Christmas

Christmas is so exciting.
Not too many years ago, I commented that I was getting less and less worked-up about Christmas each year, as I got older. Ever since the Santa myth was dispelled, I felt that Christmas was getting less and less exciting.

Obviously, I was missing the point.

Since I have been saved, each successive Christmas has become more thrilling than the last. Each year, as I grow in my faith, the celebration of Jesus' birth becomes more real, more exciting. It's so amazing.

Casey recently told me that she finally, just this year, grasped what the song "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" was saying in the first verse:

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel

She was embarrassed, but I told her I could completely relate. I remember the first time I learned that song; it was at our church in Connecticut, and all the kids were going to sing it for the Christmas pageant. I had absolutely no idea what I was saying.

Now I get it.
It is a song of waiting, a song of pleading, a song of desperation, a song of hope.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.
Please come to us, we are in desperate need of a savior. Please come to us.

And ransom captive Israel.
We, God's chosen people, are in captivity, imprisoned by sin. Please pay the price for our release.

And how great a price He would pay. His life for ours.
How incredible. How humbling.