I do love this season. And I’m not alone. Christmas seems to start earlier and get bigger every year. It hasn’t always been this way. Jonathan was sharing with me about how when Charles Dickens first penned A Christmas Carol, there was not much of a market for Christmas stories. Now it seems there are multiple new Christmas movies on Netflix almost daily! We love stories – and movies – and they seem to have extra magic at Christmas. We are on a quest, it seems, for wonder. The kind that makes you say “WOW!” We say WOW to movies and light displays and concerts and gingerbread houses and costumed characters and trees and wreaths and gifts and stockings and wrapping paper and of course our favorite Christmas cookies. 

This Christmas, let’s say WOW at His miraculous story! Let’s get our children amazed at the One who fulfilled ancient prophecy (Isaiah 7:14, 9:1-7). Let’s gather our families around to listen to the Word who became flesh after about 400 years of silence (John 1:14). As we plan out our calendars, let’s marvel at how He came in the “fullness of time,” at the perfect point in history (Galatians 4:4). Let’s read Luke as if for the first time… The Holy Spirit will come upon you? Zechariah silenced and then bursting forth in praise? A sovereignly arranged census that would bring Joseph and Mary to the precise place foretold? Wait, Joseph? A carpenter? And Mary? From Nazareth? The little town of Bethlehem? A manger? Cattle lowing? Who could have foreseen this? Forgotten shepherds, the first to know? As told by… a host of angels? And they spread the word and “all who heard it were AMAZED at what the shepherds said!” And what magical story is complete without a supernatural star? And there it is, calling out to Magi who evidently had some ancestors in the East who paid attention to the writings of prophets like Daniel because they were more prepared for Israel’s Messiah than the best scribes in the land! And these kings come and bow before the King of Kings. And then the plot thickens, and another King goes crazy and – drama anyone? – orders a killing spree! But the truly royal One escapes because his daddy (errr – “step daddy”?) had a dream just in time! And all of this, for US?! Because God loves us? Because He is Immanuel, “God with us”?!

It shouldn’t take us long to run out of adjectives to describe this WONDROUS story! I’m not saying to rebel against all other attempts at wonder this month. I’m just saying that in the midst of everything else, don’t miss the greatest WONDER and the true source of all other real wonder. Don’t settle for a lesser story or a lesser glory! Let’s feed our imaginations with this most impossible true story, and let’s give the best of our energies and resources to worshipping our WONDERFUL Counselor – Jesus! I’m so glad for the ways we will do this as a church family.  I’m so excited to worship Jesus together with you all, and to proclaim that our wondrous God has wonderfully come!