The angels left and went
into heaven… the shepherds returned [to their sheep]…
This
time of year, the week between Christmas and New Year, is often a time when
people are going home from family visits, returning like those angels and
shepherds, and picking up the threads of their lives again. My two children
were with us for Christmas, but Michael went back to Southampton on the 27th
and Ruth flew back to Lisbon on the 28th – from Stansted – she managed
to pick the only airport seriously disrupted by the snow to fly out of!
Fortunately, she got back safely with only a little delay. Even if you haven’t
had visitors or been a visitor, though, there’s often a sense that things are
getting back to normal after the Christmas break at this point. People are
going back to work, groups and activities are starting again. However good a
Christmas you’ve had, that can feel like a relief, especially if you put the
tree up really early and now all the needles have fallen off. But there’s a
danger that in our haste to clear Christmas away we may miss the chance to hear
its message to us.
That’s
why it matters that in the church at least, Christmas has only just begun. The
Magi haven’t reached Bethlehem yet, and won’t do for another week, and then
after that the Christmas season continues, with what you might call the “sub-season”
of Epiphanytide, until Candlemas at the beginning of February. We’re a long way
from being done with this story of the baby born in Bethlehem.
The
reason why we cling on like this is that Christmas isn’t just a day. The work
of bringing up a baby, as any parent can testify, doesn’t end with its birth –
that’s just the beginning, and it’s what comes next that really matter. That’s
just as true for Jesus as it is for anyone else. The person who seems to be
most aware of this in today’s Gospel reading is Mary, of course - and maybe
Joseph too, though he’s not mentioned here. They are the ones who will have to
care for this child, who will have the sleepless nights and anxiety, as well as
the joy and tenderness of holding him close. We are told that Mary “treasured” the words
she had heard and “pondered them in her heart.” The Greek word translated as “pondered”
is only used in this one place in the Bible. Its literal meaning is to bring
together, or more accurately to throw together. It is sunballo if you’re interested.
I
like that. It’s as if Mary is carrying a rag bag of emotions and experiences at
this point, all the things that have been thrown at her, trying to make sense
of them. There was the initial appearance of the angel, and his announcement to
her that she would bear a child, with all the risks of scandal that involved.
Then there was her emotional visit to her relative Elizabeth, who was pregnant
with John the Baptist. Then there was the journey to Bethlehem at the diktat of
a foreign emperor. Then there was nowhere for her and Joseph to stay. She’s had
to lay her child down to sleep in a borrowed manger far away from home, and
then these shepherds turn up in the middle of the night, with stories of more
angels. She knew that something extraordinary was happening, that this child,
according to the angel, was God’s son, the Messiah, the one who who would “cast
down the mighty from their thrones”, which is something the mighty tend not to be too keen on, so she
knew there would be trouble ahead. But what would the future hold? What was she
supposed to do now with this child? How could she bring him up with the resilience
and the courage he would need? How would she find that resilience and courage
for herself? All these thoughts are
jostling for her attention – thrown together in her mind as she holds her child
to herself.
We
don’t get that sense of the “thrown togetherness” of all of this in the English
translation of that word sunballo –
pondering gives a rather different feel to it, but it’s a good word too, a word
worth thinking about. The word ponder is linked to ponderous, of course; it’s about things that are
weighty. We get “pound” from the same root. Mary is weighing up all these
things that have been thrown at her. They lie heavy in her thoughts. They can’t
be cast off like the scrumpled up wrapping paper and Christmas packaging that
litters the living room carpet by Boxing Day. They can’t be ignored, they won’t
just blow away in the breeze. These are thoughts she will carry around with her
all the time. She’ll sometimes struggle to bear them as her child grows and
begins to live out his ministry.
Mary
ponders in the days after Jesus is born, and if we want Christmas to be more
than a couple of weeks of eating, drinking and singing carols, more than a
mushy moment in the candlelight, we need to ponder the thoughts, feelings and questions it has
provoked in us too. We need to allow those
thoughts and feelings and questions to have their proper weight, to have substance and reality in our lives. Where
has Christ been born in us this
Christmas? Maybe it has happened in a some small impulse we have felt to set
something right, to do something new, to let our lives be changed. What will we do to turn those impulses into
reality? Where has light shone in the darkness for us, and what is that light
showing us about ourselves and our world? What will we do to help that light
shine out? The angel told Mary to call
her child Jesus – in Hebrew it would be Yeshua, the same name we anglicise as
Joshua, that famous Old Testament warrior. It means “God saves”, but how has
Christ come as a saviour to us this Christmas. What do we need saving from
right now? What do we need saving for? Where do we need God’s help, and how
shall we reach out to find it? The Christ child, God’s word and God’s work,
lies in the manger of our hearts – what are we going to do to help him grow up
and grow strong?
It
is easy for Christmas to feel like a bit of a dream, a time out of time, but the
questions it asks us are real questions about our real lives, about our relationships,
our priorities, our callings. They demand and deserve real answers. Holding
onto Christmas isn’t just about keeping the crib up and not packing away the tinsel
too soon. It is about finding and nurturing that life which God is trying to
bring to birth in us, respecting it, taking it seriously, so that it can grow
to fill us, transform us and save us. How shall we do that? That is what we are
called to ponder today.
Amen
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