The Count Down Ends: Christmas is Coming!

My job is to keep the family Christmas countdown. In June, this is a thankless job for when I remind people that we are half way to Christmas, they express a shocking indifference. When the number moves below one hundred, people are shocked, but not yet ready. For the last month, the countdown has mattered and now my time has come.

We will go to church and wait on the coming of Christmas. When we get home, the long Advent Fast will be over and the feasting will begin. Fasting is never so wonderful as when it ends and this Advent fast seems particularly wonderful a few hours before Christmas.

We learned moderation as meat, dairy, wine, cheese, and, in fact, most flavor disappeared from the menu. We have been surrounded by the ornaments of the joyous day while eating the hummus of contrition.

But all that is (nearly) behind us as Christmas is coming at last.

What do we learn on the last day of Advent and the First Day of Christmas?

First, time passes and good things come. No matter how long it seems since bacon was on the menu, tomorrow morning is coming. The bacon is in the fridge. Christmas may be delayed for you this year, loss may have spoiled your feast, but it is coming.

Jesus is making a party for you and the tasty treats are prepared. Don’t lose hope.

Second, done correctly, the preparation makes the party. Don’t be fooled: if the journey is better than the arrival, you picked the wrong destination. We have decorated the house for Christmas and that was enjoyable. We have shopped and gotten ready to give gifts and the anticipation is sweet.

If we have done well, the giving will be better than the shopping, because it is always more blessed to give a good gift than to wrap it; especially if you are me.

Tomorrow my parents, children, and wife will see what I prepared all year and if I have been wise, they will be thrilled and that is very good indeed. All year we saved special bottles of wine and refused to eat certain treats to get ready for the Saint Stephen’s Day feast, but day after tomorrow we will eat the feast and drink the wine. This is better.

Or it should be.

I think we have all experienced let downs in life where despite the best planning things go wrong. The air conditioner breaks on Christmas morning, the Houston equivalent of no heater in upstate New York. Everyone is cranky. We experience the loss of a loved one. Gifts are just wrong. We are just depressed for no good reason.

It happens.

And so here is the good news: the moral training we are experiencing in this life is all so the party that is coming after death will not be this way. The purpose of life is not living, but getting done with this life to move to the next. We love the good things of this life, but nothing is as good as it should be. Everything falls short. Instead of making me jaded, this makes me hopeful.

Tomorrow may not work out as I planned. . . perhaps Jane will get two of what I got her and I will manage to offend everyone with an attempt at humor. Biologically based depression may do the work of devils and get me down. I will hope in God.

I know even that failure can be made preparation for the feast that is coming: the supper that will not disappoint, the party that will not be lame, and the drink that never leaves a hangover.

And yet, perhaps, just perhaps, tomorrow will be a little foretaste of that joy. We often have such feasts in my family. There are days when all the good seed sown during the year comes to fruition. The turkey does not burn, the goose is not too greasy, and the roast beef is tender as my wife’s heart. We will be jolly for twelve days . . . and have a pang only that it all must end.

I have known those times as well.

But regardless of whether this is a foretaste of the party to come or merely another day getting ready . . .  tomorrow marks the day when history turned a corner. Jesus took charge personally and the baby of Bethlehem is now King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is making all things ready for a party without precedent when all advents are over and He is come in His fullness to part with us no more.

Christ is born!

Glorify Him!