The church Christmas calendar is the most jam-packed of the church’s year. Nearly every weekend is spoken for. Obligations seem to fill the calendar even before we start scheduling our personal events. We find ourselves overbooked, under-prepared, and anxiety-filled. Curiously, these are descriptions that may not be too far off from feelings surrounding the event we’re celebrating: Jesus’ birth. A treacherous trip with Mary pregnant and riding on a donkey, an anguishing search for lodging, laying a newborn in dirty straw a visit by working shepherds.
And yet, after all this,
… Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
—Luke 2:19
Mary obviously understood the historic, even cosmic, nature of the events she was experiencing. This wasn’t just an inconvenient trip to Bethlehem. The stable wasn’t simply backup lodging. The shepherds weren’t just saying hi to a cute baby. Mary was in the epicenter of an event that would change mankind. She understood the gift that she was helping to give the world.
And so can we. Every Christmas season is a celebration of a world-changing event. And when we experience Christmas with all its trappings—gifts, lights, plays, concerts—with the gift of Christ with us, we have the opportunity to treasure Christmas just as Mary did and continue its gift-giving power.
So, rather than seeing the Christmas season as a season of busyness and getting, I’m trying to experience it as a season of treasuring, pondering, and giving. Rather than reacting to my calendar with exhaustion and angst, I shall choose this season to see each event as a unique opportunity to treasure and ponder—to find the gift-giving power of each event and to treasure and ponder that power.
If this resonates with you, either personally or for your youth ministry, here are a couple of tools:
- Free Teen Devo #TreasuerAndPonder: Share this devo, as a blog post or PDF, with your teens. It’s a devo to inspire and encourage your teens to treasure and ponder their Christmas season.
- Free Treasure and Ponder Chart: Use this simple (primitive!) but helpful chart as a guide to treasure and ponder your way through Christmas Season 2018.
- #TreasureAndPonder: Let’s use this hashtag to encourage each other in our treasuring and pondering!
