It’s Christmas day…the waiting is over.

This morning children of every age will awaken with this thought: The waiting is over. For days now they have been staring at the packages under the tree, and waiting. Perhaps some have even succumbed to their own curiosity, and haven’t waited.

Are you among those who have a Christmas secret in your past?  You looked to the left, then to the right, carefully unwrapped the gift prior to Christmas morning, and then rewrapped it quickly and hoped no one could tell the difference?

I had a gift like that once when I was a child. It was a packaging box in the top corner of the closet that drew my attention. When I pulled it down and took a peek inside I discovered a set of ceramic bookends. One was a baseball glove, and the other a football. I kept returning to that box when no one was watching. One day when I got that box from the closet it slipped from my hand. When I looked in the box what had been two bookends was now three. I put them back in the box and never looked again. When I opened the gift I saw that the baseball glove had been put back together.  Although the observant eye (and my guilty conscience made mine very observant), could still see the fracture and the thin line of glue that now held the left bookend together. Later that day, my mother pointed out the glue and shared a curious story. She recounted that when she had first ordered the bookends they were in one piece, but when she went to wrap them one was broken. I guess I wasn’t the only one with observant eyes that morning.

There are two characters in the post-Christmas  story that had been waiting: Simeon and Anna. When the baby Jesus was brought to the temple for his dedication (40 days after his birth) Simeon appears. He had been “waiting on the consolation of Israel”  (Luke 2:25).  The word consolation means to bring comfort. That’ not only what the nation of Israel needed, but what we all need as well. Jesus is meant to bring comfort to the soul that is anxious, troubled and hurting this Christmas day.

Anna was prophetess. She had been a widow for 84 years.  And that entire time she had been “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38). That’s a long time to wait for something. The word redemption means to “buy back and set free.” Jesus bought us back from the addicting slavery of our selfishness and set us free to fulfill our God intended purpose — bring glory to God.

So this Christmas, as you open those gifts, pause to remember the gift that was worth the wait. The One who brings both comfort and redemption.