2:19 It is possible that Luke gained much of his knowledge about what happened in chaps. 1 and 2 from talking to Mary, who recalled the things she had “treasured” in her heart.

2:18–19 The shepherds’ report produces amazement in all who hear it. However, Mary reflects even more deeply on the events. Mary has greater understanding than anyone else in the scene, but apparently feels it is most appropriate to keep her feelings and thoughts to herself.

2:19 But Mary treasured up … and pondered. This along with Luke 2:51 indicates that Mary did not fully understand the implications of all that happened to her.

Gen 37:11, where this word or a similar one is used to describe a person who is puzzled by what they have heard but keeps it in mind in order to understand, often with divine help, its meaning.

Luke did not specify exactly what the object of this pondering was. Was it the titles Savior-Christ-Lord? Was it the nature of what had taken place in her life? Probably Luke intended his readers to think of all that had happened in Luke 1:5ff., i.e., how God had visited his people through the miraculous conceptions of John the Baptist and Jesus and the significance of all this.

Earlier commentators held that this reference to Mary’s inner thoughts (cf. also 2:51) indicated that Mary was the source for this account.

All these things. This includes not just the immediate encounter with the shepherds but all that preceded from 1:5ff.

In her heart. This can go with either “treasure up” or “pondered,” but its location suggests that it goes with “pondered.”

The inwardness of Mary’s character:—Observe what I may call the inwardness of Mary’s character. On several occasions, when a common nature would have exulted, when vanity would have babbled, or when common wonder and doubt would have gone asking for explanations, it is said of her, “Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” Now this would not have been repeated as it is, if it had not been a peculiarity and observable. This I call inwardness. There was a hush of awe about it, a disposition to keep a sacred thing sacred; to hide the depths of the heart away from common talk, and to keep their inexpressibleness hidden to God; to keep all doubts and demurs submissively for His solution; to “judge nothing before the time”; to draw inward, and compose and hush the entire nature at the footstool of God; in short, her whole heart seems to have been expressed in the one sentence, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according according to Thy word.” (Ibid.)

Mary’s musings:—Great things were these which she kept, and most fit for earnest pondering. Great were they to all, greatest to her, the “highly favoured” amongst women. Life was opening strangely upon her; and the last few months had crowded into their narrow compass all that was most fit to stir the very depths of her spirit. Brought up in the comparative seclusion which shut in Jewish damsels, the angel of the Most High had stood suddenly beside her, and troubled her mind by the strangeness of his salutation. Then had followed the fears and hopes which the promise of that angel-visitor had interwoven with her very being. The “Desire of all nations” was at last to come, and she should be indeed His mother. From her should spring that mighty Redeemer, to give birth to whom had been the earnest longing of every Jewish mother. What hopes and wonder must have filled her soul! At length the months of waiting passed away, and the gracious birth was come, the promised Child was born, the Son of hope was given; and still how much was there upon which to muse and ponder! There was the full tide of a mother’s love for the Babe which slept beside her; there was the awful reverence of her pious soul for the unknown majesty of Him who of her had taken human flesh. Depths were all around her, into which her spirit searched, in which it could find no resting-place. How was He, this infant of days, the Everlasting Son? How was He to make atonement for her sins and the sins of her people? When would the mystery begin to unfold itself? As yet it lay upon her thick and impenetrable; all was dark around her; mighty promises and small fulfilments seemed to strive together in the womb of time. The angel had called Him Great, the Son of the Highest; but He lay there on her bosom weak and wailing as any other babe. He was to sit upon the throne of David; yet He was cradled in a manger. Angels broke on mortal sight, to make His birthplace known: yet none but the shepherds of Bethlehem had heard their message. A star from heaven guided eastern magi to His feet; but they made their offerings in a stable. She was “highly favoured” who had borne Him; yet a sword should pierce through her own soul. All was full of contradictions; yet amidst all she was unmoved. To the eye of a passing observer she might have seemed perhaps insensible—such a quietness there was about her. Did she know her own greatness? Did she feel the strangeness of all around her? Did her soul yearn over this Babe, and reach forth to comprehend His unknown destiny? or was she indeed destitute of kindling feelings? No; “she kept all these things and pondered them in her heart”; not one escaped her; but the current of her soul flowed far too deeply to babble forth its emotions. The “ornament of a quiet spirit” shrouded the mighty swellings of her heart. She was in God’s hands: this one thought was her anchor. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord”: this was her talisman.… So that this is the lesson taught us in the character of the Virgin Mary. The blessedness of cultivating a quiet, trusting spirit, a deep inward piety, a calm, waiting soul, by musing on God’s dealings. This was what distinguished her; this was the groundwork of that strength and nobleness of character which we trace in her. This, therefore, we should likewise cultivate, who would share her blessedness. For this will be to us too, of God’s blessing, a means of acquiring that pious cheerfulness of temper which is the natural mother of high and noble conduct. It is not in a loud profession or an obtrusive exterior, but in its silent inner power of bowing our will to that of God, of filling our common life with His presence, that true religion shows itself. (Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.)

The hen which straggles from her nest when she sits a brooding, produces nothing; it is a constant incubation which hatches the young. So when we have only a few straggling thoughts, and do not set a-brooding upon a truth, when we have flashes only, like a little glance of a sunbeam upon a wall, it does nothing; but serious and inculcative thoughts (through the Lord’s blessing) will do the work. (T. Manton, D.D.)

Value of meditation:—Any benefit to be derived from hearing the Word exceedingly depends on meditation. Before we hear the Word, meditation is like a plough, which opens the ground to receive the seed; and after we have heard the Word, it is like the harrow which covers the new-sown seed in the earth, that the fowls of the air may not pick it up: meditation is that which makes the Word full of life and energy to our souls. What is the reason that most men come to hear the Word, as the beasts did in Noah’s ark: they came in unclean, and they went out unclean? The reason is, because they do not meditate on the truths they hear; it is but just like putting money into a bag with holes—presently it falls out. The truths they hear preached are put into shallow, neglected memories, and they do not draw them forth by meditation. It is for this reason, that hearing is so ineffectual. Hearing the Word merely is like indigestion, and when we meditate upon the Word, that’s digestion: and this digestion of the Word by meditation produces warm affections, zealous resolutions, and holy actions; and therefore, if you desire to profit by hearing the word, meditate. (H. G. Salter.)

The promises of the gospel do not convey comfort to us as they are recorded in the Word merely, but as they are applied by meditation. The grapes, while they hang upon the vine, do not produce that wine which cheers the heart of man: but when they are squeezed in the wine-press, then they yield forth their liquor, which is of such a cheering nature. So the promises which are in the Word barely, do not send forth that sovereign juice which cheers our hearts; but when we ponder them in our souls, and press them by meditation, then the promises convey the water of life to us. Meditation turns the promises into marrow (Psa. 63:5, 6); it conveys the strength of them to our souls. (Ibid,)

Mary had a lot to think about as she gazed into the face of her tiny child. Gabriel had told her that the little boy would reign forever (1:31–33); the shepherds reported the angel’s words—he is the Savior, Christ the Lord (2:11). As Mary held this tiny baby, she must have wondered at all that God was doing, and who her son would grow up to become.

How did Luke know all these details concerning the birth of Jesus? Remember that he told his readers that he was going to set down a record based on eyewitness testimony. There is a clue to this problem in verse 19: ‘But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.’ It is very likely that Luke’s source was Mary herself. He visited her and heard the details of what had happened in those early days. He discovered that they were not vague, far-removed memories, but they were etched into her consciousness for ever. She had pondered them as she nursed her child, nurtured him in youth, and watched the unfolding of his career as an adult.

In contrast to the shallow, superficial reaction of many who heard the news, Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. She reflected deeply on the significance of the birth of God’s Son, and on what that birth portended for her and Joseph as His earthly parents. In addition to the normal thoughts that go through the mind of any new mother, Mary had many other things to think about. She considered God’s redemptive purpose, how just as He had promised, He had sent a Savior to redeem His people. But that redemption would come at a fearful cost. As Simeon would later warn Mary, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed—and a sword will pierce even your own soul—to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (2:34–35). Years later, Mary would watch her Son die on the cross bearing God’s wrath against sin (John 19:25–27).

Mary’s deep meditation on the Savior illustrates another aspect of what it means to truly embrace Christ. Salvation’s initial euphoria and excitement deepens into a richer, fuller, more profound understanding of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle John described the Christian life as a progression from being a spiritual child, who only knows God as Father and forgiver of sins, to being a spiritual young man, well grounded in biblical truth, to being a spiritual father, with a deep understanding of God’s person (1 John 2:12–14). But no Christian will ever be satisfied with the level of knowledge they have attained. Paul, many years into his Christian pilgrimage, yearned to know Christ even better. He expressed to the Philippians his desire to “know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil. 3:10).

συνετήρει, “she kept,” is no more than a synonym for the διετήρει of v 51. The importance of the revelations is marked, along with Mary’s continuing engagement with them.

Van Unnik (“Lukas 2, 19”) has shown that in a context of divine revelation συμβάλλειν means to hit upon the right interpretation of what has been divinely revealed. He fails, however, to attend to the following ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτῆς (“in her heart”; cf. Räisänen, Mutter Jesu, 121 n. 6) and misses the likely conative force of the participial use here (cf. Fitzmyer, 413), which would give the sense “trying to interpret/penetrate the significance of.”

Joseph Bayly has written a wonderful poem about the meaning of Christmas.

Praise God for Christmas.

Praise him for the Incarnation, for the Word made Flesh.

I will not sing of shepherds watching flocks on frosty nights, or angel choristers

I will not sing of a stable bare in Bethlehem, or

lowing oxen, wise men trailing star with gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Tonight I will sing praise to the Father who stood on heaven’s threshold and said farewell to his Son as he stepped across the stars to Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

And I will sing praise to the infinite, eternal Son, who became most finite, a baby who would one day be executed for my crime.

Praise him in the heavens, praise him in the stable, praise him in my heart.*

The mother responded differently. She had incubated amazement for nine months. Now she incubated experiences in her mind, experiences that gradually became treasured memories, each showing something new and different about her son, each confirming Gabriel’s promise of greatness for this Son of David and Son of the Most High. Surely nothing was impossible with God (1:30–37).

‘But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart’ (2:19). She had much to think about. There was Gabriel’s visit to her and to Joseph. There was her visit to Elizabeth. Now there was the joy of the birth of her own son, who was also her Saviour (1:47).