By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

In some ways, Christmas Eve is better than Christmas Day.

Today, it’s as if an invisible electricity is alive in the air. The buzz of tomorrow’s events, the preparation for tomorrow’s meals, the excitement for tomorrow’s gifts. It’s today that we gather in the kitchen to bake cookies for Santa, ensuring that they are stacked squarely next to a glass of milk, ready for his enjoyment. Tonight, children will not sleep, their eyes glued open and stomachs churning with expectation, while Mom and Dad sneak down the stairs to perform a top-secret, covert operation right under their children’s noses. 

From sunup to sundown, Christmas Eve is alive and filled with tradition. Tomorrow is Christmas!

But, inevitably, on Christmas, after all the gifts are unwrapped and Christmas lunch has been eaten, an uncomfortable weight sets in on the family. Suddenly, everything that we have been preparing for, everything we’ve been anticipated–it’s all over. Tomorrow is…not Christmas. It’s just another normal day. There’s nothing left to anticipate because, now, it is all behind us.

And what if that was all Christianity was? All of God’s activity, His speaking, His creation, His movement–all of that was secluded to the past. Jesus came as a baby…in the past.  Jesus died…in the past. What if that was all there was? What if Christianity was just a religion built on what happened “back then” and all the cool things Jesus said to “those people”? What if our faith was built on a God who brushed His hands together and said, “Well, I’ve done all I can do” and left us to our own devices? What if we were living in a permanent state of the Christmas blues–nothing left to anticipate, nothing left to hope for?

Thankfully, that is not the God we serve. 

We do not have to fall into the Christmas blues because, as Christians, we live in the middle “He came” and “He is coming”. We have the opportunity to celebrate, share, learn from, and testify all of the wonderful things that Jesus said and did when He came down from heaven as a human and lived with us. But we also have a hope and an anticipation for what He is doing! Jesus is coming again!

Do you realize what this means?

We are always living in Christmas Eve…

Our lives should be zapping and popping with the invisible, electric energy of anticipation for what God is going to do! We should be eagerly preparing–not cookies and milk–but our lives, our families, our workplaces, our friends, for the return of Christ! With our actions and with our words we should be spreading the hope that is alive in the return of Jesus. Just like children on Christmas Eve, we should be giddy with excitement, because the world is not lost, we are not abandoned, but instead we have a supreme hope!

He is alive. He came. He is coming!

Happy Christmas Eve, from today until He returns. 

Then we will live in an everlasting Christmas–God (eternally) with Us.

And us with Him…

Read more of this Advent Devotional and other Daily Pursuits at www.dailypursuits.blog