Advent 4 - Prepare to Ponder

Text: Luke 2:19
Series: Special Advent Worship (4th Sunday)
Theme: Prepare to Ponder!
Place: Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, Myrtle Beach, SC
Date: December 20, 2009

“What are you doing this Christmas?” How do you answer that? “Oh we’re just staying home this year.” “We’re going to my side on Christmas Day and then we’ll get together with his side over New Year’s.” “We’re going to go to church on Christmas Eve and then go home, go to bed, and open presents on Christmas morning.” “The kids are all coming home!”

What are you doing this Christmas? Everybody does something no matter how spectacular or seemingly insignificant, monumental or minute. I guess we might say it’s how we celebrate the holiday. We gotta do something like go to grandma’s house, make family time, take some vacation, take off early, take it easy. At Christmas more than other times we go to parties, have people over, keep in touch with old friends. We even do something for Christmas in our spiritual lives: we go to church, hold a candle, pray more, sing Silent Night, try to appreciate the holiness and wonder of it all. It just seems obvious: if you want to celebrate Christmas, then you can’t just sit there like a bump on a log. You’ve got to do something. Right?

How about we model what Mary did? She treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19). How often, as she changed Jesus’ diaper or nursed her son, did the angel’s words come back to her? You are to give him the name Jesus…The holy one to be born will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:31,35). How this could all be was, of course, beyond her understanding. Her mortal mind could not comprehend how God could become man and go about saving people from their sins. Nevertheless she treasured and pondered.

Or she treasured those words her cousin Elizabeth spoke to her when Marry hurried to Elizabeth’s house with the good news of her pregnancy, Why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me (Luke 1:43). Elizabeth knew what Mary’s baby would be, and so did her unborn son, John. And both shared Mary’s joy.

Or she treasured and pondered those shepherds who knelt before her newly born son, retelling with awe and wonder the events they had witnessed in the Judean countryside. Then there would be Simeon at the temple. Perhaps she might never forget how he would sweep her baby out of her arms and sing with joy of the salvation God had prepared for all people. Perhaps also she would ponder those three men from the Orient, who would tell her about the mysterious star in the East and then presented to her son their gifts. She would treasure and ponder!

My friends, what about you? What are you doing this Christmas? Treasuring the treasures accumulating under the tree? Pondering what’s beneath the wrapping paper with your name on it? Treasuring the time off or how you want to take life easy over the next two weeks. Pondering how much you are going to have to put up with your parents and sisters in the car? Pondering how you are going to travel to relatives and have to face that certain relative you may not necessarily enjoy being around?

For the times we’ve been too busy to ponder and have focused on the petty things of this life we deserve eternal darkness. But that’s the wonder of Christmas! We don’t get it! Instead we get life, because the God of the universe climbed down the ladder to become one of us, that he might live a perfect life for us, that he might die for us, that he might rise for us.

Ponder these things. You have moments to remember, too. Like kneeling at the manger bed, to join the apostle Paul who proclaimed, Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift (2 Cor. 9:15).Like that day at the baptismal font, when Mary’s son put his cross on your head and your heart to mark you as his redeemed child. Like that time around the dinner table, when Jesus spoke to you through that family devotion led by your parents. Like the day when you step forward to receive the very body and blood of Mary’s son to assure you, you are his forgiven brother and sister, whose names are still written on rooms in his Father’s house.

What are you doing this Christmas? The days are upon us. You might do all you must and all you plan. As you consider all you’d like to do or remember what you used to do, ponder what Christmas is all about. Prepare to ponder. Ponder the promise of his coming. Ponder the reality of his birth. Ponder the complete, full, and forever pardon he brings. Ponder the peace he gives. Ponder the hope you posses in Mary’s Son. Like Mary, may it be said of us that we’ve treasured all these things and pondered them in our hearts! Amen.