A Fresh Hearing (Friday Devotional)

 

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

- Luke 2:19

A Christmas Story. Miracle on 34th Street. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Home Alone. It’s a Wonderful Life. Elf. I could keep going, of course—after all, I failed to mention The Muppet Christmas Carol and White Christmas and The Santa Clause, to say nothing of beloved animated TV specials like A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Christmas movies, whatever your favorites, are as inextricable from the holiday season as lights and presents. Just like we sing the same carols year after year, we watch these same films over and over too, unbothered that the stories never change and that we know what happens next at every turn. Being able to recite the whole script from memory isn’t a bug, but a feature—because you’re not watching these films to learn something new, you’re watching them to be reminded of something precious.

There is another Christmas story—the Christmas story—that is just as familiar, just as repeated, and far more important than Hollywood’s holiday tales. When you read the gospel accounts of Jesus’s birth, you already know the story beats: Gabriel’s visit, Joseph’s dream, the manger and the shepherds and the heavenly host. You’re probably not going to hear anything new to you when somebody reads Luke 2 this Sunday.

That familiarity makes it tempting to tune out, to assume that since you know all the information you have nothing to learn. But the Bible is no dead letter—Hebrews 4:12 tells us the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. You will find no new words in the gospel stories this weekend, but that doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit won’t use those familiar old words to change you.

Luke 2:19 tells us that Jesus’s mother treasured up the events of the nativity and pondered them in her heart. This Christmas, perhaps you should do the same. After all, sometimes you don’t need a new story, just a fresh hearing of the familiar.