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It does not seem to bother the children that Christmas is so close. Why is it they never seem to have any trouble getting ready for it? We older and wiser ones make a much harder thing of it; we always insist there is so much to do to get ready. Perhaps the difference is that the children are content to let Christmas happen, while we are so sure that it can't happen unless we do all the right things to make it happen.

Many of the things we do to adorn this season, to set the stage for the drama that is coming, are certainly good, and belong there - so long as they do not take over so completely that we have no time or room for that other kind of preparation, which is nothing more nor less than being ready, like the children, to let Christmas happen in its own way. Or perhaps we should say, to let it happen in God's own way!

There is a comparison to be drawn here with the kind of preparation that God urged upon people of old before Christmas happened the first time. Isaiah offers us a somewhat different perspective on the kinds of preparations we ought to be making for the coming of Christ. Isaiah speaks in this passage of three very different promises that God will fulfill in the coming of Jesus Christ into our world.

1. The Promise Of Judgment

The first promise may sound somewhat strange to our ears because it is the promise of judgment that Christ's coming will bring to the world. "Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God." As the ancient prophets looked forward to the Messiah's entrance into the world, they saw something we often miss - that the Christ of Bethlehem is the same Christ who comes to judge the earth and to live and reign forever and ever. We cannot ignore the judgment of Christmas. There is an imminent judgment right there in Christ's birth, a judgment that goes hand in hand with our Lord's coming to be the bringer of salvation.

It is illustrated, perhaps, in the story that has been told of the shipwreck survivor cast up on an uninhabited island. For days, months and years he waited for rescue. He watched from the island's heights for a ship, but none came. Then, one day, on the distant horizon, he saw it: first a sail, then a ship coming closer and closer. He thrilled at the prospect of being rescued at last. But when the ship dropped anchor off-shore, and a landing party approached the beach, he was afraid, after all this time of aloneness, to meet his own kind face to face. He hid himself. The men of the landing party saw signs of his presence. They called. They searched. But he knew the island too well and eluded their every effort to find him. At day's end, they left, and as he watched the ship sail away out of his sight, he fell down on the sand of his island prison and wept.

The judgment of Christmas is like that. It comes, Christ comes, to rescue and to save us. But we can hide from all that if we choose. We know the hiding places in our lives well enough to keep from ever meeting the Child of Bethlehem. We can watch from the safety of our busy preparations as the Christmas event comes and then passes on. And we may well weep for having rejected its hope when Christmas is past, for as Jesus himself once said, "This is the judgment - that light has entered the world and men have preferred darkness to light (John 3:19, Phillips version)."

Isaiah foretold the coming glory and majesty of the Lord, but he knew that any such coming brings with it a judgment. If we choose to stay hidden in our preferred darkness, we may well discover to our sorrow what the judgment of Christmas is all about.

2. The Promise Of Exciting Changes

But happily Isaiah could see in the promise of the Messiah's coming other preparations that would bring joy to the hearts of people. This passage describes the promise of exciting changes that will take place in the world. When God comes into the world, there will be a revolutionary newness to things, a shifting from the status quo to a whole new order of life. Just listen as Isaiah describes a few of those exciting changes:
"the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy." Christmas does change things, doesn't it? It changes the looks of our homes and our community. It changes our stores and our city streets, our highways and our air terminals. It changes the pattern of life from dull routine to excited anticipation. And of course, it changes things like our bank balance and perhaps even our waistlines! Sometimes it even changes our attitudes just a bit. For at least a few weeks, there seems to be a touch of goodwill that is not felt in other seasons of the year.

Now these exciting changes are fine as far as they go, but the exciting changes Isaiah foretold run much deeper. They are changes that strike at the very roots of life, and changes that go well beyond the Christmas season. What Isaiah is trying to describe is the simple fact that since Jesus Christ entered our world, nothing has ever been the same again. Our relationship with God is different. Our call to be a part of Christ's mission in the world is different. Our understanding of what is truly lasting and important is different. The world has never quite been the same place since God's Messiah came among us. There is an old Christmas story that reminds us of what our world would be like if Jesus Christ had not come. It is about a little boy on Christmas Eve who hurriedly checks his stocking by the mantle and the beautiful Christmas tree in the living room before going to bed. He was so very excited, but it seemed as if he had not been asleep for long when a rather harsh voice shouted, "Get up." Remembering that it should be Christmas morning, the boy bounded out of bed, pulled on his clothes and hurried downstairs. What a shock awaited him! No stocking hung from the mantel. There was no tree with presents beneath it. His parents were nowhere to be seen. Everything instead had a dull drab look about it. The little lad went to the door and was startled to hear the whistle from the local factory blowing its shrill call to work. "What's the plant doing open on Christmas day?" he wondered. Then he looked down the street. There were no wreaths on the doors, no bright lights in front of the homes. Instead all the shops were open for business as usual. He hurried towards the center of town. "Why are all the stores open on Christmas?" he asked a woman he passed on the street. "Christmas," she muttered, "I've never heard of it!" Everywhere it was the same. People hurried by and no one even stopped to greet the now fearful boy.

Suddenly, he knew there was one place he could go where people knew about Christmas - his church! The boy and his family always went to the Christmas Day service in the little church. He hurried as fast as he could along the street, but when he came to where the church should have stood, there was only a vacant lot filled with tall weeds and debris. He thought of his school, but when he ran to the corner where it had stood, there was another vacant lot! The same he soon discovered was true of where the town library he loved had once stood and the YMCA where he played basketball. It was then that the sorrowful boy heard a low moan. Looking down, he saw a man lying on the snow, obviously hurt. "A car hit me an hour ago," stammered the man, "and no one will help me! Please get some help!" In desperation the boy decided he could run to the hospital just a few blocks away and get help. But even as he reached the street where Good Samaritan Hospital had stood, he began to see another vacant lot, this time with an ugly concrete wall around it. No hospital! No church! No school! No Christmas!

In an agony of spirit the little boy stumbled toward his home. The previous night his father had read from the family Bible the wonderful story of the Savior's birth. As he entered the house, there was the Bible still by his father's chair in the living room. He opened it eagerly, but where the New Testament should have been, there was only a series of empty pages. Across one of the pages, someone had written the words, "If Only Jesus Christ Had Come." The boy raced upstairs and flung himself on his bed, crying softly for a world that simply was no more.
Then he heard his mother's voice saying excitedly, "Bobby get up. It's Christmas morning!" The little lad sprang from his bed and ran to the window. Out there on the houses were the beautiful wreaths! Brightly lit Christmas trees could be seen up and down the street, and as he listened, he heard the chimes playing from the church bell tower, "Joy to the World, The Lord has Come." "You did come," he whispered, "thank you Jesus for coming to our world!" Perhaps it is only a children's story, but it helps remind us of the truth Isaiah could see so clearly: the coming of the Christ means exciting changes - changes in us and in our world that will last long after Christmas is past.

3.
The Promise Of Togetherness

Christmas judgment and Christmas changes and now one more reality that Isaiah hoped to prepare us for: Christmas togetherness. "The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." It is almost as if Isaiah could foresee a drawing together of people, a coming home again, a time when the walls that divide us would be taken down, and the people of the world would know a harmony and togetherness never known before.

Now perhaps you are saying, "What's so unusual about that?" All kinds of people come home for Christmas. We have declared a cease fire in our wars for Christmas! Isn't that quite naturally what happens in the world at Christmastime? But Isaiah would be quick to tell us that what he is talking about is much more than a simple homecoming or a cessation of hostilities. Isaiah could foresee what is so often missing in our lives all year long - a peace with God and with one another that is so desperately needed in our world.

How often all our feverishness and scurrying about before Christmas and during the holidays really serves to keep us apart rather than truly bringing us together. Perhaps you recall that one home where on a hectic night-before-Christmas the father was busy with bundles and chores and upset over the bills. Mother's nerves were frayed. The litte daughter was constantly in the way, no matter what she did. Finally she was sent off to bed with some harsh words and a hasty "Good Night." As she prayed the Lord's Prayer alone before going to sleep, the high-pitched tension of the day took its toll; her mind was a little mixed up when she came to the middle of the prayer and said, "And forgive us our Christmases, as we forgive those who Christmas against us."

"Forgive us our Christmases!" How many of us need to pray that prayer! For all too often we let the madness we inject into Christmas drive us further apart instead of letting the peace of Christmas draw us together in a whole new way. Christmas togetherness is not something we manufacture within ourselves. It is God's wondrous gift that turns our hearts outward toward one another. It is God who breaks down all that divides us from one another - even our crazy Christmas celebrations - and finally brings us the true joy of the Lord's grace and mercy and love.

When I think of the power of Christmas to bring us together, I remember a true story written by actor David Niven his experience on Christmas Eve 1939. He had just arrived in England from Hollywood to volunteer for the British Army. Having had previous military experience, Niven was commissioned a second lieutenant and given a command of a platoon. The group was sent to France and no one was very happy about what was then called "the phony war" or having to be away from friends and family at Christmas. Even worse for the men of this unit was the irritating fact that they were commanded by a Hollywood actor! As David Niven wrote, "the men were not mutinous - but they were certainly 40 of the least well-disposed characters I ever have been associated with, let alone been in command of."

No leave was permitted on Christmas Eve because the unit might well see action the next day. The entire platoon was billeted in the shabby stables of a country farm. Now it so happened that David Niven every night of his life took the moment before going to bed to kneel down and offer a simple prayer to God. But that night he was faced with a difficult decision. If he suddenly knelt down in prayer here in front of an already hostile group of men, wouldn't those already disgruntled soldiers see that as just one more act of Hollywood flamboyance? On the other hand, Niven had been thinking all day about the Christ's coming into the world, and his heart simply would not let him go to bed without thanking God for that wondrous gift. Summoning up his courage, he knelt down there in the barn and began to pray quietly. There was some snickering at first, but it soon died away. When he finished, Niven lay down on the straw and looked rather sheepishly around the stable where he saw every man in the unit on his knees in prayer. It was not the first time that God entered a stable - and touched the hearts of people with peace and togetherness.2

Those are the realities that Isaiah could see in the coming of the Messiah: Christmas judgment, Christmas changes and Christmas togetherness. As you prepare once more for the Lord's coming, be sure you make time for the realities in Christmas that can change your life now and for all time!