Christmas Past
by Gary Johnson
Are you glad this season has come? I personally know a few individuals who have been playing Christmas music since Labor Day - or even earlier. Whether you have been eagerly anticipating the Christmas seaons, or dreading its inevitable arrival, we at e2 want to, in the next 3 weeks, bring you encouragement in the Name of Jesus from His Christmas story.
Every year, I make a point to set aside a couple hours and watch, yet again, one of my all-time favorite movies. Not a Christmas season goes by that I don’t watch the 1984 retelling of A Christmas Carol, starring George C. Scott. Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella tells about Ebenezer Scrooge’s encounter with the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.
In our family, the Christmas season begins at sundown on Thanksgiving Day. It takes several hours to put up the tree, decorate the mantle, hang lights outside and more. And the older I get, the more I like moderate temperatures in November for climbing up on the roof. Part of the nostalgia of this tradition is hanging ornaments on the tree that we have had for decades. In our family, every ornament has a story—and there are many on this ten-foot tree. Thanksgiving Friday makes me look back to many a Christmas past.
By God’s grace alone, those memories are rich and deep. Like most children feel today, I remember the anticipation of Christmas morning arriving. As a child, I shared a bedroom with my two brothers and we could not fall asleep, just knowing what the morning would bring. The waiting seemed endless then – and it is now.
For many of us, we are waiting again this Christmas, just as in times past. But, we do not wait for gifts under a tree so much as we are painfully waiting for results from a medical test, a response to a job application, forgiveness from a friend, settlement of a lawsuit or more. We find ourselves in what we can call the land between, like when the Israelites who were no longer in Egypt but not yet in Canaan—the Promised Land. They were in that awkward land between. So we wait.
We really can’t stand waiting. Whether waiting in line at a store or at a light in heavy traffic, we do not wait very well. How often have you noticed someone in a spare moment jam their hand into a pocket and eagerly yank out a smartphone and begin feverishly tapping away on the screen? Waiting feels endless.
In the closing pages of the Old Testament, Isaiah recorded what has become a familiar foretelling of the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One from God. (Isaiah 9:1-7; link to passage)
The Hebrew people had been waiting for this special one to come from God for centuries. The ”blessing” that would come from Abraham’s descendants (Genesis 12:3) had been foretold by God in roughly 2,000 BC. Isaiah heard and passed on this message from God some thirteen centuries later in about 700 BC. For the people of Israel, the waiting felt endless.
In all that time, the people of Israel walked “in darkness” (Isaiah 9:2). It was a national darkness as the Northern Kingdom had been invaded and ransacked by the ruthless Assyrians. The darkness was personal because the Israelites were captured and taken as exiles to a foreign land. Yet, most regretfully, this was a spiritual darkness, as the hearts and minds of the Israelites had been gripped by idolatry for generations. No wonder the people “walked in darkness” while waiting for the Messiah. Yet out of the painful waiting, the deafening silence was broken by the words of the prophet.
“A child is born to us, a son is given to us” (Isaiah 9:6 NLT). Isaiah did not say “a child will be born to us.” No, he said, “a child is born…” The promise is certain. In God’s eyes, it is done, set, established. In a way, it has already happened. Moreover, Isaiah declared that the Messiah would be called Immanuel (7:14), which means “God with us.”
This Christmas, does the darkness seem penetrating? Is the waiting seemingly endless? Take heart. God does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17). He is forever the same. He is with you in the waiting – and He is for you.
In Christmas past, we were children waiting for Christmas morning to arrive. Come to think of it, we are still children, not in terms of age but relationship. We are children of God. “See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” (1 John 3:1, NLT). It is then that the waiting becomes more than bearable.
