“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19, KJV).
I was in High School before I knew there were other translations of the Bible. Neither my family nor the churches we attended were staunch King James-only people—ones who felt it and it alone was closest to the original writings—but it was the only version we read and heard. And each Christmas Eve, we’d read the Nativity story from Luke’s Gospel with Mary’s days being accomplished, sore afraid shepherds, and this verse at its conclusion where Mary pondered.
I probably asked about so many arcane words that translation uses over the Christmases I lived as a kid. I remember one year, sitting on the floor after my Dad had finished reading this story, asking what it meant to ponder something in your heart. The answer they gave was that Mary thought about it because it was special to her.
It must have been satisfying; because, in the near half-century since then, I never opened up the dictionary to see what it had to say about pondering. And there’s no reason it occurred to me to look it up this past week, but it turns out that there’s more being said here than I’d realized.
To ponder is to ruminate, to roll something around in your mind, to meditate on a subject or event. It’s what you do, to borrow from an old nineties hit, with those things that make you go hmmm.
But unlike those synonyms, ponder carries with it the idea that the thinking and focus is inconclusive. We meditate, for example, on a verse from the Bible or poem, tasting it to draw out one of its meanings. But the big things, those with the weight of great joy or deep sorrow, are the ones we ponder—returning to again and again and struggling to fully understand.
Mary, as I read it, gathered up the events of that night—the birth of her child, the sound that seemed like the animals whispering around her, the strangers with their sheep and story of angel songs—and tucked them away. Then, in moments next to the sink or sweeping off the steps or waiting for sleep, they came tumbling out. And while she might glean a hint of something each time, she never could get her head around them all. Like a large stone, she could not take it all in as a whole.
The hours of Christmas Eve and Day bring us again to this story of a deity who out of love and a desire for their creation to draw near and know them better chose to live as, to be one of us. Too often, the messaging around us can be that we need to come to know the true meaning of the season, as though it were possible.
Like moments of overwhelming tragedy, the joy of the story of the season we’re approaching is too big for any of us to grasp in full. The idea of such love, hope, and miracle is more than we’re able to take in. And like Mary, we are left rolling it around and around in our minds and hearts never quite understanding it all.
Which means that we will be left to ponder its impact, even through all the days of the year.
Incarnate One, may we live with the wonder of these days through the upcoming season, and into all the days that follow.