Don’t Let the Kids Be the Only Ones Anticipating Christmas

Anticipation.

If you want a picture to go along with that word, I can’t think of one that’s more appropriate than that of kids waiting for Christmas to arrive.  

As a child, I remember my two younger brothers getting up VERY early on Christmas morning.  At some point they’d come into my room, so excited to go downstairs and wake up my parents so we could open gifts (and eat candy from our stockings for a little pre-breakfast sugar high!)

As adults, I think we generally anticipate Christmas a little (or a lot?) less.  We face more responsibilities.  There are presents to buy, food to make, holiday events to attend, and Christmas parties to fit into an already busy schedule.

And while we’re never too old to get excited about gifts, Christmas becomes about a whole lot more.  We treasure the joy others get when they open presents we’ve chosen just for them.  Getting together and spending time with family becomes much more of a focus…though there’s still a lot of excitement about the candy and other good food!

All that to say that our anticipation level for Christmas can be fairly low at times.  But in these last few days before Christmas, I hope we can slow down and really anticipate what’s to come.  Let our whole focus not be the gifts or the food or the family celebrations as much as marking the significance of Christ’s birth.

I love the definition of anticipate from the Cambridge Dictionary.  It defines it as “to imagine or expect that something will happen, sometimes taking action in preparation for it.”

Thinking all the way back to the first Christmas, Joseph and Mary must have experienced incredible anticipation.  Many of us can identify with anticipating a child’s birth.  But what about a child that has been said to be the Messiah?  One whose birth was foretold to both Joseph and Mary by angels!  How exciting!!

Since long before then, though, God’s people had been waiting for a Savior.  God told Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15 that the seed of the woman would bruise Satan’s heal.  From then on, the anticipation of God fulfilling His promise was a hope for all mankind.

And just as our God is always faithful, so He provided His Son as that seed.  The anticipation from the centuries before was brought to pass on a quiet night in Bethlehem.

In this last week before Christmas, let’s try to find a bit of the wonder and anticipation of the season.  This message is for me.  Me, with a few presents still to buy and wrap, a couple more parties to bake for, and a Christmas dinner to cook.  Let me not get so caught up in the last minute details and preparations that I forget to marvel in the glory of the greatest gift ever given.

“And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord….And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” ~Luke 2:10, 11, 13, 14

Thank you, Jesus, for coming to earth.  This was the initiation of God’s plan for my redemption, the redemption of the whole world.  Thank you, God, for the gift that was perfect and that only You could give.