The Night Before Christmas

Too early for Christmas? Are you still gearing up for Halloween or debating how many pumpkins should go on display in your front yard? When you're getting ready for an upcoming Christmas concert, the end of September is about as late in the year as you want to wait before thinking about Christmas. All that is to say I've been thinking about it a lot and listening to a lot of Christmas music, both good and not so good.

As I ran through different themes for our upcoming concert with my wife, we listened through the song "The Night Before Christmas" by Steven Curtis Chapman (you can listen to it below). The title caused me to pause... The night before Christmas. Of course, we all think about Christmas eve and singing carols and what the different characters must have been thinking and doing that night, but what about 10 years before Christmas? 100 years? 1,000 years? What about then?

The night before the day of Christ's birth was probably like any other evening. However, the spiritual night that had lasted from the fall of man until that day of birth is something else. It represents something within each one of us prior to the Spirit breathing new life into us and opening our eyes. By the grace of God, that was a relatively short time for me. But can you imagine generation after generation waiting for Christ to come, and not even really know what He would look like when that day finally came? That, and the night before our rebirth are things that should make us all pause and consider.

As Christmas approaches I'm going to be thinking more and more about the night God rescued me from "night" by sending his son. On an evening where things probably looked normal, through one of hundreds of births that may have taken place on that night, the millennia long story of redemption incarnated and the true story of God's plan of redemption would finally be seen.

I am so thankful for that birth and how God stepped into time to redeem His people, even if I may be celebrating a little early in the year.