Friday, January 3

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Friday, Jan. 3

Luke 2:19

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

So, Christmas has come and gone once again. In fact, it’s already a new year; welcome to 2014! 

Have you finished packing away Christmas?

Have you put the decorations back in their respective boxes and bags and stored them away again?

Have all the cookies been eaten?

Have all the Christmas leftovers been made into soup?

Have most of the new toys been relegated to the toy box with last year’s toys?

Has life pretty much snapped back to “normal?”

I think that’s what may have happened for Mary and Joseph as well.

Sure, it took a while for the rumors about the pre-mature pregnancy to die down; and there was the whole episode with the Magi from the east and the long trip to Egypt and back; but eventually life snapped back to “normal.”

Joseph went back to work, likely in his carpentry shop. Mary went about the business of setting up a home and being a mother. There were meals to prepare and clothes to make and mend; there were all the daily routines that eventually form the fabric of family life.

But even though life snapped back to normal, we see that...

Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

I think we see in Mary’s treasuring and pondering a way to keep from packing Jesus away with all the other Christmas decorations.

I think we see in Mary’s treasuring and pondering that we must not pack Jesus away!

Jesus is front and center for us for most of the month of December. We tell and re-tell the story of his birth. We sing the songs. We watch children’s Christmas plays. We light the Advent candles. We think and talk about Jesus a lot.

Then comes December 26. 

We go back to work; we go back to school (soon enough). We take down the decorations and we are tempted to stop telling the story. We are tempted to stop thinking and talking about Jesus. 

When life snapped back to normal for Mary, whenever that was; when she and Joseph returned to Nazareth and there was work for Joseph to do and clothes for Mary to wash and a baby to feed, Mary treasured and pondered. 

May we, too, treasure Jesus; and more than that, may we ponder often who he is to us, what he has done for us, and what he wants for and from us.

May we treasure up all these things and ponder them in our hearts.

Pastor Brian Coffey