Christmas Devotion: Mary Treasured these Words and Pondered Them in her Heart (Luke 2:19)

As I moved my boat out of the brackish swamp into a freshwater stream to collect drinking water, a baby moose lay on the riverbank.  It was perfectly framed in a bed of spring grass, its tiny body and disproportionately large eyes identifying it as a newborn.  In that moment I was filled with wonder; I wanted to stop my little boat and just be with this marvel! 
                       
Every birth is a marvel.  Yet on this Christmas Day we remember that the birth of Jesus was especially marvelous.  Exalted angels combined with lowly shepherds to impart amazing news that is for everyone: the Savior was born!  If Mary pondered these things in her heart, we should, too.

In its praise of God Psalm 139:13,15 shows that each of us is born from two mothers:

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother’s womb…
My frame was not hidden from you,
     When I was being made in secret,
Intricately woven together in the depths of the earth.

In the birth of Jesus we humans see God’s communion with us, as Jesus was mysteriously “knit together in (Mary’s) womb.”  And in the birth of Jesus we see God’s communion with all creation, as Jesus was mystically “made in secret, intricately woven together in the depths of the earth.”  It is a marvel indeed! 

Looking at that baby moose, I realized our relatedness—we were both creatures of God, intricately woven together in the depths of the earth.  I also realized our common need for salvation—me from my sin, and this world from human-caused environmental collapse. 

In Alaska, my home, ice is vanishing in astonishing fashion—vanishing from the polar seas, from the glaciers and from the permafrost of the ground.  Animals that depend on ice are suffering, plants that depend on permafrost are suffering and people who, depend on the frozenness of the ground for food, home and livelihood, are losing it all.

Yet it is to us, a broken world and a broken people, that good tidings come.  In Jesus’ birth God proclaimed God’s relatedness to all creation, including humanity.  In Jesus God took action to save us from the sin, which alienates us from God and from our fellow creatures.  Because of God’s communion with us all, there is living hope in Jesus Christ.

Indeed, in due time Mary’s baby will grow up.  And Jesus will tell us that we really have a third mother: we will discover ourselves to be born yet again, born of the Spirit this time, called and empowered to live into a new way of being human for the good of this whole earth.

So: “Let heaven and nature sing!”

Oh God, you have birthed a world that produced the blue of the ice, the fire of the aurora, and the thriving, music-like rhythm that is life.  Today, in Jesus you are born to us.  Touch us, we pray, with your salvation and your vision for abundant life.


Bio:
Rev. Curt Karns is a life-long Alaskan, who currently serves as executive presbyter for the Presbytery of Yukon.  Rev. Karns and his wife, Cindee live in an experimental, eco-friendly bioshelter, and operate the Alaskan Permaculture Learning Center.  In September of 2014 the Yukon Presbyterians for Earthcare are hosting an Eco-Tour For Presbyterians to see the four signs of global warming readily visible in Alaska: vanishing glaciers, vanishing sea ice, permafrost melt, and the effects on flora and fauna (including people).

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