But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19)
For all who are parents, there are many times in which we, like Mary (and Joseph, for that matter), have to pause and ponder the events in our lives. This is especially so when it comes to raising our children. I think that there is an unfortunate and inaccurate pietistic sentimentality that strips Joseph and, especially Mary, of their humanness. We like to think that as parents, they had all the answers and never made any mistakes in the raising of Jesus. In all of their humanity, they, like all parents, had not one clue as to how to raise their child. None of us have a guide book as to how to raise children. What works for one of our kids, fails with another one of our other kids. As parents, we learn as we go. No where in scripture is this made so crystal clear as in this one verse from the second chapter of Luke’s gospel.
When Mary said, “yes,” to the angel Gabriel, she signed herself up for one heck of ride, not knowing fully what was in store for her when she made that commitment to God. Betrothed to Mary, Joseph didn’t know how his commitment to Mary would affect his life. Is that not true for all of us? I am sure that throughout all of Mary and Joseph’s lives, they paused often to ponder exactly what was going on, and what “they had gotten themselves into” when they said “yes” to God.
The scripture passage upon this little Christmas song is based, is the that one little line from Luke’s gospel above. “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” As our lives continue to unfold, little by little, may we, too, follow the example of Mary and Joseph to pause and to ponder/reflect upon the events that have happened to us and to ask where God is in that event.
I composed this song as a Christmas present for my good friend Elaine Roeser.
