During the Christmas season, one of the most common greetings you hear from people you meet is “Are you ready for Christmas?” You always get a variety of responses, but they seem to come from one of two mindsets.
First, you have people who have all of the Christmas shopping done, they’ve baked for days and their house is decorated. They simply cannot wait for Christmas. They’ve been ready since Thanksgiving and are eager for the day to arrive.
Second, you have the group of people who hate the first group, because their Christmas tree is either still in the box, is sitting in a bucket up water somewhere or hasn’t even purchased it. They dread every minute of shopping and just want it done. Baking isn’t a possibility so they stop by the grocery store bakery and purchase cute Christmas cookies because someone from the first group has guilted them into thinking they’ve scarred their children by not having homemade cookies.
A neighbor of mine put out a new Christmas decoration in her front yard this year. It tells you how many days, minutes, and seconds until Christmas day. If you drove by her house and it read 5 days 39 minutes and 18 seconds, how would you respond? Would it be: “Oh no!” or “Wait!” Or would you respond with great joy and excitement?
If our focus at Christmas is truly the Christ-child, then the days and minutes ticking away on the clock shouldn’t bring about dread or anxiety…even if we haven’t finished our Christmas shopping. It should be of joy and anticipation. If our focus at Christmas time is in the right place, when people ask us “Are you ready for Christmas?” we would hear “Are you ready for Jesus?” Wouldn’t your answer be different if the question was “Are you ready for Jesus?” It would be a resounding “YES!”
Luke 2:10 says, “And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” An angel sent straight from God the Father told us to “Fear not!” If we will listen to the angel and put our eyes on Jesus, we will be ready for Christmas and embrace the joy of the season and the Savior.