Summary
The First Christmas Was Not Quiet
We tend to wrap Christmas Eve in three words: beauty, calm, peace. The candlelight, the carols, the hush of "Silent Night"—all of it conditions us to imagine Bethlehem the same way. But the Christmas described in Luke 2 reads very differently, at least at first. Four other words fit the scene better: terror, loud, quick, and surprise.
The shepherds—men so disregarded in their society that they could not even testify in court—were terrified when the angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them. That fear is the common biblical reaction to standing in God's presence. Then came the loudness: a multitude of the heavenly host, an innumerable company praising God in the highest. Then came the quickness: the shepherds went with haste to Bethlehem. And then came the surprise: a baby born in a barn, laid in a feeding trough, and visited by absolute strangers bursting in with an astonishing message about the child.
In the middle of that swirl, Luke 2:19 tells us, "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart." The Greek word translated treasured is the same one used for new wine preserved in new wineskins Matthew 9:17 and for Herod's protecting of John Mark 6:20. To treasure is to guard something so that it will not be lost. To ponder is to bring things together, to weigh them, to reflect. While terror, noise, urgency, and astonishment swirled around her, Mary kept the word safe and turned it over in her heart.
That is precisely what we tend not to do. When difficulty, disappointment, or grief comes, we react instead of reflect—often emotionally, often bypassing thought altogether. And when we only react, sin lurks: God must not love me. God has abandoned me. God must be punishing me. But God refuses to leave us in that pattern. He keeps coming with His Word so that the Word, not the swirl, will be what bubbles up in us. Mary herself had to learn this. Twelve years later, when Jesus stayed behind in the temple, Luke again says she "treasured all these things in her heart" Luke 2:51—a different Greek word this time, meaning to keep something so it will not get away. She had to learn that the Son she bore had divine authority over her, because He was God in the flesh, true God and true man, born to die.
He had to be both. As true God He never sinned, and so He could be the Savior. As true man He could live the perfect life none of us could live and bear our sins in our place. On the cross He took every sin—yours, mine, and every sinner's before and after—and the wrath of God for sin fell on the Son and not on us. "It is finished." The empty tomb is the Father's receipt that the sacrifice has been accepted. The world has been redeemed, purchased back.
This is what frees us from the bondage of mere reaction into a life of reflection. Paul could write, "If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord" Romans 14:8. He could say, "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed" 2 Corinthians 4:8-9. He could say, "All things work together for good for those who love God" Romans 8:28—not because all things were good, but because he treasured and pondered the promises of God in the middle of things that were not.
So treasure this, and ponder it: in the waters of Baptism, God claimed you as His own, washed you in the victory of the cross and the empty tomb, and named you His for today, tomorrow, and every tomorrow stretching into eternity. Today is one more day of an eternity that already belongs to you. When the Lord finally says, "Come home," it will only be a transition in living—here, and then there. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. With that treasured and pondered in the heart, the old words finally fit the night after all: beauty, calm, peace. (See “Treasured and Pondered” 12-24-24.)
Video citations
- “Treasured and Pondered” 12-24-24 — Would you open your Bibles please with me to the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke. If you're using a copy of the Scriptures in the Puehrack in front of you or underneath you, you're going to…