Wednesday, December 25, 2024
Christmas Day
This devotion is the written accompaniment to a video Advent message that can be viewed on our YouTube Channel by clicking HERE.
Please read Luke 2:1-20
“But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)
With all the various versions and perspectives of “the Christmas story” in scripture, I appreciate how our common lectionary*, over the entire course of the Advent Season, tries to guide us through the text in an organized and meaningful way. The lectionary walks us through the different versions of the story, making historical connections in the Hebrew Scriptures, and building our expectation for the ultimate moment in the story, the birth of Jesus Christ. But for Christmas Day, the lectionary simply focuses on the most concise telling of the story, which is found in Luke 2:1-20. In these twenty verses most of the story is summed up.
And in this summation I am always drawn to verse 19, which feels so incredibly intimate, intensely personal, and profoundly telling. It is the verse that zooms in on Mary, the mother who just gave birth, and what must be going on within her. In indicates that she treasured the words, all the words that tell of the birth of her son and our savior, and how she “pondered them in her heart.” In this one verse all of the drama, all of the expectations, all of the emotions that swirled around her, those in the narrative, and us come together in an extraordinarily spiritual way. We, like Mary, are invited to ponder what has happened in our hearts.
Today, my friends, I invite you, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of opening gifts, and visiting relatives, and eating the feasts, and… and… and… to take a moment an ponder the meaning of what has happened over 2,000 years ago as if it has just happened in your own life. Imagine being Mary, the mother of Jesus, and what it must feel like to give birth to a baby who would embody the divine hope for humanity.
Furthermore, ponder in your heart what it might mean to bring one who is both gentle, helpless, and requires total care and who is salvation for the world into a world in chaos. What does it mean to give birth to hope in a world torn apart by conflict, where those in power are capable of and in fact will unleash some of the most horrific acts of violence on the innocent because of their thirst for power and to satisfy their ego? What does it mean to believe in God’s love made visible through a vulnerable and weak infant, from a marginalized family in poverty from a religious minority, who will have to emigrate hastily just to survive?
Today, Christmas Day, December 25, my prayer for you and those around you is to find time – no, MAKE TIME – to ponder how God’s Love, Visible, may/can/will transform your life and the way you live in this world. Make space today to pray, reflect, and ponder in your own heart “all these words.” And may Christmas become real to you in new ways because you did so.
Merry Christmas, dear friends!
Prayer: “Oh God, like Mary, may I take time today to reflect on the birth of Jesus Christ and how his coming into the world will change my life for good in the coming year. Amen.
*If you haven’t discovered this resource for the Revised Common Lectionary, please check it out! https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/
Rev. Allen V. Harris,
Regional Pastor & President
Christian Church in Ohio