A time of joy and sorrow: Luke 2:22-40

Today I would like to explore a little deeper the heart and mind and life of a person who played a significant role in the coming of God in Jesus.  Mary is celebrated and remembered as the mother of Jesus.  She is remembered as the one who encouraged him to use his gifts to heal and to help even before he was ready to start his mission and ministry.  She is also the one who felt intense pain as Jesus suffered in body, mind and spirit and she wept at his passing.  She also rejoiced at his resurrection and the hope for eternal life that it heralded.

As any mother cherishes the life that grows within, Mary felt the child as it developed and moved within her.  What would he look like – this child of hers and God? How was she to raise him; what lessons could she teach him; what would he do with his life when he grew up?  These are questions for which Mary had no answers at the time. The best she could do was to love and care for this child and pray that he grow strong and true to whatever God may have planned.

When the baby was born, Mary and Joseph were visited first by shepherds who reported that they had been told about the baby and had come to worship him as he was to be the Saviour - the Messiah.  The Scripture records that Mary treasured all that the shepherds had told them and pondered them in her heart. Then the wise men from the east came seeking the one they said was born to the King of the Jewish people, the new king of Israel.  They brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh – gifts that would speak of the child’s royal descent but also gave hints of his future mission, his suffering, and his death.  All these things too, it is said, were treasured by Mary and pondered in her heart.

In today’s account, Mary and Joseph travel to Jerusalem for the circumcision of Jesus and his official naming. He would be presented to the Lord at the temple in and an offering would be made in accordance with the law.  While they were there, they met Simeon.  By the Spirit of God, Simeon was led to the temple and upon seeing the baby he took him in his arms and began to praise God for the child’s coming.  Simeon then spoke of the destiny of the child saying that he would be a sign to the people but that he would be rejected and that Mary would find her heart pierced.  A prophetess named Anna also was there and she shared that the child would bring freedom to the people. What was she to make of everything that she had heard about this child – this gift from God?

What lay within the heart of the mother of God?  No doubt joy, sorrow, heartache, anxiety, hope, and even fear.  How could she guide him and support him,? How could she protect him? I cannot imagine what it would have felt like to be told that the child whom you had given birth to was destined to live a life that would change the world, bring freedom of body and spirit to so many and yet be rejected and subjected to great suffering in mind, body, and spirit.  Mary lived with the painful truth that her son’s life would not be the normal life that she had hoped for her children and yet she also knew that he had been sent to fulfil a destiny, a purpose, a mission.  Imagine watching him grow in stature and wisdom, knowing all the time the destiny that lay before him.

He was her child. Yet as much as she so desperately wanted him to ever be the child she could love and protect she knew he had been given life for something beyond anything she might have imagined.  Her love for him would grow even deeper as she witnessed his acts of healing and listened to the wisdom that would come from his words but she would also be haunted by the thought that one day her heart would be pierced.  She knew that she would always have to share him with the world yet she would long for him to come home and be part of the family he shared with Joseph and his siblings. What courage it must have taken for her to let him follow the path he was to follow. And when he walked the path to his crucifixion, I am sure the words of Simeon came to her mind as she witnessed the torture and death of the son she loved so much.

Remember the song called “Mary did you know”?  In it the author wonders if Mary truly understood just who this baby of hers was. Could she imagine that he would walk on water; that he would give sight to the blind or calm a storm; that he would bring hearing to the deaf and allow the dumb to speak? Did she know that when she kissed his face she was kissing the face of God? Did she know that the child she bore and raised was to be the ultimate sacrifice for sin and that he was the great I AM?  We can only imagine what all passed through her mind as she lived her life watching this son of hers interact with people and share his message of love, peace, hope, and forgiveness.

What lies within a mother’s heart – all her hopes and dreams, all her fears and joys, all her pain and heartache.  Unlike Mary we do not know what the future holds for any of our children, but like Mary we do ponder what we know about them in our hearts and love them with a love that nothing can break trusting that whatever the future holds God will ever be there.

And so we celebrate with Mary that God came in the person of Jesus for it helps us to put a face on God.  Through the words of the Gospels, we can see Jesus through their eyes and walk through the stories recorded about Jesus getting a sense of the person Jesus was to those who witnessed his mission and ministry first-hand.  Through Jesus they were able to touch God and begin to understand the relationship God was seeking to establish with the people of this world.  To share this life as we experience it, to knows its joys and sorrows, its hopes and fears, its pain and heartache, and to bring to us an ultimate gift of love, mercy, forgiveness, and life. As we celebrate our faith in God today through song, prayer, Scripture, and messages, may we seek to feel his presence as intimately as Mary who pondered all these things in her heart.

AMEN