MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
It is that time of year again!! The time of the year when everyone seems just a little bit more cheerful; the time of year when there seems to just be a hint of magic in the air! Sure the temperatures may be dropping, but there is an ever increasing warmness in the air as people cozy up next to the fire place with warm hot chocolate, a new book that they finally have a second to read, their cozy Hadley’s Bungalow PJ’s, and best of all— a light heart, joyful spirit, and a content disposition.
No matter how old I get, I still have this childlike giddiness as our family puts up the Christmas tree, as the radio station starts playing Christmas music for the first time, as the holiday lights get put up around town or the decorations get meticulously placed on the poles outside. There’s a reason why it’s thought of as the most wonderful time of the year!
There is this joyful and excited expectation that surrounds the entire season. A month, give or take, of preparation for the big day. Baking, decorating, listening to music, buying gifts, etc. are all universal activities that take place. Yet, as Cindi Lou’s dad says on Christmas morning: “You can’t hurt Christmas, Mr. Mayor, because it isn’t about the gifts or the contest or the fancy lights. That’s what Cindy’s been trying to tell everyone…and me. I don’t need anything more for Christmas that this right here: my family.”
Without most of us even realizing it, we are preparing for something much greater, much more transformative, much more extravagant than what we might open up on Christmas morning or the yummy sweets we might enjoy. For God himself promised: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare a way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty (Malachi 3:1, NIV). This is said again of the one who would prepare the path: “And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous— to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17, NIV).
I have witnessed that the holiday season brings about this sense of perspective, of gratitude, of the burden to spend valuable time with family and loved ones and to bring reconciliation to those relationships, and it brings this presence of bliss and joy. It is ultimately a preparation and an eager expectation of the one who is to come. The culmination of this is the celebration that he DID COME! Christmas is the celebration of what had been eagerly anticipated for 4,000 years by God’s people! It is the celebration of the fact that “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, NIV). It is the celebration of the fact that the “Kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17, NIV). It is the celebration of the fact that “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10, NIV). It is the celebration of the fact that “no one can enter a strong man’s house without first typing him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house” (Mark 3:27, NIV). The strong man’s house has been plundered, victory has been won. For “You, dear children are from God and have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
On this side of the resurrection of the Messiah, we are living in the joy and freedom of victory, and in Christ and in fellowship with his Spirit, we have the miraculous opportunity to taste heaven on earth. Through his Spirit, we “may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand and in the heavenly realms, far above all the rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is involved, not only in the present age, nut in the age to come” (Ephesians 1:18-21, NIV). So this Christmas, we joyfully remember and celebrate that which has come that was anticipated and hoped for so long, and we remember the promise that he will come again.
We currently prepare ourselves for the coming restoration of all things, clinging to the promise of Isaiah 25:8 that “he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken.” We envision that which has been promised to us in Revelation 7:14-17— “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore,
‘they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple;
and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their Shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”
I pray that Christmas may be seen in a new light this year. I pray, like the apostle Paul prayed, that God, “out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inmost being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge— that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19, NIV).
