In Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus he describes the angels going to the shepherds and then the shepherds going to see Jesus. “So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. It seems everyone else was amazed and surprised at what the shepherds said, except Mary. You see Mary had been visited by an angel. Joseph had been visited by an angel. Mary’s cousin’s husband had been visited by an angel. Maybe this was starting to become a normal thing for the young couple.
The greek word used for “ponder” means “to put one thing with another to consider circumstances”. So Mary took all of these events that happened over the last months to form her conclusion as to what was happening. So she added this event with the shepherds account. In eight days, when they go to the temple, she will add more. When the magi come to the house with the gifts she will add more events to her treasure of circumstances. That would have helped since they had to pack and flee for their lives in the middle of that same night. Then when Jesus stays behind in the Temple, and scares his parents to death, Mary treasures these things as well.
John, immersing people in the Jordan, would call him “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”
Later on when Jesus was older and being crucified between common thieves she would have had to pull these memories together to consider what was happening right then in light of everything that happened up till this point in their lives.
She would remember the Angel telling Joseph, “You will name him Jesus, because he will save people from their sins.” and she would remember the shepherds coming bowing before the infant king, just as the centurion dropped to his knees and proclaimed, “Surely this was the Son of God.” Which would have brought back the angels words to her, “He will be called the Son of the Most High”.
As they poured the myrrh on his body to bury it, she remembered the Wise men that came and brought the gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.
Jesus returned to life three day later and when she saw her boy on the path, the words from the angel continued, “The Lord God will give Him the throne of his Father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his Kingdom will never end.”
Nothing that happened with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus was an accident. Everything that happens in our lives is seen and known about by God.
It isn’t an accident that you are reading this. It isn’t an accident that the weather was like it was this week. It is all a part of God drawing us to Him. What we have to do is what Mary did. Look at all of the events that happen in our lives and ponder, put them all together, to see how God is working.
Jeremiah wrote 31:3 “The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness’.”
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