Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.
I love that line. It sticks in my ears and captivates my imagination.
On the night of nativity after the angel and heavenly host made a grand and sweeping pronouncement to the shepherds and headed back to heaven; the shepherds came up into Bethlehem from their fields, smelling of sheep and their feet stained by grass, telling everyone what they had been told: that the Savior was born for us, the Messiah, the Lord. All who heard responded with great amazement. The world just turned.
But Mary, who had just given birth to the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord, God in the flesh, Jesus Christ (Greek word for Messiah)...Mary said nothing, did nothing, asked for nothing, but rather she treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.
Something colossal had just happened, something so massive that thoughts took new shapes and words took on new meanings. A great, big God was born into the tiny body of an infant named Jesus, wrapped in cloth and placed in a manger, a place where cattle are fed. Almighty God became small and vulnerable. Up was down and left was right, before was after and black was white.
And Mary treasured these things and pondered them in her heart.
Our New Testament, where this story is found, was originally written in Greek. The word ponder in Greek is sumballousa, which gives me great joy. Try it with me: sumballousa...
To give you an idea of the definition, I’ll first tell you what it is not. sumballousa is not knowing, as if Mary understood everything that had just happened, as if she had gained full knowledge or awareness or comprehension.
sumballousa is also not belief. It is not a quiet submitting, as if she simply agreed with what had been told to her, blindly accepting it on the spot.
sumballousa is an internal contemplation. It is an inner discussion. sumballousa tells us that she conversed within herself and wrestled with these things in her heart.
Now the heart used to be the seat of knowledge, today we would place her pondering in the mind. Using all the logic she could locate and reason she could recruit, Mary beheld what had just happened and could not wrap her head or heart around it. She didn’t blindly accept it. She didn’t fully grasp it. She held it in wonder.
sumballousa is faith that is fired by wonder.
Wonder exists beyond our ability to know and believe, between facts and faith, and it is never fully captured by either. It is stitched with threads of doubt and skepticism and yet holds on to that which it cannot deny. Like a new mother who cannot believe that her baby has finally come. Unto us a child has been born. The Savior. The Messiah. The Lord.
How can this be?
After all, such a birth is a scandal. God choosing to be born in human flesh, taking on humanity, assuming all that we encounter in order to save all that he would encounter. God is supposed to be big and judgmental and distant and all-knowing and wise, not vulnerable, not poor, not a baby. Not one who needs a mother to feed him. Not one who will rely on the work of his father. Such an event is absurd. Beyond belief. Irrational. Illogical. Unlikely.
And yet, on that night of nativity over 2,000 years ago, God entered our human story as one of us, God with us, Jesus Christ, our Savior. Our Messiah. Our Lord.
This story, this event, this recorded historical happening that changed how we keep time and mark our years, this story is retold every year, stirring our hearts and minds around the marvel of the manger scene. God arrives in the flesh and we can only behold him in awe. A great reversal of a God who has previously arrived in awe and our ability to behold God only within our flesh.
Such beholding isn’t easy. Since Christianity has become normal rather than illegal, passed on rather than taken up, the absurdity and the scandal have been removed from the incarnation to make it more palatable, easier to swallow and logical. Such editing has actually taken its toll on the Christian story rather than making it more acceptable. We have muted the power of vulnerability. We have lost our wonder. We have lost our awe. And yet we still have this little baby Jesus in whom God has arrived in the flesh.
It takes courage to sustain wonder. But then again, it takes courage to be. This time of year more than any other it seems. We write cards and wrap gifts and wear our best garments as we shuffle the family to all the different parties to show that we have it all together. But it’s darker out there, and colder too. The slowing down of work and school and activity reveals our loneliness. It is this time of year when we remember our losses. “The past inserts its finger into the slit of the present and pulls.” Darkness creeps in at every turn. The bottom line is higher than we can ever reach. The brokenness of our everyday lives and relationships can no longer be hidden.
It is precisely at this time of year when we need to hear about the absurdity and the scandal of the incarnation, of God taking on flesh, taking on all that we have experienced. God takes on not just the good of life, but all of it, the bad and the ugly included. And God meets you and comes to you and takes you as you are.
That is the great wonder of it all, that God would come for us and to us in Christ Jesus, unashamed and not unmoved by our pain, loss, suffering or brokenness. We can’t know why, and we may not fully believe it, but we can behold God as Mary did, with wonder, and hold onto God as Mary did, as a the little baby Jesus in her arms, born for us, the Savior. The Messiah. The Lord.