Mary Treasured All These Things

This sermon would have been heard on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2009 had it not been for inclement weather.

Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I have found it difficult to find an appropriate message for this evening. By itself, that’s no different than any other message. Often I wrestle with the sermon, and occasionally I lose the struggle. But Christmas Eve should be different—it’s one of our highest, holiest days. This is an important service. This is such a visually rich passage that I ought to have lots to say. We ought to have lots to say about this evening, the eve of our dear Savior’s birth.

We are met first with the people of power, the people who can tell others what to do. These are the folks who say “jump” while the rest of the world cries back “how high?” Roman Emperor Augustus and Syrian Governor Quirinius tell the world to jump. Joseph and his fiancée Mary jump to Nazareth. Just to make matters worse for their journey, the babe in her womb was responding to the call to jump in his own way; he was making his own commotion from within Mary.

Then we reach the seventh verse of this chapter, the verse that begins with Mary giving birth. Now, you can tell here that scripture was written and edited by men because this event is described with one word in the Greek New Testament and three in most English versions. She gave birth. You who have given birth can tell me with authority that this deserves more than just three words.

Then she swaddles the infant Jesus, placing him in the cold stone manger. We are used to thinking of the stable and manger in the way we think of western livestock, but this is not true of that time and place. The stable was most likely a cave, and the manger a carved out hollow in the rock. No matter how uncomfortable we might think our common manger scene is; being swaddled and laid on cold stone raises the ante significantly.

We begin our reading with Augustus, imagining his fine palace in Rome, with a whim causing the world to be counted. Now we have a newborn resting in a bed of stone, hewn out of the wall of a cave. These are the extremes we live in this evening.

We are then given the story of the young boys keeping watch over their flocks. These boys were the lowliest of their families. They were the youngest and given the most dangerous job in the field. They were to protect the herds and flocks from the wilds that surround them in the dark. It was just like any other cold desert night for the shepherds, until the angel of the Lord appeared with the glory of the Lord shining around them. Scripture tells us “They were terrified,” of course they were terrified!

And then, then they hear those famous words, “Fear not!” Just hearing those words from the heavenly host would frighten me even more. Then they receive the good news, the gospel of the Lord. Born this day in the City of David is the Messiah, the Lord. Then the host pipes up again singing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

So the shepherds go to see the Messiah. Scripture does not say whether they took their herds and flocks or not. I imagine they did. It would have been wrong for them to leave their flocks, their families’ livelihood, to the elements and the wild. So they went with haste, flocks in tow, and descended upon the manger scene.

Imagine the noise. Dozens of boys and hundreds of sheep coming into town like a circus train to see the Christ child. They shared the gift they had received from the angel, the good news of the Lord with Mary and Joseph with anyone who would listen. The story must have been told dozens of times, each time sharing the glory of the Lord found in a manger in a tiny Judean backwater.

This is our story, this is the first story we tell. This is the story of how God Almighty came to earth, not in power and glory and in victory; but as a helpless newborn child.

This is our story, not of God who comes to the seat of power, not to Augustus and Quirinius, but to shepherd boys and livestock.

The one who is fully human and fully divine, so like us and so completely different than us, God came to earth as a helpless babe.

God meets creation right where we are, meeting us just as we meet one another.

And one thing about this story sticks out for me from verse 19; Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. Mary treasured these things holding them in her heart, keeping the moment as it was, and as it would be, forever.

She treasured the words of the young shepherds, the shepherds who told her what the angel said about her son. She treasured the sight of her infant son, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a feed trough. She treasured these things from a cave in the trappings of abject poverty, not as a guest of the inn, nor as a privileged citizen of Rome.

She pondered these things too. She knew her son was the Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, but to be told these things again by the shepherds must have been wonderful, and glorious, and frightening. She was told who her son is, and would be, and had no idea what shape these things would take. And she did this, looking at a fresh, new life.

Mary treasured these things. This strikes me because I feel the joy and the wonder of treasuring these things, and I hope you do too.

Ah, the things worth treasuring…

I treasure the moment.

I treasure this service this evening, with wonderful song, glorious lights, and wonderful friends.

I treasure the infant who lies in the stone manger, with the buzz of the shepherds, and the bleating of the sheep around us.

I treasure them here in rural Arkansas, not in the mansions of our world. I treasure these things, and ponder them in my heart.

I hope you have taken some time tonight to think about the things you treasure too. I hope you ponder them in your heart. We receive many wonderful gifts from the Lord our God and these gifts need to be treasured and pondered; especially the gift of a young infant, swaddled in bands of cloth, lying in a stone manger. Let us treasure these things and ponder them in our hearts, just like a young girl did once in the Nazareth.