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by
Doug Ward |
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, angels announced the Messiah's birth
to local shepherds (Lk 2:8-14). The shepherds then went to Bethlehem to see the
baby for themselves, telling Mary and Joseph what the angels had said.
For
Mary, the news from the shepherds confirmed what she had been told previously
about the identity of her son (Lk 1:30-33). Luke reports that Mary
"treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Lk
2:19).
What
did it mean for Mary to "treasure" and "ponder"? Biblical
scholar Scot McKnight explains, "These are standard words in Judaism for
thinking about events in one's life so one could make sense of and narrate
what God was doing in history."1
Mary wanted to understand what was happening so that she could communicate the
good news to others clearly. She was one of the first to announce the Gospel,
starting even before Jesus was born (Lk 1:46-55).
There
was much more for Mary to ponder as the boy grew up. At age twelve Jesus showed
himself to be right at home in the Temple courts in Jerusalem during the
Passover season, holding his own in discussions of the Scriptures with the
sages of Israel (Lk 2:40-51). Luke notes that afterward Mary "treasured up
all these things in her heart" (v. 51). As she thought about what had
happened, perhaps she recognized a fulfillment of prophecies like Isa 11:1-2,
which says the Messiah would possess "the Spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the
fear of the Lord." She also may have begun to realize that her son would
one day be her teacher.
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Two
Biblical Motifs |
Luke's portrayal of Jesus and Mary in Luke 2 brings together two biblical
motifs. One involves precocious children whose conceptions were miraculous. The
second is about servants of God who treasure and ponder divine revelation.
Both
motifs are also present in the Genesis account of Joseph, the son of Jacob and
Rachel, whose birth was an answer to prayer (Ge 30:22-24). When he was about
seventeen, Joseph had some unusual dreams. He summarized one of them this way:
"Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me"
(Ge 37:9).
Since
Joseph had 11 brothers, Jacob could see what the dream symbolized and was
surprised. "What is this dream that you have dreamed?" he asked
Joseph. "Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow
ourselves to the ground before you?" (v. 10) Still, Jacob had experience
with messages from God that came in dreams (Ge 28:12-15; 31:11-13), so he
"kept the saying in mind" (v. 11). Like Mary, he pondered what the
future might bring for his talented son.
Luke
2 makes an implicit comparison between Mary and Jesus on the one hand, and
Jacob and Joseph on the other. Luke also compares Jesus and Mary to the prophet
Samuel and his mother Hannah. Mary's expression of rejoicing in Lk 1:46-55 is
similar to Hannah's prayer of thanksgiving after the birth of Samuel (1 Sa
2:1-10). Both Mary and Hannah declare that God humbles the proud and exalts the
humble.
Like
Mary and her husband Joseph, Hannah and her husband Elkanah made regular
pilgrimages to worship God (1 Sa 1:3; Lk 2:41), and Samuel's boyhood service
under Eli the priest (1 Sa 2:11) looks ahead to Jesus' experience at the
Temple. Luke emphasizes the connection between Samuel and Jesus when he writes
in Luke 2:52 that "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor
with God and man," a reference to 1 Samuel 2:26.
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Treasuring
and Pondering |
The "treasuring and pondering" motif appears again in the seventh
chapter of Daniel, where Daniel saw visions of four great beasts representing
four kingdoms, followed by the "everlasting dominion" of "one
like a son of man." After seeing these visions and hearing them explained,
Daniel confessed that "my thoughts greatly alarmed me, and my color
changed, but I kept the matter in my heart" (v. 28). Daniel treasured and
pondered these revelations, and Mary followed in Daniel's footsteps when she
became the mother of the divine Son of Man.
There
are additional examples of this motif in the Jewish literature of the Second
Temple period.2 One comes
from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, a fictional work that pictures
the deathbed advice of the sons of Jacob to their descendants. Levi in his
testimony describes a heavenly vision in which he is told by the Most High, "I have given thee the blessings of the
priesthood until I come and sojourn in the midst of Israel (T. Levi 5:2). After
the vision Levi says, "And I kept these words in my heart" (T. Levi
6:2).
In
treasuring and pondering the revelation she received concerning her special
son, Mary was in good company, joining the likes of Jacob, Hannah, Daniel and
Levi. We are blessed as we follow their example of probing the meaning of God's
Word and God's work in our lives. The blessings of such dedicated study are
described by Jesus ben Sirach, a sage of the second century B.C., in Sirach
39:1-11. When one is devoted to study, Sirach says, "The Lord will direct
his counsel and knowledge, as he meditates on his mysteries" (v. 7). Jesus
of Nazareth gives a similar picture in his description of the scribe trained
for the kingdom of heaven, who is "like the master of a household who
brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old" (Mt 13:52).
1The Real Mary: Why
Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus, Paraclete Press,
2007.
2Several
examples are discussed Andrew B. Perrin in "Greek Gospels and Aramaic Dead
Sea Scrolls: Compositional, Conceptual, and Cultural Intersections," Open
Theology 6 (2020), pp. 440-456.
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