Confusion can be frustrating. It can make us grit out teeth or even scream out in frustration. Confusion can also be a call for reflection. It reminds us, we don't know it all nor do we understand half the things we think we do. It shows us our need and is an opportunity to enter into deep reflection with the promise of discovering something True, Beautiful, or Good. I think this was Mary's experience in that stable so many years ago.
Hundreds of scholars have debated the pondering of Mary's heart. I guess the thoughts of one hack can't hurt. I want to consider three possibilities. Three confusions found in the Christmas story. Three confusions that remind us of the love of God, his goodness towards man and the glory of Christmas.
Three maybes that Mary may have pondered.
Maybe it was the oddity of the messenger that Prompted Mary to ponder. How odd to her that God would choose to make shepherds, the unclean and shady men who smelled more like an animal than a human. These outliers are chose oracles. No way, that makes no sense. God chooses the great and values the best not the lowly and marginal people. She could have thought, Where these men God's herald? stinky smelly shepherds ordained as God's evangelists? When I have good new, I go first to my loved ones. I run head long to those dear to my heart to share my joy. Is that what God did? If so, what a picture of grace flavored love. God's intention in the form of angelic invitation beginning with the lowly. God's love flowing down to the depths of the valley finding the castaways, hungry souls. Men unfit, barred from the temple, unclean. Men in the night air secretly longing for redemption. Towards such men, God's love runs with good news. Was, God 's love towards such men, the thought she pondered on that night?
Maybe it was the oddity of the message that Prompted Mary to ponder. Maybe Mary pondered the announcement they told her. Now the text, does not say, but Surely the shepherds were asked to explain why in the middle of the night men of bad reputations were going from house to house in search of a baby boy. Any good parent would ask such questions and Mary and Joseph, I am sure where such parents.
In my minds eye I see the shepherds, one part hillbilly the other duck dynasty. I can see them with wild eyed wonder retelling the angels announcement. Of how they were watching over those sheep not far from town, (sheep that a historian 300 years later clams were the flocks set aside for sacrifice in the temple.) I can see those shepherds, faces slightly sunburnt still aglow from the encounter. Telling tales of Angels declaring the birth of a king in the backwoods of Israel. I see Mary intently listening to the Angels words, "I bring you good news of great joy, that is for all people" did Mary ponder that all. A king is over a nation not the "all" of all people. Could it be, the good news of great tidings is bigger than the next political movement? Bigger than Israel, beyond Palestine. Is it news for all people. A king born for all people? Quite confusing for Jewish girl of 18. Maybe that is what she pondered.
Or could it be something else, no less confusing than a God of all grace who's love moves him to choose first, the unlikely, and undone. No less befuddling than a gospel of a king for all people, and not just the privileged few.
There's one more possibility I would like to propose Mary pondered. Maybe it was just her, baby, her little man. Maybe, her confusion over the baby in her arms or just the wonder of a new life. A mother looking at her child for the first time can't help but marvel. Did Mary marvel and just reflect on the little body before her; A little seed of life, full of potential. When she looked at him did she see, an uncertain future? His destiny, mixed in prophecy and sung by angels that night, did it still hold a mystery just out of Her grasp. Did she see the possibility before her, salvation in her hands? The full potential of redemption's plan ready to begin, all wrapped up in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. Did she consider the implication, unfold them one by one. Was their pause to consider Isaiah's word as she held her child. Did she ever think that this baby, once a man would give himself to be the substitution for a nation, a people redeemed in him.
I don't know what Mary pondered but I know who she held. I have pondered him through in the dryness and days undone by grace. I ponder the truth I have unfolded time and again, a truth resting in that manger, realized on a cross. I have learned in reflection of a special Christmas gift hidden in seed form amidst the hay of that manger. This gift can best seen out of the corner of our eyes, seen in those standing next to us. Mary held the body of Christ. 33 years later that same body would bleed and bind a people beyond time and for eternity, into one new humanity. Just like there is no cross without Christmas, no hope without His first heartbeat. There is no community of faith without a baby in a manger. How silly we would be to gather together as we do, if he were not born yet how profound it is that he was born to gather.
In a world that would strip us of who we are to wrap us in other another garment. A world that calls us outliers, stinking Shepard, blind backwards sheep. We are reminded that God is with us; In history and time, in mystery and community. And So in our greeting and treating of each other we are Christ, God with us, in the world. We are Christ with us, given to one another as a gift, to weep with us, to smile with us, to laugh with us, to give the gift of presence. A double meeting where sinner laughs with sinner and sinner and sinner enjoy the savior. A double blessing of presence where the Savior's presence is enjoyed in the presence of believing hearts. It is in our sharing he is revealed. A Sacramental gift, an invisible reality made visible, even tangible, through the smiles and laughter, even in the pancake parties and pajama pants. I see jesus in his body - this is most true for me at Christmas.
So may our meeting have the gravity of "the other" also near, and may our greeting have the levity of costly grace entered in. That we may in whole heartedly honesty with a loving tremble in our voice, say, "Merry Christmas - God is with us, God is with us all, let us rejoice!"
In Him
J. Dawson Jarrell
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