The Greatest Memory

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The Greatest Memory

by Dr. Alan Hix

The Christmas season is often a time for remembering. What is your fondest Christmas memory? The month of December holds some special days for our family. My father was born in December, and he and my mother were wed a few days before his birthday. Skip forward in time, and our daughter was born on my parents’ anniversary, and a few days later, I walked across the stage at New Orleans seminary for my doctoral degree.

Christmas songs often reflect memories of Christmases past. The Twelve Days of Christmas might cause us to wonder what we would do with all of those presents if our true love actually did give them to us. The cacophony from all the livestock alone might make us rethink our view of the Grinch as a villain. He had a problem with the noise too!

Closer to home, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus might stir memories of those childhood schemes to catch a glimpse of the man in the red suit. I’ll be home for Christmas captures the wistful longing for treasured Christmas traditions.

More poignantly, Jim Brickman’s song That Silent Night, recounts the story of a courtship that began on a Christmas night and continued through the decades. Alone now, a widower looks back over the years of Christmases spent together. We feel his wistfulness in the chorus:

And the world spins round and the seasons change Letting go moving on and nothing stays the same Winter turns to Spring and Summer turns to Fall Our shadows on the wall, I still can see When I was holding you and you were holding me.

We find many details of the Christmas story in the Gospel of Luke. The difficult journey to Bethlehem, a stable turned into a delivery room, and a host of angels announcing the messiah’s birth to lowly shepherds all capture our imagination. Luke concludes his narrative with a simple statement that implies the details he recounts come from Mary’s memories: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

I wonder how often during the course of Jesus’ life, Mary paused to remember the wonder of those events. As her heart was broken as she watched her son dying on a Roman cross, did she think back to those events when it seemed God was planning something special for her child? She would not know until three days later, that God’s promise all those years ago was fulfilled in ways she could never have imagined.

During my early adult years, a popular song for church choirs to sing at Christmas was called simply, That Night.

The song begins with a hushed memory of a humble birth.

That night in all of Heaven there wasn’t a sound As God and the angels watched the Earth. For there, in a stable the Father’s only Son Chose to give Himself through human birth. And when the cry of a baby pierced the universe Once for all, men were shown their worth.

The chorus crescendos into a powerful declaration of the eternal significance of this one simple event.

And the heavens exploded, with music everywhere.

And the angels spilled over heaven’s edge and filled the air.

And the Father rejoiced, for He did not lose His Son,

But He gained to Himself forever those who’d come.

No wonder Mary pondered these things in her heart. For Christians throughout the centuries, this is truly the greatest memory. This Christmas, let us make it ours!

About The Author Dr. Alan Hix is an Associate Professor of Christian Studies at Shorter University. In addition to being and educator, he has served churches as a pastor, been involved in mission trips to Africa, Canada, and Alaska, and participated in archaeological excavations in Israel for several years.

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