Thursday, Jan. 2
Luke 1:30-33
But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end.”
I remember that when our first son was born, and it was a scary emergency C-section delivery, one of the first things I noticed was his hands.
He had was seemed to me to be very large hands with long thin fingers. I had nothing to compare the size of his hands with, they just seemed big to me. When I saw his hands I couldn’t help but think of those hands one day playing the piano or gripping a football.
Those hands ended up doing both, but spent a lot more time gripping a football than playing piano!
Every parent has hopes and dreams for their children. We try to temper our visions for our children so as not to burden them with unreasonable or unfair expectations, but we have hopes and dreams nonetheless.
We don’t know much about Mary and Joseph’s hopes and dreams for their son but we do know a great deal about what others said about him.
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end.
Imagine standing at the window in the maternity ward and gazing in at your newborn through the glass. A total stranger walks up next to you and says, “Your baby is going to be “great” someday!”
You might be a little surprised but you might also nod your head in agreement as you think to yourself, “I hope so!”
But if the stranger follows that up with, “And he will be called ‘son of the Most High,’” you would likely find a reason to get away from the guy. I mean, “great” is one thing, “Son of God” is quite another!
And that’s only the beginning of what Mary is told about their little son!
“He will be great...”
“He will be called son of the Most High...”
“He will save his people from their sins...”
“The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David...”
“He will reign ... forever.”
Can you imagine?
I don’t think we can even begin to imagine what it might have felt like for Mary to receive the overwhelming responsibility of raising the son of God as her own.
But I think we can understand why Luke says,
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Just as I, as a young parent, treasured up every little milestone of my son’s early life; just as I pondered the potential of those long fingers; so also Mary treasured up and pondered all that was said about the child she carried.
We don’t know when or how the full weight of her son’s identity and purpose fell upon Mary’s heart. Was it when he was 12 years old and told her he had to be in his Father’s house? Was it at his baptism at the hand of John when he was about 30 years old? Was it when she watched him turn water into wine or heard him preach the Sermon on the Mount? Was it when she watched him carry his cross toward the hill on that terrible day?
We don’t know.
But I think we can know that when that day came Mary was prepared. She was prepared because she spent her life as his mother treasuring up and pondering all these things in her heart.
Is Jesus your treasure?
Have you pondered what it means that he came into this world that you might be saved from your sins?
Will you make him the treasure of your heart today?
Pastor Brian Coffey
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