FOOD FOR THOUGHT
(12/13/2009)
Get
Excited
Minister David Carter
Were
you one of those kids that got more and more excited the closer Christmas
got? I sure was. Up until high school, I was a Christmas countdown
expert. By the time we hit the “12 Days Before Christmas” I
was close to a nervous breakdown. And Christmas Eve? I really
don't understand why parents expect their kids to sleep that night.
Thankfully, God knows that about little children and their bodies
shut down into blissful sleep…until we wake up at 5am. I'd go
wake up the siblings and we'd sit at the top of the stairs, waiting for
6:30am (the earliest my parents would let us come down). It was
a magical time for me. Did you know that there were men and women
who had that same anticipation about the Advent? But for them, it
was only a promise from God, prophecies delivered between condemnations.
And yet they still waited for the Messiah to come. They strained
eyes and necks looking for him. They'd run at the slightest rumor,
only to be disappointed but not deterred from their course. They
wanted Jesus to come. They needed Jesus to come. Once I hit
high school, Christmas became something that simply happened. For
a lot of us, Christmas is just a date on the calendar. Sure, we'll
pay lip service to it being “Jesus' birthday” but we've lost that
anticipation, that excitement for the Advent. People died waiting
for Advent; we live in the aftermath of Advent. Let's get excited
about the fact that the Savior of the World has come and we know him as
Jesus!
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