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Home Luke 2:16-21 NRSVue

Luke 2:16-21 NRSVue

16So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. 17When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them, 19and Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.

21When the eighth day came, it was time to circumcise the child, and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE)

“Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.”

Some thoughts on this scripture

Reflection
We start the year, as we start our life, under the protection of a mother. Mary is mother of God - it took the Christian church three hundred years to become clear about this – and our mother too. Sartre imagines Mary meditating in Bethlehem:

Reflection
/I think that there are rapid, fleeting moments when Mary realises at once that Jesus is her son, her very own baby, and that he is God. She looks at him and thinks: This God is my baby. This divine flesh is my flesh. He is made from me. He has my eyes, and the curve of his mouth is the curve of mine. He is like me. He is God and he is like me./

Reflection
/No other woman has been lucky enough to have a God for herself alone, a tiny little God whom she can take in her arms and cover with kisses, a warm-bodied God who smiles and breathes, a God that she can touch, who is alive. And it is in these moments that I would paint Mary, if I was a painter, and I would try to capture the air of radiant tenderness and timidity with which she lifts her finger to touch the sweet skin of her baby-God, whose warm weight she feels on her knees, and who smiles./

Reflection
We are named and loved by God before birth. From the moment of conception we are named in the mind and love of God just as Jesus was. We carry that love through life. In prayer you might repeat your baptismal - or ‘Christian' - name like a mantra, and allow God's choice of you fill that name with thanks, love and commitment. Happy new year!

Reflection
We are named and loved by God before birth. From the moment of conception we are named in the mind and love of God just as Jesus was. We carry that love through life. In prayer you might repeat your baptismal - or ‘Christian' - name like a mantra, and allow God's choice of you fill that name with thanks, love and commitment. Happy new year!

Reflection
Shepherds were not commonly regarded as ideal witnesses given the marginal, nomadic nature of their lives. Yet we see them as among the first to announce Jesus who would proclaim himself 'shepherd'. I ask God to help me to receive the Gospel from unexpected sources.