It’s easy enough to get caught up in the Christmas season—the need to fulfill others’ expectations— and spend more energy and money than we have. It’s easy to be swept up into the commercials, the music playing in malls from late October to get us into the mood to purchase yet another gift. Making a list, checking it twice is not just for Santa—we do it too.

Whether our desire is to buy a special gift for a loved one, or those we don’t know, let it be from the love we are given by God, who loved us before we loved him.

God saw a world full of sin, people hurting each other and people enslaved. He gave his greatest gift that we might know salvation. The gift—a Saviour—came in the form of a baby entrusted to a couple God had chosen, knowing that one day, that son would freely give up his life for us.

The gospel of Luke predicts the birth of one named Jesus to Mary, already betrothed to Joseph, and a  prophet son, John, for the aged and previously barren Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah. Not even a powerful king’s wrath could change God’s plan for his son to arrive and for shepherds to learn the news, and for wise men coming from the east to find the secret of a new star. Not even Herod could foil plans for the birth of this baby.

Many people of the time, Mary and Joseph included, lived a hard life weighed down by a powerful government, not of their choosing. Those people waited for the Saviour written about in the biblical scrolls. They waited for someone to free them from Roman rule that they might more easily live and worship the God of Abraham and Issac, the God of King David, their ancestor. They hoped for a mighty king to take their cause and fight for them; what they got was something quite different. They got a Saviour alright, one born as a small dependent baby, promised by God to save the people from their sins.

In this season of  Advent, please join me in the  preparation of our hearts for the coming of the child Jesus. Listen to Chris Tomlin sing, Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qyckfDVPzx4