Ponder These Things

This Christmas season, it's so easy to get caught up in all the business.  There are presents to buy, cookies to bake, gifts to wrap, parties to attend, and carols to sing.  The workload never seems to end!  I mean, it is so wonderful, but there is just so much to do!

We can get so caught up in all the busyness.

I imagine that it might have been busy on that very first Christmas, so many years ago.  Everyone was travelling to their hometown for the census.  Bethlehem was overflowing with guests from all over Israel who traced their heritage to this small town.  The inns were bursting; people of all ages scurried about. Just imagine the noise level!  It must have been simply chaotic.

Enter Mary and Joseph.  Mary, well advanced in her pregnancy, after a long journey on the back of a donkey.  I can imagine that it wasn't very comfortable.  They knock on inn after inn, all to know avail.  Talk about hectic!  When they finally find a bit of straw to lie upon, there is a Baby demanding to come into the earth.  Finally, Mary, with the little Baby Jesus sleeping in her arms, imagines she might now have some long-needed peace.  Then burst in a bunch of shepherds.  And I'm sure she had many more visitors in the days to come, for the shepherds proclaimed Jesus' birth loudly for all to hear.

It was all so wonderful; so good.  But it was busy--going, going, going.  So many distractions, so many things that needed to be done.

In the midst of this however...Mary stopped.  In a season busier than any she had ever experienced, she took the time to meditate on what was going on.  Here's how the Scriptures put it:

"But Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart." ~Luke 2:19

She paused even in the midst of the to-do lists, and thought about what this all meant.  She took in the weight of what was going on around her. Banes' Notes on the Bible says this: "This is the original meaning of the word "weighed." She kept them; she revolved them; she "weighed" them in her mind, giving to each circumstance its just importance, and anxiously seeking what it might indicate respecting her child."  She pondered the significance of each memory--the visiting angel, the nine months spent with a Baby in her tummy, the shepherd's visit--and brought them all together in her mind.

She pondered, or weighed, the significance of what was going on around her. This was no ordinary event--God's own Son coming in the likeness of man!

This Christmas season, let us ponder these things in our heart, just like Mary.

As we look back over that world-shattering event, do we ponder how absolutely amazing it is that Jesus Christ--the One Who cast stars into space and ordered the world--came to be born, not in a mansion, but in a simple food box?  Colossians 1:15-17 says, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist."

This God--the Holy One of Israel--came to earth as a simple Babe.  He humbled Himself in a way no other king has ever done.  Just think about that for a moment!  I love the chorus of "How Many Kings."  It expresses the wonder of what Jesus did for us so well:

How many kings, stepped down from their thrones?How many lords have abandoned their homes?How many greats have become the least for me?How many Gods have poured out their heartsTo romance a world that has torn all apart?How many fathers gave up their sons for me?

This year, instead of allowing the busyness of life to distract us from the true meaning of Christmas ponder the wonder of Jesus' birth.  And worship Him this Christmas.

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