It’s beginning to look a lot like Jesus

When I was an adorable child, Christmas was all about me.

The night before Christmas, accompanied with no sleep, was filled with an excitement in the anticipation of what I might receive. It was as if I drank eight cups of espresso and slid into bed. I squirmed and shifted positions trying to catch a wink while my eyes stayed focused on the clock that went tick, tock, tick, tock.

I got up early to catch a peek only to be escorted back to my room by my parents. It felt like defeat. Finally, permission was granted, and I ran down the steps. Within moments, I found out what I would get.

Over the years, I matured (debatable to some) and Christmas was no longer about me showing up empty handed and waiting to receive. I started to give. I made my parents and grandparents gifts. When I was in third grade, I bought my sister a gumball machine. In college, I bought the girl I had a crush on perfume. I purchased gifts for my friends, and I found that I was more excited to give than receive.

Christmas morning as a husband and father was never about what I would get. It was and still is about seeing the joy on my children’s faces when they hold a gift in their hands. It is the excitement of seeing your spouse open the gift you have given them.

I know it is almost Christmas because the stores tell me so. No longer does Emily (my grandmother) make Welsh cookies or Aunt Shirley bake a ham. Our grown children no longer get excited about a plastic lawn mower with sound or a pretend kitchen set. Numerous loved ones no longer can stop by and for some this may be their very last Christmas according to “Our Lord in the Sky.”

We stand in lines, order online, pray for a parking spot, and frantically walk up and down the crowded aisles looking for the perfect gift. It’s a hurried season with so much to get done. The Christmas tree must be put up and decorated. Gifts must be purchased, wrapped and hidden out of sight and the mistletoe must be hung just right. Purchasing a gift certificate for this person, a dinner for two, a gift from Home Depot that the person receiving would surely know how to use. Our longing to see our loved ones dances through our heads. We find ourselves speeding ahead to another Christmas.

But before you know it, clean-up will begin, the dishes will be done, the stores will be back open, and the company you cherish will be on their way home. If we do not slow down to see Jesus, it will just be another day. This Christmas, cherish the moments of the birth of God’s Son and cherish the people He has given us. Let go of the things that may not get done. Then we will know it’s beginning to look a lot like Jesus.

“But in all reality, that particular moment was like none other. For through that segment in time a spectacular thing occurred. God became a man. While the creatures of earth walked unaware, Divinity arrived. Heaven opened herself and placed her most precious one in a human womb. God had entered the world as a baby. God was given eyebrows, elbows, two kidneys, and a spleen. He stretched against the walls and floated in the amniotic fluids of his mother. God had come near.” (Max Lucado)

Matthew 1:21, 23, Luke 2:8-14

Merry CHRISTmas,

Pastor Rich