What Mary kept in her heart, Part One

Sunday 27 Dec 09, Sermon at Kampar Wesley

Luke 2: 41 - 52 NKJV

(This post was completed on 06Jan2010 at 23:25hr)

Luke 2 spans almost 30 years in NT history. Beginning at the birth of Jesus, from Luke 2: 1 when Caesar Augustus (Octavian 27BC - AD14) was in power to the incident in Luke 2: 51-52, when Jesus was 12 years old, who returned with his family to Nazareth and was submissive to them for the next 18 years, until Luke 3: 1 when Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus ruled (AD14 - 39), during the ministry of John the Baptist, when Jesus began his ministry at 30 years old (Luke 3: 23).

In this chapter, are recorded two instances of Mary having heard remarkable and astonishing words from others, and had kept those words in her heart.

Firstly, in Luke 2: 19, after hearing the good tidings from the shepherds , Mary "kept all these things and pondered over them in her heart". The Greek word for "kept" used here is sunthereo, which carries the meaning of "to preserve" (see: new wine preserved in new skins, Luke 5:38).

Secondly, in Luke 2: 51, after hearing the child Jesus' reply that he had to be "in his Father's business", Mary "kept all these things in her heart". Another Greek word is used here for "kept", namely diathereo, which means to "keep carefully and continually". (see Acts 15: 29, the council elders in Jerusalem sent instruction to the Gentile churches in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, telling them to "keep" themselves from unholy practices.)

This morning, I'd like to invite you to join me in pondering over at least three things which Mary preserved and kept carefully in her heart.

I Jesus is the Son, who is begotten by God (Luke 2: 41 - 52, 1: 26 - 33)
II Jesus is the Sacrifice, who is prepared by God (Luke 2: 21 - 35), and
III Jesus is the Saviour, who is chosen by God (Luke 2: 8 - 19)

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I Jesus is the Son, who is begotten by God (Luke 2: 41 - 52, 1: 26 - 33).

It was the Passover Feast and that year Jesus was twelve years old. Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to celebrate the feast in Jerusalem, as they had always done each year. When the days of the feast were over, they embarked on their journey home without realising that Jesus had stayed behind in Jerusalem, thinking that he was somewhere with some other friends or relatives travelling together in the caravan.

Verse 44 tells us that they had already gone a day's journey out of Jerusalem when Joseph and Mary began looking for Jesus. When they failed to find him, they returned to Jerusalem (v.45), and this would have taken a second day. They would have spent a good part of the third day looking around for Jesus and so, as verse 46 records for us, it was after three days that they found Jesus in an unlikely place for a twelve year old child: the temple at Jerusalem. And he was doing the most unlikely thing: asking the rabbis difficult questions and giving them amazing answers,

Mary said to Jesus, (verse 48), "Son, why have you done this to us? . . ." The Greek word translated as "Son" used here is not huios, meaning a son, but instead it is teknon, meaning a child. This shows that Mary regarded at the boy as being still a child, who was not old enough to be responsible for himself yet. According to the book of Niddal in the Mishnah, the oral traditions of the Jews, the age 12 is one year before a boy is responsible for his religious commitments.

This little boy Jesus gave his mother a very astonishing answer, in verse 49b, "Don't you know that I must be about my Father's business?" In Greek, it is written literally as "don't you know that I must be in the things of my Father?". (Some authorities translate this as "I must be in the house of my Father")

"But they did not understand his answer" v.50

Then Jesus went with Joseph and Mary back to Nazareth and he was subject to them, but Mary kept all these things in her heart. (diathereo, meaning to keep continually in mind)

These astounding words from Mary's child would have reminded her of the words of the Angel Gabriel which she had heard twelve years earlier, recorded in Luke 1: 35, announcing to her that she would bear the Son of God in her womb: "The holy Spirit will come on you, and God's power will rest upon you. For this reason, the holy child will be called the Son of God."

Thus these were the first words that Mary had kept in her heart: that the son she had borne, whom she had raised all those twelve years, was the Son of God, a son who had begun to go about his Father's business, in his Father's house.

Later in the NT, the book of Hebrews tells us that God has spoken to us by his Son, whom he has appointed the heir of all things (Heb. 1: 2). And quoting from the OT scriptures:

Psalm 2: 7 says, "The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You'.

2Sam 7:14 says, "I will be his Father, and he shall be My son . . ."

The Apostle, in his epistle to the Galatian church wrote:

"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born[a] of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons" Gal 4: 4

Whereas in Gal 3: 26, he wrote, "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus."

Furthermore, in Romans 8:17, it is written that we are ". . . heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."

Thus, this is the first thought that we ponder over this morning, a thought that Mary had preserved and kept carefully in her heart: that the child Jesus was no ordinary child. He is the son of God, through whom God speaks to all of us in these last days, a son who is appointed heir of all things from God. And through our faith in the son of God, even in our suffering together with him, we are also made sons of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us keep this thought carefully in our hearts too, just as Mary, the mother of Jesus had kept it in her heart.

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II Jesus is the Sacrifice, who is prepared by God (Luke 2: 21 - 35), and

III Jesus is the Saviour, who is chosen by God (Luke 2: 8 - 19)

(to be continued, in subsequent posts)