Are you ready for Christmas?
I am sure a few of you have asked the question or been asked it of yourselves. What if the answer is no, I’m not ready. Can some of us pause time or switch the date while others go ahead because they are ready. People ask two similar questions that reach to a deeper level of our spiritual lives and our wanting and expectation.
Why did God wait so long to come in Jesus, the first Christian Christmas? And why hasn’t Jesus returned as promised?
Somewhere, someone is wondering how did we get to this point. Let’s take a little bit of a look at all three questions which are all very similar.
Jesus was born into a specific time and place. To a certain cultural experience and time where the message that God has for His people could be heard, experienced, and spread. Yes earlier before all the bad things that humanity had done might seem better, but would we have heard and listened. Even now with the greatest technological, communication, and relational reach that we have we still struggle to hear the life saving Gospel.
Timing is everything. The world situation that enhanced the spread of the good news in a way that took root and has grown to change the course of our history. Whether we like it or not God came in Jesus at a time when we humans were ready to receive Him. Not with grandiose celebrations flaunting wealth but with humble gatherings in the back corner of a barn. On side streets, and obscure fields, on hillsides and at people’s dinner tables.
We may not like God’s timing but what if it isn’t God’s timing that we are really mad at but our own ineptitude and really God is being compassionate and caring to our stubbornness and sinfulness.
2 Peter 3:8-9 remind us of this truth. “But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.”
Are you ready for Christmas? Are you ready to receive the gift of Jesus? Are you ready for God with us, shining His holiness in our lives? Are we ready to humble ourselves before God and admit our sins and receive His grace, forgiveness, and love.