Take Time to Ponder

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Luke 2:19

Hello Edgemont! Hard to believe we only have 4 days until Christmas. We can spend all of the year excited for the Christmas season and then all of a sudden it is here and we no longer have enough time to do everything we want to do. Add in the pandemic and we have a whole new range of things that can cause anxiety. Are we going to be able to see people? What is the weather going to be, because that may affect our gathering? What traditions are we going to have to change? Are we going to be able to get out and do all our shopping? Maybe we have gotten all our shopping done, but now we are anxiously refreshing the USPS website to see if our tracking info has been updated. All of that stress and anxiety can overwhelm us.

In times like this, it helps me to come back to one of my favorite verses in the Christmas story from Luke chapter 2. Mary and Joseph trekked across the country from Nazareth to Jerusalem because of the census. They stayed in the stable with the animals, because all the other rooms in the house were full. After she had given birth, the family was visited by a group of shepherds talking about angels and choirs and promises God was making to the people. Maybe they even heard the angels singing. There were probably a few others who came to see, stirred by the commotion of the shepherds. It was in this moment we come to verse 19, “but Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” If there was anyone who had a right to be anxious and overwhelmed, it was Mary. God had given her a great gift, but it came with a tough road to walk. It would have been easy for Mary to check out at this point. However, she did not. She stayed present in the moment, and pondered what God was doing in her and in the midst of her people.

Church family, I want to invite you over this next week to take time to pause and ponder on what God is doing in our midst this Christmas season. Things are not as we would want, not as they should be. God however, is still moving in our lives just like on that day. That joy the angels spoke of is still available to us, if we take time to ponder and treasure what God has done for us, just like Mary did. I pray that during this wonderful time of year, we see all the gifts God has given us to treasure, especially his Son, our Savior, Jesus.

Merry Christmas!

Pastor Henry