Christmas Anticipation
What kind of Christmas anticipation are you experiencing this year? Can you mark it on your calendar or does it only have a due date right now?
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Are you old enough to remember the Heinz ketchup commercial—the one that uses Carly Simon’s song “Anticipation”?
Before the age of squeeze bottles, ketchup consumers knew the virtue of patience. To get the sluggish condiment to emerge from a glass jar, you had to tip the bottle just so, to allow a little bit of air to ease behind the ketchup and release it. The not-so-patient method was to give the bottle a good whack on the bottom. Of course, this might result in a slop of red lava on your clothes instead of your hamburger, but that was the price of success.
Christmas anticipation offers similar challenges. We see it coming inside the “glass jar” of our calendar. More than anything, we’d love to give it a good rap on the behind to make it move faster. But this is nothing compared to the suspense of the first Christmas.
In the annals of waiting, nothing—not sluggish, ketchup, or slow days on a calendar—outstrips the anticipation of the birth of a child. This was Mary’s experience. Today we have Jesus’ birthday marked on a calendar, but for her, the due date was still a mystery.
Christmas Anticipation Two Different Ways
Christmas continues to arrive two different ways for us. Some happens on schedule. We know when the family is on the way or when we’re headed out to meet them. But other advents promise less predictable due dates.
For example, have you had a new idea stir in your belly, like an unborn baby waiting for the light of day? Then you’ve known Mary’s uncomfortable ride to Bethlehem. Uncertain how much more you can stretch to contain the promise. You grow increasingly uncomfortable with each sway of the donkey’s back.
Whatever we’re anticipating this season—whether we know its arrival time or only have a due date—we can lean on the author and finisher of our Christmas story. He is tipping the calendar and his promise is flowing more predictably than ketchup toward the opening.
And we can wait for it joyfully because, as it says in Ecclesiastes 3:11, God will make everything beautiful, in its time.
Thanks to Dreamr Productions for my theme music.
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