son, but the angel-song and the magi showed that God was truly at work. Jesus’ death didn’t make much sense but his resurrection showed that God was at work.

This Christmas morning I want to encourage you to spend some time looking at the way that God has worked in your life. Things may not make sense for you; they may seem to go against what your plans for your life were. But God is at work. He is doing great things, even today. So I encourage you to follow Mary’s example and treasure up the things of God in your heart and ponder them. See what God is doing and get behind it. Study the ways of God and see how it is that he is working in and through you. Let this contemplation of God allow you to see him at work even in the most confusing things. God could just surprise you with shepherds, with magi, with a prophetess speaking words of wisdom to you, or even with resurrection when all you can see is death. Amen.