By the Way: Getting excited for the Lord’s birthday

By Steve MacCuaig on December 14, 2019.

“I Can’t Sleep!”

These famous words were spoken by me to my mom every December. My birthday is a few days from Christmas, so December was the only month that I got to celebrate.

I would lay in bed for about an hour and then I would go downstairs and proclaim to my mom, that I could not sleep. I was excited, I was pumped for my birthday and for Christmas. As a boy, I remember this happening for many years.

Today, I was thinking about Advent. Anticipating the birth of our Messiah. Do I get equally excited as I did as a boy? Do I long all year for this time of year to anticipate, to wait, to celebrate the birth of the King of Kings? Or am I more excited about the gifts? The food? Or other traditions?

I was thinking of what those who lived in Jesus day must have felt. Messiah was promised. But God was silent, but then God interrupts into history once again and the Messiah is born.

The Messiah became someone that they were not looking for – they were looking for a political Messiah, not a loving servant who came and ate and spent time with “sinners.”

It reminds me of the verse in the book of Titus, “For the Grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all” (2:11). That is what Christmas is about. God coming to earth, bringing His Grace and Love to all humanity in a way in which we could see, and “hold.”

The Bible is the story of God and we begin the Christian Year with Advent, to be reminded how the story began, how God came to us, how God was and is seeking us.

And like a child who could not sleep over the excitement of the Christmas season, may it excite us that God has come to us and God keeps coming through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our world.

As part of the remembering of how the Grace of God has appeared to us, it is good to be reminded of the story and how our story has been brought into the story of God!

How has your life changed in the last year? Loss of a loved one? Loss of a relationship? Loss of health? A job? New relationship? New family member? The themes of Advent, Peace, Hope, Joy and Love I hope can be seen in our lives as we look back over the past year or years. God is with us! God has not left us. For His children, Jesus promised, “I will never leave you or forsake you.”

Friends, this is something to be excited for! We should not be excited for the presents but the Presence – the Presence of God in our lives, in the valleys and in the mountaintops. May we remember. May we say thank you. May we celebrate!

I pray that we all will have a Merry Christmas and regardless of what may come in the year ahead, the Peace, the Hope, the Joy and the Love themes of the Advent season would be seen in our lives in the year to come! Merry Christmas!

Steven MacCuaig is Lead Pastor at Glenview Nazarene Church

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