Mary

Mary’s lesson…

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All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.
Luke 2:18-20 NLT

Christmas has been celebrated well in my house this year. We have laughed and talked and eaten and shared. Gifts have been opened, Merry Christmases exchanged, relatives and friends spoken to on the phone or by email. I even got a nap in (which is one of my favourite things to do on any holiday!).

You might think that tomorrow it is back to business as usual. But I have learned a lesson from Mary. I learned it so many years ago, I cannot even remember when…it is one of those things that seems to have always been part of my understanding of Christmas. It is the reason that the words “but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often” are my very favourite Christmas scripture.

The lesson is this: Christmas, like Easter, is a defining moment in the Christian faith. It is not simply a fun holiday, or a season of the year or a great story. It defines our faith. It makes us – those of us who follow Jesus – what we are.

Like Mary, we are meant to keep these things in our hearts and think about them often. We are to remember that God became a man, that He moved into the neighborhood, that His message is for the poorest and the richest alike, that wise men seek Him still and that the very first King sized bed was a manger full of hay.

The fact that God took on flesh and blood, the fact that he became one of us, in the person of Jesus, who is the Christ, makes our faith unique.

We are meant to remember that. We are meant to carry it into all the days that come as 2012 ends and as 2013 begins. We are meant to allow it to shape us, to help us interpret reality, to call us to the work God has for us to do.

So Merry Christmas, my friends. Like Mary, may we all hold the lessons of this precious time of year in our hearts and think of them often.

Be blessed, and be a blessing.

A long journey…

journey-to-bethlehem

At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant.

Luke 2:1-5 NLT

Mary and Joseph set out for Bethlehem on the back of a donkey, because the powers that be had declared that everyone had to return to their home towns so that a census could be taken.

I can’t imagine what the journey must have been like. It certainly was nothing like the journey would be if you took it today. There were no highways, no buses, no roadside stops where you could buy food and drink. There were no hotels or showers or restaurants. Mary was obviously pregnant, which means she was also uncomfortable. All my friends who are Moms talk about that stage in their pregnancies as one where they were just ready to be done with it.

It must have been cold, and times frightening. I wonder where they stayed at night, what food they ate on the journey. It all looks so pretty on the Christmas cards we send, but the reality would have been quite different.

Isn’t that true of all of our Christmases, though? Often everything looks quite pretty – the family is dressed up, they gather at church together smiling at other families and friends. No one quite sees the cracks beneath the surface: the argument the siblings had on their way to the church service or the worry that the parents share over the bills that will come due in January. There is always more to the journey than meets the eye.

In Newtown, Connecticut, the first of the funerals for the children victimized in Friday’s shooting were held today. That town is on a journey of its own. Just holding the funerals is going to take quite a while, never mind all the time it will take for answers to be discovered or for healing to begin.

I am so thankful for a God who understands the journeys we face. I believe God was with Mary and Joseph on the road that they traveled to Bethlehem. I believe that God is with us on the roads we travel towards the celebration of Christmas. I believe God is present with the people of Newtown, as they journey from Friday’s tragedy to whatever the future will hold for them.

Whatever your journey looks like, may you know that God is with you on the road. May you know that Jesus took a long journey before he was even born, and continued to journey throughout his life. May these thoughts comfort you, and in finding comfort, may you pray for the comfort of others on the roads that they travel.

Mary and the angel…

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In 12 days it will be Christmas Eve. I hope you are on your way to ready, if not completely prepared yet. Personally, I am just about finished with my preparations. I have a few gifts that I am waiting for them to arrive in the mail. And I have a lot of wrapping, some mailing and a little grocery shopping to do. But that’s it. And I am pleased.

I think the time has come to make the turn from waiting for the birth to telling the story of the birth in this Advent Calendar blog project. I love the story of Jesus’ birth. I love all the details and the way it came together. So I want to take my time with this story, to tell it slowly over the next 12 days.

Let’s begin!

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David.Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”

Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean.“Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”

Luke 1:26-33 NLT

When I was a child, this part of the story scared me. I mean, I understood that God is love and that therefore one might expect that God’s messenger would be loving as well. But I was terrified at the idea of an Angel waking me up in the middle of the night. I didn’t want God sending me any messengers. The thought just scared me.

So I love that Luke says that Mary was confused and disturbed. I bet she was! I would be too, if this happened to me.

But I as I grew up I began to understand that somehow Mary had courage even in the midst of being confused and disturbed. That somehow, this messenger was welcome, even in the midst of her fear. Maybe because his words are so good. His message is one of hope and joy and the absolute confirmation of God’s love for Mary.

Maybe because angels – who have been in the presence of God – have a calming way about them.

Or maybe because Mary already had faith in God, she already lived with peace in her heart – peace that passes understanding. Peace that her son would bring into the world and share with all who chose to follow Him.

 

 

(PS…it is really, really hard to find non-cheesy angel images!)

Plans…

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For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

I have blogged about this passage before. But never in the context of Christmas. This is not one of the classic Christmas prophecies. But it could be. After all, what is Jesus if not God’s plan to give us a hope and a future?

Today I am thinking about this text because of a conversation I had this morning. It was one of those moments when God lets you see all the ways he has been working his plans for you and for the people in the community where you serve – plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a hope and a future. That doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does, it is beautiful to a shocking degree. I have been grinning all day, each time I thought of it.

I have known and loved this verse for years, but today it has taken on a deeper meaning for me. It has become the living word of God, instead of ‘just’ a good reminder. On the one hand, I know to put my trust in God. Of course I know that. I know that God has plans for me. I know that God has good plans for my future. But it is one thing to know it intellectually, and quite another to experience it full-force.

It must have been a little bit like that for Mary that first Christmas. When she finally held her baby in her arms and just KNEW that everything she had been through – the raised eyebrows at her pregnancy, the moment when Joseph told her he’d thought of calling off their engagement, the long, difficult journey to Bethlehem – had been part of God’s plan to change the world forever. I wonder if she remembered this bit from the scroll of Jeremiah as she held her little boy.

My prayer for us all, this Christmas, is that God would reveal His plan and how he’s been working it in each of our lives. My prayer is that we might be touched not by the intellectual notion of hope, but by the living truth of our hope in Jesus Christ. My prayer is that God’s plans would continue to take on flesh and dwell among us.