Preparing for Christ-mas

We prepare for Christmas.

We clean, shop, make food, dress in Christmas-y colors and outfits and ugly sweaters, make wishlists, shop, sing, listen to Christmas music, decorate with trees and lights and bows and snow and wreaths and candy canes and Santa Claus and reindeer and Nativity scenes and snowmen and prettily-wrapped presents, shop some more, look at Christmas decor, enjoy the break from school and work, eat and drink, talk, laugh, make some last-minute purchases, hang out with family and friends, rip open gifts, clean up, stomp through or even play in the snow. . .

We get ready to and do celebrate Jesus’ birthday.

But do we celebrate Jesus?

Are we making room for Him? Are we making Him the center, the focus, of this holiday?

Do we get ready for Him? prepare for His coming?

We know how we prepare for Christmas. But how do we prepare for Christ? Do we?

Do you? Do I?

A popular Christmas song declares, “All I want for Christmas is you.”

Who is “you”?

I’m not talking about who “you” is in the song.

Who is “you” to you during Christmas?

Is it the gifts? The decorations and lights? The get-togethers and parties? The food? The music? The shopping? All of the above and the other stuff we mentioned previously?

What do you want for Christmas?

I don’t think it’s wrong to want the other stuff. To look forward to it and enjoy it and miss it when it’s over with.

But I think it’s wrong to, well, forget Jesus.

Christmas is supposed to be about Christ. It’s about God coming to earth, about the King born of a poor virgin in a stable, about Almighty and Infinite Messiah living as a human with humans, about the mind-blowing and breath-taking plan to save mankind, about love.

It’s about Jesus!

But somehow we seem to have forgotten that.

Oh, maybe not all of us. Not all the time. There are people who read the Christmas story and thank God for sending His Son and all that.

But it’s easy to skim over that. To focus on other things. To be so busy we don’t abide with the Baby, the promised and long-awaited Shiloh.

Do we want Jesus? Do we prepare for Him?

I fail to, so often. But I want this Christmas to be different.

So here’s to preparing for Jesus. To wanting Him. To putting Christ back into Christmas.

Oh, our hearts, as busy as Bethlehem
Hear Him knock, don’t say there’s no room in the inn
…
Prepare Him room
Let the King of glory enter in

“Prepare Him Room” song by Sovereign Grace

Let every heart
Prepare him room
For nothing else
Compares with you
Restore the joy
Of our salvation Lord
Prepare our hearts
For more of you

“Prepare Him Room” song by Paul Baloche

{inspired by Tanner Olson’s Advent Writing Prompts}