Christmastime
As our church and family prepare for our Christmas observance this year, I am reflecting on events of past years. This year, I anticipate my first grandchild in February, 2018. My daughter and son-in-law will get to experience first hand what Mary and Joseph experienced that first Christmas time.
While Mary delivered Jesus which is the event we celebrate, they will experience something of the mystery and awe of impending birth. Something I got to experience as I expected the birth of my first born, my son some 32 years ago. That memory lingers even to this day.
Part of my life at that time was an invitation to write an Advent devotion for use by our church family. I ran across that book while going through Christmas items this year. I would like to share that memory.
“We are expecting a baby this holiday season and our expectations and hopes run high as we look forward to that new life. To us it will be miraculous to hold in our arms a special life given to us by God. It will be an addition of great joy that we await with great anticipation.
“Preparing for the celebration of Christ’s birth into this world so many years ago stirs within us a great sense of anticipation. The birth of the babe born into the world to be ‘God with us’ was a miraculous event in many ways.
The promises in the Old Testament that were fulfilled by His coming, the visitation of the Angel to Mary and to Joseph, the supernatural conception of the babe to a virgin, the recognition of His holy birth by scholars, kings, shepherds, and Simeon and Anna to recall only a few.
“With all the wonder that these facts hold for us, a greater wonder still is that God would send his only Son, born a sweet babe in a manger, to die upon a cross.
‘To us as we decorate our Christmas tree: the old rugged cross. We will celebrate the miracle of God’s grace in our hearts made effectual through God’s precious gift of Christ; suffering for our sin and for the sin of the whole world.
“Zachariah said this of the coming Christ in Luke 1:78-79; ‘Because of the tender mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high shall visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet in to the way of peace.’ The great anticipation of this advent season is the celebration of the coming of hope through Christ’s redemption into a dark and hopeless world.”
May you experience the anticipation the excitement, the joy of the babe born in a manger in Bethlehem – born that he might die on a cross at Calvary – for your redemption.
And might I suggest that you take time in the midst of your celebrations, decorating, family gatherings and merry making to join with a community of faith to say Happy Birthday to the one born on Christmas Day?