When I was growing up, my father used to tell the story of my birth. Theylived in Newport, Rhode Island where he was stationed, and he drove a Triumph convertible. And to hear him tell it, when my mom thought she was going into labor, he drove her over the cobblestone streets of Newport, bumpity-bumpity-bump. It was a false alarm, so they went back home, bumpity bumpity bump. And then when the real labor began, they went out again, bumpity bumpity bump over the cobblestones to the Naval Hospital where I was born.
It is a story that he carried with him in his heart and shared with me, delighting in bouncing me in his lap and remembering all the details of sounds and motions of the day.
In his Christmas story, Luke says Mary treasured all the things that shepherds told her and Joseph about their newborn son and pondered them in her heart. (2:19) And it’s easy to imagine her keeping a treasury of stories from Jesus’ birth and childhood.
But the Gospels don’t share those stories with us. The next story we have is the one we hear today, of Jesus as a boy traveling with his family to Jerusalem, becoming lost and then being discovered in the temple, where he is asking questions and conversing with the teachers there. Later Luke says Mary treasured all “these things” in her heart, too. (2:51)
Mary first held space in her heart for the newborn Jesus, whom the angel had announced and called the Son of God. (1:35) And she held space in her heart for the infant who was then called Messiah and Lord. (2:11) And now she holds space for this boy, whom she and Joseph have raised and taught the Jewish tradition and faith.
Deuteronomy commands parents to write the words of God, the Law of God, onto the hearts of our children, to talk about them at home and when we are traveling, and to keep them in our sight at all times. (Deut. 6:4-9) So I imagine God’s Law is woven through these spaces in her heart, intertwined with the love she holds for Jesus.
I wonder if we get to hear this story today, on this first Sunday after Christmas, because we have been given a treasury, like Mary, to hold: a place where we can keep all God’s promises for us, alongside God’s commandments for us.
A place where we can look at Jesus and see him, sometimes as the newborn full of promise and embodying God’s boundless love for us;
sometimes as the compassionate teacher and the one who shows us what it means to be a servant;
other times as the critic of powers and principalities when they hurt our neighbors and draw us away from God;
and always as the One in whom we know the promise of resurrection and new life.
Having been given this gift of knowing Jesus, both as the newborn King and as our Savior, I wonder what it means for us to “keep Christmas” not only through the twelve days, but always?
Twentieth century poet and Presbyterian pastor Henry van Dyke wrote a poem called “Keeping Christmas” where he challenges all of us to be less self-centered and selfish, and to “to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings”, seeding happiness and shining light into the world.
But “keeping Christmas” isn’t simply rose-colored sentiment. It’s hard work. When Mary and Joseph find Jesus in the temple, he isn’t goofing off or playing with other children, he is in God’s house, tending to the things of God.
Keeping Christmas means tending to the things of God, all year long.
Will we continue to read and study and write God’s Word on our hearts?
Will we feed our neighbors the other 364 days a year?
Can we clothe children and provide school supplies in January as well as September?
How can we help shield our unhoused neighbors from the summer sun as well as the winter cold?
How do we care for the lonely and the isolated the rest of the year?
“Keeping Christmas” means sharing this treasury of all we know about God and God’s love for us all year long so that others will know the boundless love of God too.
Let us pray…
Good and gracious God,
Thank you for your Son Jesus, born to us a Savior and Lord.
Help us treasure all you are, all you promise,
and to continue to learn and grow in wisdom and faith.
Help us keep Christmas today and always.
We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
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