Rejoice for the Immanuel this Christmas!

It's officially one week until Christmas! In theory, this means that the air is thick with excitement, joyful celebration, and Christmas music! In reality, the air is also filled with heavy amounts of stress.

We've all been there. The amount of things that need doing can seem endless. Whether its getting all of your presents together and wrapped in time, praying for Amazon to move a little quicker and get your gifts here by the 25th instead of the 28th like the tracking progress says, prepping to either attend or host parties, shoveling the snow off of your driveway and then your windshield, remembering all over again just how long it really does take to string popcorn garlands all over your tree, etc. As a student/senior in high school, there are the added stressors of wrapping up midterm papers and finals, getting semester grades back, starting to hear back from more and more colleges you've applied to, and wondering what next Christmastime will look like as you spend most of your December away from home for the first time! All of these holiday stressors come piling up on one another in a way that can be fairly overwhelming.

When we're so wrapped up in all of the holiday hustle and bustle, our day-to-day tasks can easily get overlooked. While I did manage to decorate the house with my family, buy a white elephant gift to add to my growing gift pile, send out yet another email requesting a letter of recommendation for a school, and get out all of my favorite holiday lotions and sprays,... somehow I did not manage to put away my clean laundry. I ran around doing all of the necessary late December tasks, but left that poor little laundry basket on the ground in my room untouched for almost a week. Everyone can relate to this in their own way! With all the season craziness, some things get overlooked.

Too often for all of us, that thing is Christ Himself. I'm sure that many of your Christmas card stacks and email inboxes are full of messages about remembering the "reason for the season," but Christ isn't just the "reason for the season," He's the reason for everything. Of all the things to get overlooked, it should not be Him.

I took me a lonnnnnng time to understand why Christians celebrated Christmas as much as they did. After all, Easter is the day when He rose from the dead and gave us all the chance for salvation. Christmas was just the day He came to earth. Why is it celebrated so much more than Easter or any other day of the year?

The answer is because of the waiting. For decades and decades, the people had waited for the Messiah. The prophets had ceased to speak, so the people had simply to wait in trust. They had stories and writings passed down from the prophets of old who had spoken to their ancestors about the Messiah, but they were never given any extra assurance themselves. When Jesus arrived as a baby, He broke the stretch of waiting and darkness that had enveloped the world for so long. He really was Immanuel, God with us.

While Jesus didn't die on the cross at Christmas and save us for our sins, His arrival marked the beginning of a new era. No longer would they wait and wonder if they would ever be saved, now the people knew that the time was at hand. The Savior, Son of God was here.

The best analogy that I could think of to demonstrate this waiting is that of finding a restaurant when you're really hungry. I'm sure you can relate to this. It happened to me in a small town in Italy once. I was so hungry, but literally every restaurant and store was closed. It was cold and windy outside, and we had just arrived at our Airbnb which had no food in it. Yelp promised us a nice restaurant just around the corner, but it lied: it had been temporarily closed for a few months. Finally we found a restaurant whose sign said it would be open at 7 pm that night. With much hope, we ran back to the restaurant a few hours later. It was dark inside, but we pushed open the door anyways and softly called out, "Ciao?" A kind woman who thankfully spoke a little English with a heavy Italian accent flipped on some light switches and greeted us, saying they had just opened moments ago. She called out in Italian for the young man walking through the back door to fire up the pizza oven as she ushered us to a table and handed us menus. We called our parents to tell them to join us because we had finally found a restaurant. There, in a side alley of a tiny Italian town whose name I don't even remember, we enjoyed what we all remember to be one of the most delicious meals of our entire lives after a long, cold, hungry day of traveling.

What I remember most about that night is not the moment when the food itself arrived and my hunger was satisfied. Instead, I distinctly remember the moment when my “Ciao?” into the darkness was answered by the woman confirming that they were open. Finally the wait was over! We could relax and enjoy the experience. Even though we still hadn't eaten, we knew that the food was finally almost here. It was Jesus' arrival itself that caused the most celebration here on earth. Yes we still had to wait a bit for the actual day of salvation, but He was here. The time was at hand! For the first time, the people realized they would have to wait in darkness and doubt no longer, now they could wait in light and confidence!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wait in darkness for so long without any idea of when God would fulfill His promise? Probably not because we live this reality everyday. In small ways, God responds to our prayers this way sometimes. He keeps us waiting, but He always delivers. In a huge way, all Christians are in this position today. We are waiting for Christ’s second coming just as the Israelites waited for His first coming. The day of Jesus’ birth marked the beginning of a new era for the Israelites. We wait for Jesus’ arrival as the King of the 1000 year perfect earthly kingdom. Oh how wonderful it will be! When the rapture happens, we will know that the time is almost at hand, and all of the saints will sing Immanuel forevermore! 

Jesus arriving on earth changed everything. He brought light into darkness, He fulfilled God’s promises to us, He gave us hope and a future, He gave us reason to rejoice with full hearts everyday. 

I know it’s easy to overlook things this holiday, but don’t let it be Jesus. It's so easy to say, but so hard to do! Believe me, I understand! Overlook your gifts, your decorations, your friends, your family, your own self, overlook anything else before your overlook the King of the universe! His life, his death, and his resurrection are such wonderful reasons to rejoice. Not just something to think about every once in a while. Hallelujah Immanuel! Rejoice with me and all the saints this Christmas! Share in the happiness and peace that fills our hearts when we look to Christ! We have seen a great light!

Isaiah 9:2

2  The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who dwelt in a land of ldeep darkness,

on them has light shone.

Matthew 4:16

16  the people dwelling in darkness

have seen a great light,

and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,

on them a light has dawned.

Psalm 66

5 Come and see what the Lord has done, his awesome deeds for mankind!

8 Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard;

9 he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping.

16 Come and hear, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me.

He has sent His son!