I'm Running out of Time to Get Ready for Christmas!

Luke 2:21-40

My Loving Lord,

The holidays are hectic.  In the midst of the artificial, I am inclined to forget the real.  Glitz, glamor, and lights sparkle and shimmer.  Shiny wrapping conceals contents unknown, precious or base.  Snow covers a brown earth, turned muddy by spring.  Sales and advertising attract and allure me toward the shopping mall.  My credit card statement climbs higher and higher.

I am preparing for Christmas, but am I making the right preparations?  Am I preparing, or am I participating in a parade of pretense that misses the meaning of Christmas altogether.  Am I constructing a sort of glitz and glamor of Christmas that obscures its true meaning?

My Christmas preparations are consumed with shopping, wrapping presents, dashing from parties to programs, house-cleaning, cooking, and entertaining.  I am exhausted.  I have too much to do!  I get so tuckered out with it all, I don’t know if I will have the time or strength to even get to the Christmas Eve service at church!

Am I missing something?  Preparation is about priority. Are my priorities misplaced?  Christmas is about Your coming.  Do I even know how to get ready for Christmas?  Lord Jesus, how should I prepare myself to celebrate Your birth?  Teach me.

I think of Simeon waiting at temple.  Perhaps Simeon was a retired priest, lawyer, or even a past president of the Hebrew Sannhedrin.  He waited for You in the temple, assured by the Holy Spirit that he would see You, Messiah, before he died.  A lifetime of preparation and waiting lived for a moment of assurance and hope!

I think of Anna waiting at temple.  She had spent a lifetime preparing for Your arrival.  Widowed at a young age, now over one hundred years old, Anna lived in a side room of the Jewish temple.  Anna had readied herself through decades of prayer, fasting, and waiting, and then Anna met You!  A lifetime of preparation and waiting lived for a moment of assurance and hope!

I think I understand a little bit more.  You are teaching me that I must prepare myself to receive You afresh this Christmas, by waiting in preparation in Your Presence.  I must make knowing You my primary priority. So I wait.

In the Name of my precious Savior, Jesus, for whom I wait,
Amen.