Christmas is many things to many people…
The story of His birth is not a complete story in and of itself. It is part of a chain of events woven across thousands of years in time.
The first prophecy of Messiah being spoken four thousand years before his birth.
At the time of His birth there were those who were watching and waiting for the signs to come to pass, many more signs having been given over the four thousand intervening years. The Magi were some of those. Watching for signs in the starry sky – foretold. Simeon and Anna who saw Him as a baby of 40 days – were others. Joseph and Mary of course – their lives turned upside down by the prophecies spoken to them. And others… the whole culture had been built on the One day revealing of the Messiah. The Law itself building a platform for Him to be recognised when He came -and then forevermore.
But still there were others.
The angels waited also.
We don’t know when the angels were created but we know they don’t die so the same angels that sang at the creation of the earth have watched the whole story of God -Earth-Mankind unfolding across the expanse of time. Our whole earth history simply a pocket in the breadth of their lives. Though they’ve lived and watched the whole thing from the beginning they do not understand all that God is doing, they do not know all His plans and they do not know the When of certain events so they feel the events as they unfold with all the fullness of emotion, joy, sorrow and longing. They sang for joy as the King of Heaven spread out the skies and created the earth. They proclaimed praises at His birth. They’ve been messengers to man of Gods words and judgements. They tended Him in the desert and on the mountain and in Gethsemane. They sing before the throne of God yet will be silent when things of earth draw to a close – expectant? – horrified? – overwhelmed? – amazed? We don’t know, just that the happenings will cause that result. They must have agonised as they saw the King of Creation, the baby now grown, hated, condemned, nailed to a cross. Yes for His suffering but more perhaps with incredulity at man’s ability to miss the point. Yet that too was not the story end – one of those same angels proclaiming at the tomb “He is not here – He is risen!”
So still we wait still for the next chapter. Foretold by prophecy but shrouded in mystery.
A story composed by the Author of Life, the Alpha and Omega, The Beginning and the End. God, Emmanuel, who came to be with us and make a way for us.
The story of His birth is not a complete story in and of itself. It is part of a chain of events woven across thousands of years…
Christmas is many things to many people.