CHAPTER 1
God Is Expectant?
Jessica LaGrone
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:6–7 NIV
There is so much to love about the Christmas season—the colorful decorations, the festive music, the fun parties, the yummy food, and, of course, the television Christmas specials. I have loved classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and A Charlie Brown Christmas, with that cute, sad little tree, since I was a child. This year I was excited to share these Christmas specials with my own children, so my husband and I set the DVR to record all the specials that were coming on. Imagine our surprise to find that there were two hundred eighty-five programs available!
I was relieved to find all the classics there, but there were also all kinds of other characters getting into the spirit, too—Shrek, Elmo, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Barbie, and even Lady Gaga and The Muppets, just to name a few. It makes me laugh to think about what Charles Dickens might have to say about all the ways his story A Christmas Carol has been altered over the years. I'm guessing he didn't anticipate his tale would one day include mice and puppets and ogres.
Though Christmastime increasingly offers a barrage of different Christmas stories and specials, how reassuring to know that the real, true story of Christmas has not changed since it was written thousands of years ago. The original Christmas story is told in each of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and though each Gospel writer's story is about a baby and a manger and shepherds and wise men, each writer tells the story a bit differently.
Surprisingly, Luke's Gospel doesn't start out with shepherds or angels or even wise men gathered around a nativity. Luke begins his Gospel with an expectant mother—but not the one we might anticipate. There's no pregnant teenager at the outset of the Gospel of Luke; instead we find a very mature woman named Elizabeth. Elizabeth has been married for decades to her husband, Zechariah, a priest. She had dreamed for many years of being a mother, but now she's no longer in the age bracket that expects little bundles of joy to arrive. And yet, here in Luke's Christmas special, Elizabeth unexpectedly finds herself expecting a baby. Instead of hot flashes, she's getting morning sickness. It's an amazing miracle that's happening to her, and God has special plans for the baby growing inside her; he will be the prophet known as John the Baptist, and he will point the way to the coming Messiah.
Then, when Elizabeth's much younger cousin Mary comes to visit, Elizabeth takes one look at her and, without the two even exchanging a word, knows that Mary is expecting too. Immediately Elizabeth knows something very special about Mary's baby:
At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her."
Luke 1:39-45 NIV
That joyful greeting between these two women must have been followed by all kinds of questions. How could Elizabeth be pregnant at such an advanced age? How could Mary—a virgin—be pregnant at all? What was happening with all these angels showing up and announcing things? They must have been breathless at all the amazing things happening in their lives.
Mary and Elizabeth couldn't have been at two more different stages of life. Anti-acne cream meets anti-wrinkle serum. And yet here they are, both in the same wonderful and unexpected condition. And in all their surprise and wonder, there must also have been much rejoicing in their hearts, for the person they had been expecting for so long—God's promised Messiah—was on his way.
The Waiting Game
God's people—the people of Israel—had been waiting for the arrival of this special person for thousands of years. Now that's a long time to be expecting! God's people were waiting on one special hero—the Messiah, the Anointed One—who would show up and rescue them all. The gift of the Messiah had been forecast and broadcast and advertised for so long that people had their hopes up pretty high. The prophet Isaiah had written the prophecy,
For to us a child is born, / to us a son is given, / and the government will be on his shoulders. / And he will be called / Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, / Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. / Of the greatness of his government and peace / there will be no end. / He will reign on David's throne / and over his kingdom, / establishing and upholding it / with justice and righteousness / from that time on and forever. / The zeal of the Lord Almighty / will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:6-7 NIV
The people had imagined great things about this Messiah—that he would be strong and politically powerful and exceptionally wealthy. That he would ride into Jerusalem in a chariot of fire, overthrow the oppressive Roman Empire, and place their people in power over all the other nations. Prince of Peace, Almighty God, Wonderful Counselor, great leader. No pressure, right?
In addition to their expectations, the people of God had been waiting for this Messiah for a long, long time. They had put all of their hopes and dreams into the arrival of this hero. But still no birth announcement had arrived. No Messiah had come.
Like the barren Elizabeth, they must have almost given up hope that their dreams would ever come to fruition. The years of waiting had been long, and it was getting harder and harder for the people to fight the disappointment of their unfulfilled dreams. The knowledge that the Messiah was about to be born would have been thrilling to them. But the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, would turn out to be nothing like the people expected.
The circumstances of his humble birth were surprising, to say the least. The people of Israel were thinking palaces, not stables. They were hoping for crowns, not swaddling clothes. But Jesus' birth would only be the first of many ways that he defied everyone's expectations. Jesus was a Messiah who didn't match expectations. He was a friend to sinners. He sought out those who were the least, the lost, and the very people that everyone else had given up on. Instead of conquering those who challenged him, he died on their cross. And then he transcended all conceivable expectations by defeating death itself and rising again.
Jesus went off script, and the people of Israel didn't know what to make of him. I mean, who shows up with enough power in just his little finger to zap all the bad guys out there but then lays down his life for them instead? They expected a leader who would ride into town on a white horse and destroy their enemies, not the humble man who sauntered into town on a donkey. They wanted deliverance from their enemies—he came to deliver them from themselves.
As it always turns out, God's plans are better than anything we can ever hope for or expect. God's people expected this Messiah to be a lot of things, but they never expected him to be God himself. They thought God would send a messenger, a representative to save them and defeat their enemies. No one had any idea that God would show up in person. They had heard the words of the prophet Isaiah predicting that the Messiah would be miraculously born to a virgin, and that he would be known as Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), but they were still surprised when the birth of Jesus Christ fulfilled that prophecy: "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel' (which means 'God with us')" (Matthew 1:22-23 NIV).
Immanuel. God with us. The birth of Jesus confirmed that God had not abandoned his people, that he hadn't forgotten them. In fact, he had stepped into a human body to join them in person, God in the flesh.
Jesus was the gift everyone needed but no one expected.
The Perfect Gift
Isn't it is a great feeling to find the perfect present for someone you love? You buy the gift, wrap it, and then hide it in a closet or put it under the tree, eagerly awaiting the big reveal on Christmas Day. You are expectant and eager, excited to give such a good gift to someone about whom you care deeply.
Imagine God as that expectant giver, just waiting on that first Christmas morning, holding in his hand the gift of Jesus Christ, knowing since the beginning of time that Jesus would step into history and turn it upside down (see Colossians 1:15-17; Revelation 13:8). This was it. This was the moment—God's master plan to change everything, launched on Christmas Day in the form of a tiny little baby. And even though the world was longing for him the way Elizabeth had longed for a child, like Mary, they were still surprised—completely taken off guard—when he came in the flesh.
The Gospel of John describes the arrival of Jesus: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14 NIV). In sending Jesus to earth, God made his Word tangible for us—something we could see and touch and hear. But he didn't stop there. In the Greek, "made his dwelling among us" is the word skenoo, which literally means "tabernacled"—to put up a tent, to go camping, to pitch your tent. If you were Greek and you were going camping and somebody said, "Where are you going to stay?" you would say, "I'm going to skenoo. I'm going to pitch my tent there." And that was God's plan in Jesus. The Word became flesh—Jesus put on a tent of human flesh and moved into our camp, stepping into the terrain of human life to show us the way.
Several years ago I experienced what it means for others to step into our own journeys when I had the very distinct privilege of being the first pregnant pastor my church had ever known. It seemed that everyone in the church was really excited about this pregnancy. It was a community event; we were all expecting together. There was a lot of "we" language happening. Members would say things like, "Do we know if it's a boy or a girl?" "Do we have a name for the baby yet?" If you're close to someone who's about to deliver a baby, it's natural for you get excited about it. You're on pins and needles. You have your cell phone on, ready to answer that call, respond to that text, rush to the hospital. You're checking social media to see if there's any update. And if there's not, you text: "How's it going?" "What's happening?" "When is our baby gonna get here?"
It was Christmastime toward the end of my pregnancy, and I was certainly "great with child," which I discovered makes a lot of people very nervous. I worked up until the day my son was born, and so there I was in the office every day, people watching me like a hawk. It was a very strange feeling. One day I stepped out of my office for a moment, and one of our pastors walked by my office and stopped.
"Jessica's not in her office!" he said to whomever was nearby. "Is she okay? Do you think she's in labor?"
When a baby is on the way, the sense of expectancy is catching, and that is exactly what the Advent season should be like for believers. In these weeks leading up to Christmas, our sense of expectancy should spread like wildfire. We should be excited to embrace that beautiful "we" language. We can't wait for Christmas to get here. We can't wait to celebrate this baby's birth. We can't wait to share him with the world because we know the promise that the birth of Jesus brings. This is our baby, our season. And we share our expectancy with a world who desperately hope for something they can't quite understand. Even among unbelievers the Christmas season brings a sense of hope that the unchangeable can change, that good can prevail over evil. Though some might not understand the true reason for the season, they express these God-given feelings in other ways—like creating a family Christmas special where twelve puppies save Christmas from disaster or Mickey finds the perfect, selfless gift for Minnie.
We expectantly hope for redemption, and we do not hope in vain, for God's plan was for Christmas to change the world. And when it comes around this time of year, every year, we can again celebrate the hope that the arrival of this baby means something, that Christmas does change the world. Because the birth of Christ is the hinge of history, the moment when the world experienced the hope that would forever change everything; and our yearly observance of Advent is a reminder of the hope that Jesus brought with him into this world.
The Gift that Changes Everything
What are you expecting for Christmas this year? What are your hopes for the season? Do you expect Christmas to change anything, really?
Most of us will likely observe the same family traditions and pull out the same decorations. We'll eat meals with the same family members. We'll get what seems like the same gifts over and over again from the same people. The same family members will likely be fighting about the same things as last year. The old, familiar phrases will come out. For example, I can predict in the next week and a half that my grandmother, who is ninety-three years old, will come to each of us in the family, privately and secretly, and say something like, "Now, honey, it's gonna be a lean Christmas this year. Don't expect much." She has said that to me every Christmas of my entire life, and she always gives lavishly and generously. It never fails.
Do you expect anything to change for you this Christmas? Maybe not, but God does. Because that is what the season is about. Because even when the Christmas season seems predictable and stale, the full realization of the birth of Christ can breathe life into even the hardest of hearts.
There is one Christmas story that radio broadcaster Paul Harvey used to tell every Christmas season about a man who just didn't believe in Christmas. His wife got the kids ready to go to church for Christmas Eve services and asked him to come along, but the man—a farmer—refused to go with them.
"Well, why would I want to get all dressed up in a scratchy suit and go sit in that to church with people I don't even like and sing about a God I don't even believe exists?" he grumbled.
After the wife and kids left for church, the farmer heard a noise in the dining room. He ran in and saw that a little bird had flown into the dining room window. It had hit the window and bounced off and was lying there, stunned, in the flowerbed. Then the man noticed that a whole flock of small birds was in his yard, unusual for that time of year. Apparently they had been caught in an early snowfall and had to land right there in his pasture. They weren't meant to be out there in the cold; and the farmer knew if they stayed out there, they might freeze to death.
Concerned, the farmer tried to lure the birds into his warm barn for shelter. He went out and opened the doors of the barn, but the birds didn't pay any attention. He turned on the light and tried to make it warm and inviting, but the birds didn't even notice. He tried making a trail of feed from the inside of the barn all the way out to where most of the birds were. But they simply pecked at the seed and wouldn't get anywhere close to him. He tried to chase them into the barn. But nothing worked; they didn't understand they needed to go into the barn for safety and shelter.
Discouraged, the farmer dropped to his knees in the snow. And then it hit him. The only way I can get through to them is to be a bird, he thought. To become like them, to put on a cloak of feathers, become one of them, and tell them about the hope, the life, the salvation that rests just on the other side of the barn doors. If only.
Suddenly he remembered where his wife and children were—down at the little church, celebrating a little baby who came into the world to offer the hope the whole world needed. Who came to offer him life and hope.
