Thought for Today
Exodus 19:5 Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation . . .
Luke 2:19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.
Luke 2:51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
Today is the day after Christmas. Despite the way it may seem to some, I find no indication on my calendar that this is National Return Day. My liturgical calendar does tell me that today is the beginning of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights.
How should we, as Christians, commemorate this day? Should we take any special note of the day after Christmas at all? We do not know how or even whether Jesus noted his own birthday during his lifetime, much less what note he took about the ‘day after.’ What should we be thinking today? What, if anything, should we be doing differently today compared to any other day?
Christmas Eve is simple. Christians go to some special service at their church. Our own faith community, like many others, had a Lessons and Carols service and ended with lit candles and singing Silent Night. We were reminded of all the traditional birth narrative stories from Matthew and especially from Luke. We shared in the joy of worshiping with our family of faith, and then we departed back to our own homes.
Christmas Day observations differ from family to family, from faith tradition to tradition. Many involve decorated trees, gaily wrapped presents, sometimes a post-unwrapping fog of shredded paper and ribbons permeating the room. There are family dinners, telephone calls to distant relatives and friends, or today maybe Facetime, Skype or even Zoom ‘meetings.’ Some of us may even have had a television turned on in the background tuned to a football game!
This year, the day after Christmas falls on a Thursday. Is today any different from any other Thursday? Qualitatively or quantitatively, is there anything special about this Thursday? If there isn’t, should there be? As Christians, should this day be any different from any other Thursday? Obviously, for Mary and Joseph, that first ‘day after’ was very different. They were now parents. As a parent, I remember that first ‘day after,’ when the fact that I was now a father finally fully sunk in. That realization that all the rest of the ‘days after’ would be totally unlike those which preceded the birth of our first child.
Times have changed since that first Christmas. Most children in our country are born in hospital maternity wards. During my own lifetime, maternity stays in the hospital have decreased. My mother was hospitalized for 2 weeks. Greta only spent 3 days in the hospital with our children. Now, some only spend 1 day in the hospital. Joseph attended Jesus’ birth. Husbands were rarely allowed into the delivery room when my children were born. Now it is once again common practice for the father to be ‘in the room’ during childbirth.
Irrespective of the changing or evolving circumstances attending childbirth, the events of that first Christmas irrevocably changed the world for us all. It certainly changed the lives of Joseph, Mary and all the people who have lived since that day.
Luke tells us twice that Mary treasured events in her heart. She remembered all of the events attending the birth of her first child. She also remembered the only event of Jesus’ childhood recorded in the canon text of the Bible when Jesus was left behind in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Today is a day for us all to remember, to treasure and to ponder. It is a day for us to reflect on how that first Christmas has influenced our own lives and the lives of all those around us. Each and every Christmas, we should treasure all these words and ponder them in our hearts. Each ‘day after,’ we should remember and reflect on Jesus, the Incarnate Creative Word of God, the Son of God. We should thank God for that first Christmas and all the Christmases since. At least for Christians, today should be a National Remembrance Day to treasure and ponder the words of the angels, the visit of the Magi, the birth and life of Jesus, the Christ.
Stay safe, treasure and ponder, trust God,
Pastor Ray