Anticipation: What Are We Longing For?

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Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12 (NKJV)

Anticipation . . . that longing for something yet to come.

We anticipate our next meal, our next day off, and unfortunately, the bills that show up faithfully in our mailboxes.

No other time of the year fills us with more anticipation than Christmas.

For some, it may be anticipation for unpleasant things: loneliness, financial burden, or the stress of tense family gatherings. But for many, the anticipation surrounds festivities, food, gifts, and good times.

The Gift We Needed

If we’re honest, there is an anticipation that life will be made better by Christmas this year. Maybe we’ll get just the gift we need or find a way to mend a relationship. Maybe we’ll find enough joy to carry us over the bumps and up from the ditches in the coming year.

Then comes the day after. December twenty-sixth. The gifts have been unwrapped, the cookies consumed, and the decorations are already losing some of their sparkle.

It’s as though the turning of a calendar page officially marks the end of our anticipation and the return to life as we know it for other eleven months of the year with nothing changed.

The event underlying our Christmas celebration—the incarnation of our Lord and Savior—is the most life changing event if all time.

But we’ve lost sight of the “reason for the season.”

The Purpose of Christmas

The wonder of Christmas draws us out of our everyday. It invites us to experience our blessed hope in a tangible way. But it is only a shadow of what God intends for us to know.

So why does the day after Christmas so often leave us feeling flat and empty?

Could it be that we’ve lost the sense of purpose in our Christmas celebrations?

Could it be that we’ve forgotten all the things we love about Christmas—the decorations, treats, gifts, gatherings– are but worldly shadows of something far greater—and eternal. I recently wrote about contentment and why it is a skill to be practiced. The more you practice contentment, the more contentment you will find.

What if the pleasure of giving a gift is a way for us to experience a small measure of the joy God experiences when He offers—and we accept—His gifts of forgiveness, grace, mercy, and salvation?

What if those dinner tables covered in rich delicacies are really a reminder of the great feast we will share with Jesus and the saints in heaven?

What if the profusion of lights covering the world around us, romancing our heart and touching our souls in way we don’t fully understand, is a glimmer of the days to come when we will spend eternity with the One True Light of the World?

What if Christmas is really a time to practice, to remember, to learn the kind of anticipation that will bring us joy throughout the year?

What if Christmas is just a way to practice the kind of anticipation God wants us to experience all the days of our life as we look to the glorious return of Christ?

A New Tradition

Perhaps this Christmas we should start a new tradition. After we read the Christmas story in Luke 2, we should turn to Revelation 19:11-16 and be reminded that we don’t anticipate a baby in a manger—that’s already happened. We anticipate the One who comes on a white horse wearing a robe dipped in blood, the One who leads the armies of heaven, the one called Faithful and True, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

This Christmas let us rejoice that the true anticipation we feel is the holy longing for something yet to come.