Preparing for Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve and the tree is trimmed with presents underneath. No last minute shopping for me. I planned well this year. Everything is ready for Christmas morning. But there is a nagging thought that something may have been left undone, something very important.

It occurs to me that maybe I haven’t prepared my heart enough for the coming of the Christ child. Yes, I’ve gone to church through Advent, but have I done anything else to prepare for this celebration and day of awe? I’m not sure I have. I haven’t spent extra time in reading the scriptures or prayer. I haven’t meditated on the amazing gift of God to humankind. In short, I haven’t done things I should have and I feel it keenly now that the day is almost here. I won’t make that same mistake at Easter, my most moving holy day.

God’s grace is such that my failure is not the end of the world. I will receive his grace and will honor the day as it ought to be. We have a family tradition that started when my son was old enough to sit still long enough. My husband always reads the story of the birth of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke before we open presents. Even now that my son is a grown man, he will do it. I hope this is a tradition he will carry on with his family when he has one.

Preparation for Christmas is so much more than decorating and buying gifts. It’s a time of contemplation of what God did when He sent His Son into the world. It’s meditating on the willingness of Jesus to strip Himself of all His privileges and divinity in order to become as one of us, to experience what we do in this life. To be born in the rudest of conditions, seemingly not fit for a king. But it is because of his humble start in life that makes His exaltation just that more great and marvelous.

It’s really not too late for me to ponder those things before the day we celebrate as his birthday. Perhaps I should have been preparing longer, but the God of mercy and grace will accept my sacrifice through the shortened preparation of my heart just the same.

May you have a blessed Christmas tomorrow, remembering with joy the entrance of our Savior into the world into order that all might be saved. Along with the angels, I say hallelujah!