But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19, NIV)

Christmas is a joyful time for many parents, but also a time of grief for those who have lost children. (This is also true for other deep relational losses, some of which my wife and I have experienced, but few losses run deeper than the loss of a child—something Mary would eventually experience.) This may be especially true for those who believe that God has shown them about their child’s destiny and, at least so far, things appear to be working differently.

Jesus’s birth, of course, is special in a way that no other birth is. But we can still learn some lessons from how Mary responded to clear revelations about Jesus’s identity and mission.

The shepherds testified about what the angels had said: this baby would be a savior, Christ the Lord (Luke 2:8-17)! This testimony confirmed the message that Mary had already received directly from the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:28-37). Many in Bethlehem marveled at the shepherds’ testimony (2:18). Mary, however, preserved these matters in her heart (2:19). She does the same thing later after the young Jesus’s encounter with Bible experts in the temple (2:51). (Luke might even tell about Mary’s memory of these events to suggest that Mary is his source for this information; certainly he met at least briefly with Jesus’s brother James, in Acts 21:18.)

The term used for the “matters” or “words” she kept in her heart appears often in the preceding context, for Gabriel’s message to her (1:37-38), for God’s wonderful work for Zachariah and Elizabeth (1:65), and for the angels’ message to the shepherds (2:15, 17). It will soon be used for God’s prophetic message to Simeon (2:29). All children are special, but Mary, more than any other mother, had good reason to know that her child was the most special of all—the one we all must depend on.

Soon after this event Simeon in the temple prophesies that this child, God’s Messiah, will embody salvation for all peoples (Luke 2:26-32; cf. 2:38). This goes well beyond what Mary and her husband would have imagined (2:33). This message also fits a theme that Luke develops further throughout his work (e.g., 3:6; Acts 13:47; 28:28).

Yet Simeon also prophesies that this child will face opposition and that Mary will face pain (2:34-35). He is prophesying what the Spirit is saying—not simply making a “positive confession” about what Mary might want to hear, or what Simeon might want to come to pass. He is not merely expressing everyone’s hopes for the child. There is a difference.

Simeon’s message underlines a steep price to Jesus’s mission. God has appointed Jesus to expose what is really in the hearts of people (2:35), using Greek terms that Like later uses for Jesus revealing the hypocrisy of many religious people (5:22; 6:8) and even the wrong thoughts of his own disciples (9:47; 24:38). By showing people for what they were, he would become a stumbling block for many, what Simeon calls their “falling” (2:34; cf. 20:18). By contrast, he would be for others a promise of resurrection, what Simeon calls their “rising” (2:34; everywhere else in Luke-Acts this means the resurrection of the dead). Jesus as a sign will also be “spoken against” (2:34: antilegô), a term also applied to hostility against his followers (21:15; Acts 13:45; 28:22).

Further, a figurative “sword” will also pierce Mary’s own heart (Luke 2:35), perhaps initially fulfilled when her son is missing (2:43-48), because she cannot yet understand his life mission (2:49). It may have been further fulfilled when, instead of immediately answering Mary’s concerns, Jesus embraces his disciples as mother and siblings (8:19-21). He warns that loyalty to himself comes before loyalty to parents (12:53; 14:26; though Jesus still affirms honoring parents, 18:20). Even Mary herself must accept the role of disciple as well as mother (Acts 1:14). Jesus’s death would surely prove most traumatic of all.

Sometimes a prophecy is true and it comes to pass in ways that do not make sense to us. The cross was a steeper price than Mary would have imagined; and how could the cross lead to Jesus embodying salvation? Joseph’s father disapproved of his dreams (Gen 37:10), but his father kept it in mind (37:11), just like Mary did centuries later. Yet with Joseph’s apparent death, any possibility of the dream being fulfilled seemed hopeless (37:33-34). Unlike Jacob, the reader of Genesis 37 knows that Joseph remains alive. But how will his exploitation as a slave lead to his exaltation?

Jacob’s son Joseph still has enough faith to remain loyal to God (39:9). He has enough faith—or at least such irresistible gifting—to continue interpreting dreams (40:8-22). And finally this gift exalts him, ironically fulfilling part of his own dream many years earlier (Gen 41).

That is often how God works: he brings humility and often even humiliation before exaltation (Prov 15:33; 18:12; Matt 23:12//Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14). That pattern climaxes in the cross: our divine Lord humbled himself. He did so even to the point of the most shameful and humiliating of deaths, execution for treason against the mighty and widely feared empire of his day (Phil 2:8). Yet every knee will bow at Jesus’s name (2:10) and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (2:11). God’s plan was fulfilled (Acts 2:23-24).

Unfortunately, not all prophecies are clear. Moreover, in circles today where we believe that God’s Spirit still speaks to us, we also need to do a better job of testing today what some claim that God is saying. Some circles risk watering down real prophecy, even inadvertently, with their own interests. Toward the beginning of their callings, God warned both Jeremiah and Ezekiel not to be moved by the opposition they would face for speaking the truth (Jer 1:8, 17; Ezek 2:5-7; 3:8-9). Those who prophesied only what people wanted to hear were suspect (Jer 28:9), and if their hearers were living ungodly lives, the prophecies of peace were false (Jer 4:10; 6:14; 8:11; 14:13; 23:17; Ezek 13:10, 16; Mic 3:5). Of course, not all prophecies include elements of reproof or bad news; two of the seven New Testament churches in Asia Minor were spared reproof, and one was even spared any bad news (Rev 2—3).

Scripture is worth standing on. Scripture also says that we should hold fast true prophecies from God (1 Thess 5:20-21). The same context, however, warns that prophecies must be tested (5:21-22; 1 Cor 14:29). Circles that believe that God will bring about whatever one speaks in faith weaken the distinction between what they say and what God says. Yet “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?” (Lam 3:37, NIV). Genuine authority to command mountains (Mark 11:23-24) presupposes faith in God (11:22), which in turn presupposes that what we are trusting for, God actually supports.

Not everything that everyone says to us is God’s message, and that may be true especially in circles where people believe they can make “prophetic declarations” apart from genuine direction from God’s Spirit. When those declarations are made publicly and fail, they can make true prophecy harder to believe. But of course more people today, like most people in Jeremiah’s day, will listen to those who tell them what they would like to hear (2 Tim 4:3). Full disclosure: I personally also absolutely prefer what is positive! But in the long run, truth is what matters most of all. God is not wrong simply because someone spoke wrongly in his name. But when we speak in God’s name and are wrong, we dishonor God’s name. Whether in prophecy or in the gift of teaching Scripture, we should be very careful when we say, “The Lord says.”

Other times are more like the above examples from Jesus’s childhood, or the earlier story of Joseph’s dreams. God really has spoken, but we do not understand the message’s full import until it is fulfilled.

Sometimes what God has spoken is best kept in our hearts, as in the case of Mary, until we understand how it will be fulfilled. This helps prevent bringing dishonor on God’s name; a prophecy, like a biblical text, sometimes needs interpretation. Our understanding is finite, and our interpretations are limited. Not everything God tells us is for public consumption, especially when it seems foolishness to outsiders, and especially when we are not yet sure enough of the meaning to risk God’s honor in case we are wrong.

We know in part and we prophesy in part (1 Cor 13:9), but we can truly trust that God has everything under control. We know he works things for our ultimate good, even when we do not understand how (Rom 8:28). In faith, we do our best to follow his leading. In faith, we trust that he knows what he is doing even when we do not.