Scripture Reading: Isaiah 9:1-7
It is mid-December so it is inevitable. Sooner or later, someone asks, “So, are you ready for Christmas?” Perhaps the question is in reference to gift giving, cooking, holiday gatherings, decorating or simply being in the Christmas spirit. As a closet Scrooge (I love Christmas but I hate the commercialization), I find myself annoyed and fighting to suppress a snide response, “Just how does one get ready for Christmas?”
Although posed as a rhetorical, conversation piece, theirs is a very good question, “Am I ready for Christmas?” Exactly how do you get ready for Christmas? Is it through shopping for gifts for those who hold special meaning in our lives? Perhaps it is planning for a gathering of family and friends whom we haven’t seen in a while. Maybe it is decorating our homes with festive symbols of the season.
But beyond all those trappings of the season, am I ready for Christmas?
Here, Isaiah continues his dialog from Chapter 8, referencing a people shrouded in trouble, darkness, gloom and distress. If you have ever been in an unfamiliar building during a blackout, you can understand those emotions of distress, searching desperately for a way of escape from the darkness. Then, someone cracks open a door and you can see a way of escape. You find a reason to hope. You see the light. You have been saved from the darkness.
That is Christmas. Living in the despair of darkness and hopelessness but seeing the light, seeing a reason to hope. Isaac Watts’ hymn “Joy to the World” celebrates the birth of the Savior and immediate transports us to our responsibility—“Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room.” Beyond the frills, symbols and accoutrements of the season, Christmas is seeing the light, and even more, going to the light.
Lesson to Remember: Christmas is the ray of hope in the midst of the darkness.
“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”—Isaiah 9:6-7
