Excited for Christmas

Greetings everyone! By now many of you have heard that my wife Leah has tested positive for COVID 19. She is doing well with mild symptoms - mainly congestion and fatigue with occasional headaches. We had the boys tested today and they are all negative for the virus. I was tested yesterday and should hear back today or tomorrow. We deeply appreciate all the prayers and offers to help!  

Today I want to talk about the excitement of Christmas. I remember when I was a kid Christmas Eve seemed like the longest night of the year! My younger brother and I could hardly get to sleep. We would sneak out and look under the tree and then run back to one of our rooms and try to guess what we got. On more than one Christmas we would come busting into my Mom and Dad’s room sometime before 6 AM and my dad would often tell us we had to wait another 30 minutes or an hour. We were so excited we couldn’t stay in bed!

 

Then, just a few weeks later when it was time to go back to school… everything changed! Now our parents were coming into our rooms to wake us up and they had to drag us out of bed. The excitement was gone. Why is that?

 

There was something we couldn’t wait to get to on Christmas – the gifts under that tree! This makes me think of the Shepherds in Luke – remember we left them last week in the field having just seen a host of angels in the sky declaring that a Savior had been born! I love Luke 2:16, “And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.” They must have thought “If the announcement was such a big deal – the person they were announcing must have been an even bigger deal!” So they ran to the stable like a kid to a Christmas tree and what they found there was of greater, more breath taking value than any gift ever given in the history of mankind.

 

Here’s my question: are you that excited for Christ? When it comes to approaching Jesus are you more like the kid on Christmas Eve or the kid on first-day-back-at-school eve? 

 

Do you still get excited to talk to Him, hear from Him, learn about Him?

 

Right after they see Christ the story reads, “And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. ¹⁸ And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. ²⁰ And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”

 

The shepherds told people about what they had seen, and it caused people to wonder. When was the last time you caused someone to wonder over Jesus?

 

Here’s the truth, we got something better than the shepherds – we have the whole Gospel. We have the salvation Jesus promised and the Holy Spirit within us. We should be even more excited. I am not saying that we should never experience lows or always be visibly happy – we all go through difficult times. I am saying that the thought of Jesus coming, what He did and what He has accomplished should still excite us. In the midst of the uncertainty return to the manger and wonder again! There is nothing going on right now that the coming of Christ should not overshadow, no fear His arrival should not absolve.

 

I am so excited this Christmas. Are you?

Love you church!