It’s Christmas Eve night, and I’m sure you’ve all been celebrating accordingly. Candlelight services, cookie making, family dinners, gift wrapping. All the beautiful things that make up one of our favorite days of the year. In a way, I love Christmas Eve almost more than I love Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is like one collective breath, held in anticipation and wonder at what is to come. We don’t sleep well, because we’re waiting. We laugh, we wish, we wait, barely breathing because we might miss the magic of Christmas if we do. We wait 365 days for December 25th, but it’s December 24th that makes it all possible.
Every year there seems to be this hour every Christmas Eve night, where I look into my living room with Christmas lights, ornaments, and stockings, and I feel like the world stands still. I feel like the whole world is frozen in this life-like postcard that sums up Christmas perfectly. And I can’t help but think, it’s the most perfect metaphor.
As a writer, my favorite Christmas Carol will always be, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” There is something breathtaking in the lyrics that makes me think of Christmas Eve and all it means to me.
“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie.
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep,
The silent stars go by.”
I imagine the whole world, sleeping, exhausted from the census, just trying to catch a break. Yet. Somewhere on this dreamless night, Bethlehem is finally lying still. Anticipation, expectation, wonder. The whole world is holding its breath. Angels are holding their breath. God himself is making His entrance into the darkest night.
“Yet in the dark street shineth,
The everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years,
Are met in thee tonight.”
Every hope, every fear, everything in life has culminated to this moment in history. This moment when Jesus Christ was born into a little town that no one thought about, to a little family that no one knew about, in a little stable no one cared about. The whole world had waited for this moment since the moment the possibility of redemption was in Genesis. The Messiah that humanity was anticipating, was being born in a stable. And so many people missed it. So many people are still missing it.
I guess I like to think of Jesus being born on Christmas Eve. And please, don’t lecture me on how Christmas is some pagan holiday that just got chosen at random as the date we celebrate Jesus’ birth and he was probably born at some completely other time of the year… I know. I’m not saying he WAS born on Christmas Eve. I’m saying I like the symbolism. Christmas Eve, we’re holding our breath, we’re anticipating with every tick of the clock, we’re waiting on these gifts promised and hoped for since the beginning. And Christmas morning dawns clear and bright, and the wait is over. We have finally received all that was promised to us.
But Christmas Eve is where my heart will always be. My heart will always be in that little town of Bethlehem, dreamlessly sleeping, anticipating something I can’t even comprehend. I can’t even comprehend that my Savior would choose to come to a filthy, dirty world, and save a filthy, dirty people. But oh, how glad I am He did. Christmas morning is beautiful, and as Christians, it’s where we should live, rejoicing in the gift that has been given to us. But Christmas Eve is where we find it, where we see it, where all of history led to and began from.
So tonight, feel the spirit of Christmas, anticipating all the beautiful blessings Christ has given you. Most of all, think of that blessing that will forever be the culmination of everything that’s ever been, ever will be, and ever was. Don’t miss it. Don’t be like those at the first Christmas. Jesus Christ came down to the earth to redeem us. The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in thee tonight.