It’s almost here –
Soon it will be Christmas morning.
The gifts will be opened,
The smells of Christmas will fill our homes; ham, turkey, pies, balsam pine,
and cold winter air, as doors open and close,
friends and loved ones come bringing Christmas greetings,
hugs and shouts of “Merry Christmas!”
The waiting is over, Christmas is here.
And then it will be New Year’s Eve,
We’ll be off to a party, to herald the arrival of 2015.
Then it will all be over.
Our gifts put away, admired, perhaps played,
not a few returned from whence they came.
Exchanged for something that better suits.
We’ll walk by the tree and say, “Are you still here?”
With a sigh, we’ll take down decorations and pack them away.
Remove ornaments from the tree,
and cart it away.
Or like me, you’ll fold it and store its array.
Confident in its return one day.
The waiting is over, or has it begun?
Somewhere in the midst of the wrappings and toys,
there’s vague memory of that child who was born;
A son, to a woman who had known not a man.
Called Jesus, by Joseph, his father on land.
In obeying an angel who spoke in a dream.
The tale we remember has angels of light,
singing anthems to shepherds who shook in the night.
Led to a stable, they knelt and proclaimed that
the child there sleeping was God all the same;
The Promised Messiah at last had arrived.
The waiting was over, the waiting began.
Mary, his mother, treasured that night,
In amazement she pondered on all she had heard.
Years went by, the stable forgotten, he grew to a man, God’s mantle upon him.
He proclaimed the Good News to the poor and the lame, gave sight to the blind,
they knew him by name.
With holy fire he burned with God’s word.
He angered the rich, the priests and the scribes,
they followed and heckled this son of mankind.
Mary watched, and she worried, and remembered the time,
when the waiting seemed over, but the waiting began.
Spurred on by the priests, the Romans took action, arrested a traitor, Jesus by name.
A mother’s heart broken; no angel display.
No shepherd’s, no manger, no cradle of hay,
But soldiers, a cross, sharp thorns for his brow.
They mocked him, they scorned him,
Crucified and left him for dead.
At last, laid hastily on a bed of stone.
All hope abandoned, no light pierced the dark.
The waiting was over, the waiting began.
In three days triumphant He rose from the tomb.
Fulfilling the scripture, God’s holy word,
That all who believed in that child born small,
Who slept in a manger, would redeem one and all.
We gather this night to rejoice in the Light.
To remember the promise of that holy night.
A sky filled with wonder, of angelic voices.
While Mary there pondered the baby so humble.
“Can this be the one who will free all God’s people?”
Who will lead us forever, his reign never ending?”
The story now finished, or perhaps just begun,
Of the savior who redeems each one who believes.
The tale of a child, a shepherd, a king.
The waiting is over, the waiting begins.
– In Christ, Pastor Sharon