Almost Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Sleigh bells, silver bells, jingle bells, shopping, baking, Elf movie parties, White Elephant parties, Christmas carols, Santa Claus and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls...Christmas!  Who doesn't love Christmas?  And if even Scrooge and the Grinch can warm up to Christmas, anyone can.  For most of us, when we were younger, it never came soon enough.  Even now, I still realize how soon it is and simultaneously realize how long I still have to wait.

You may be familiar with The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis.  (If not, you now have books to read over Christmas break!)  In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Mr. Tumnus the Faun tells Lucy Pevensie that the White Witch has made it always winter and never Christmas.  All of Narnia had been waiting for Christmas for 100 years.

That is a long time, by the way.  It may feel like 100 years until Christmas, but remember: we never have to wait more than 365 days for Christmas.  I don't like waiting, especially not for a whole century!

Anyway, Narnia was eternally cold and dark and wet and unpleasant.  There were no Christmas lights, carols, or cookie exchanges.  Just winter, snow, and icicles.  It was under the White Witch's control, and no one liked it.  Aslan was away.  It seemed as if winter would last forever.

Honestly though, it doesn't sound so different from our world today.  Where I live, we get about two inches of snow every three years.  It is hovering in the 40 and 50 degrees.  So it isn't  that it's cold all the time.  It is the fact that our world is not like it should be.  Disease, disaster, and death are rampant.  I don't think you could live under a rock and not get some idea of how bad it is.

Winter is cold and harsh and bleak, an apt metaphor for our world today.  And, whether or not Jesus was actually born in the winter season, he came into a winter world as a vulnerable baby.  And that was Christmas.  Israel had been waiting for Christmas for a long time (longer than even Narnia, by the way), and it had finally come...in a stable in Bethlehem.

But it is still winter.  The depravity of mankind seems worse than ever.  Christ's short 33 years on earth didn't seem to have changed much.  Certainly, those of us who have put our trust in Him have had our lives changed, even if the world's condition hasn't, by hope.

Hope.  That is what Narnia--and we--must cling to during this dark and dismal winter. Christmas is coming.  All the bad in this world--the flu, death, human trafficking, cancer, heartbreak--is going to be washed away.  Christmas will come and the world will be made new.  Winter trees will blossom, snow-covered fields will be thick with grass, frozen rivers will burst forth, and the sun will shine.  But more than than, Jesus will be here.  Emmanuel.  God with us.

And all the suffering, all the pain, all the cruelty, all the heartbreak, all the death...it will be gone.  More than that, it will be glorified in you.  Hold on to that precious promise.  Winter is almost over.  Aslan (Jesus) is on the move.  Christmas is coming.

Merry Christmas!