The Anticipation of Christmas
“Finally, when the timing was right, it happened.”
Dear CCEM,
Every year on December 1st the atmosphere in our communities seems to change. Decorations begin to appear on houses and in neighborhood shopping centers, images of Santa start to show up on Coca-Cola bottles, and some of our favorite radio stations begin to sing familiar tunes that dominate the yearly December airwaves. Christmas is around the corner and our whole community starts to feel a sense of anticipation that builds with each day of the December calendar. We look forward to celebrating what happened ~2000 years ago on that first Christmas day; but the feeling of anticipation surrounding Christmas began before Jesus was born.
In Genesis 3:15 when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden, God tells them that their seed will be the one to strike the serpent on the head. Since then, we see human history looking forward in anticipation to the time when God would fulfill His promise. However, Genesis 3:15 is not the only time we are given this prophecy; to ensure that His people would be abundantly clear about what is coming, God gives tells of the coming Messiah over, and over, and over again. It is important, and God wants His people to be aware of, and looking forward to, the Messiah’s arrival.
Being intentional to make important events clear is something we do ourselves in everyday life. Just a few weeks ago, CCEM held Global Day of Prayer here on the Houston Campus. Leading up to GDOP, we sent out emails, posted on our website, wrote on white boards, invited people by word of mouth, etc. If we did none of those things, GDOP would still have happened. It still would have been a very special time of worship and prayer, but most of you would have probably missed it. But because we wanted as many people as possible to experience GDOP, we tried to communicate about the upcoming event as many ways as we could.
God’s plan from the beginning, all the way back in Genesis 3:15, was to reconcile humanity to Himself through the Messiah. God was never going to allow the enemy to rule and destroy His creation forever; Jesus was always going to come to defeat Satan and renew creation. But because God wants as many of us to experience this reconciliation as possible, He tells us about the coming Messiah over 300x in the Old Testament. Each time building the anticipation and hope.
Finally, when the timing was right, it happened. Jesus, the one that human history was looking forward to, was finally born. Angels announced it from on high and shepherds and wise men came to witness what God had done. God had been promising this since the beginning and man was eager for their messiah, so surely the whole world rejoiced, right? There was an overwhelming sense of joy and relief and the world as man knew it was finally different, right?
We know that this was a critical turning point in human history, and everything about our understanding of God and how we relate to Him changed because of this critical moment, but I also can’t help but feel for a vast majority of people, nothing changed.
Nothing changed. Life went on, corruption continued to reign supreme, and even the religious elite, those well studied in the scriptures, who had been teaching about the hope and building the anticipation, rejected Jesus.
I can’t help but think that there had been so much build up to this moment and then, it feels like creation as a whole went, meh. Almost feels like a letdown. Why? How could this happen?
Let me be crystal clear about this feeling, it has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with Jesus, and it has everything to do with us and our expectations. The nation of Israel and the religious elite wanted a warrior messiah. They wanted someone that would overthrow Rome and re-establish Israel’s self-governing power. Instead, they got a baby, from a no-name family, laying in a feeding trough. Nothing about this person met their expectation.
But they missed the point. Since that day back in Genesis when the serpent convinced Adam and Eve to disobey God and eat the apple, there has been a war. But the war has not been against Rome, or against other people. The war has been for our hearts. The enemy has tried to convince us that we don’t need God, that we are good enough on our own, that we ourselves are actually like God. We are the center of our lives, and we can and should do whatever we want. Don’t trust God, what He says isn’t true, you surely wont die if you eat the apple, you won’t be hurt if you partake in this sin or that, you don’t need Him and you shouldn’t trust Him.
These lies, this enemy, this is what the seed of Eve came to destroy. This is what Adam and Eve were anticipating, an opportunity to be reconciled to God and back in His presence. In that context, His humble beginnings should not surprise anyone! It shouldn’t be a surprise that Jesus wasn’t born in a grand palace built by human hands, with a powerful and influential family because these are things that the enemy tells us are important. That man, and man’s creations, are the center of our hope and our lives.
Friends, I don’t want us to miss this; as the anticipation builds towards Christmas, I don’t want us to miss the point of this anticipation. I don’t want to focus on the rituals, or the presents, or the Halmark Christmas movies; having those things be the source of our joy during the season. And look, I love the decorations, I love the Christmas hymns and movies and presents; but Christmas day is going to come, and then its going to go, and if our anticipation and joy are based on these things only… on December 26th, were going to end up with a feeling of “meh”. Feeling like that event we looked forward to is over, and maybe it didn’t go as planned, and we are just going to move on with our lives, looking for the next thing to look forward to.
This year let your anticipation build and on December 25th lets celebrate with Joy because the Messiah was born. And because He was born, the ultimate penalty of sin, that penalty which the serpent tried to convince us wasn’t real, has been paid for in full by Jesus so that we can one day be in the presence of God again.
On December 26th, I don’t want you to feel “meh” and move on with your life, missing the point. Instead, look in the mirror, grab a friend or a significant other, and celebrate with joy, because God Himself was born on this Earth to save us. Not from human powers, but from the penalty of sin, and to win back our hearts to God. That’s something worth celebrating with joy every single day!
One more thing, throughout scripture we see the prophecies of the Messiah and what he will do. Isreal was waiting and looking for this Messiah with hope and anticipation. And yes, He came and He saved us from the penalty of sin, but He’s not done. The brokenness and presence of sin is still very prevalent in our world, but one day He is coming back to fulfill all the prophecies and to defeat our enemy for good. And for that, let’s not let our anticipation end at Christmas day, but on December 26th lets let ourselves feel the joy that comes with what Jesus has done, and still hold on to the sense of anticipation for what He promises He will do very soon.
- Written by: John Dillon